Blizzard’s “job ranking” for employees sounds like hell [Update]

A story continued Bloomberg earlier today with the headline “Blizzard exec quits in protest at employee ranking system”. It sounds very businesslike, maybe something that would end up in an HR manager’s Linkedin newsfeed, but the stuff it describes is important because it sounds absolutely dystopian.

Here is how this “employee ranking system” is described in the report:

In 2021, Blizzard, a unit of Activision Blizzard Inc., introduced a process called stack ranking, which ranks employees on a bell curve and requires managers to give low ratings to a certain percentage of employees, according to people familiar with the change who asked not to be named as it was a private matter. Managers were expected to give about 5% of the employees on their teams poor “development status”, which could reduce their profit-sharing bonus money and prevent them from getting raises or promotions in the near future…

At this point, you’ll have to forgive me that despite being on this job, I still live and work in Australia and am therefore not fully up to date with the ins and outs of American office conditions, but what the hell? They tell me that this company has implemented a system where 5% of its workforce, even if they’re fine, even if they leave well donetargeted – and suffering financially – just to meet a quota?

No wonder people are mad! One of those people, Brian Birmingham, is a co-lead developer World of Warcraft classicShe got so angry that loud Bloomberg’s He reportedly emailed staff last week to “express his frustration with this system.”

When team leaders asked why we had to do this, World of Warcraft Directors explained that while they did not agree, the reasoning given by management was that it was important to pressurize the lowest performing performers to ensure everyone continued to grow. This type of politics encourages competition between employees, sabotage each other’s work, the desire for employees to find underperforming teams where they can be the best performing employees, and ultimately undermines trust and destroys creativity.

Birmingham goes on to say he cannot work under a system like this, which he and other managers (who have been asked to keep it secret!) have “evaded or skipped over” in recent years but have only recently begun to be enforced. He reportedly told employees he would be leaving the company if the policy wasn’t reversed, but shortly after sending the email he was called to HR and “quited”.

If you work at Blizzard and are impacted by this Policy and would like to share your experience, You can contact us here.

UPDATE 8:48pm ET – Birmingham posted a lengthy statement on Twitter, explaining his thoughts on politics and the corporate governance situation in general. It starts here: