Laura Fryer gives a fairly scathing review of HR’s encroachment and obvious power grab to be less “day to day” and more to (verbatim) be “at the same level or above the CEO”.
Video goes into how HR makes toxic work environments that demonize ever speaking out or questioning anything, and the toxic positivity that holds games back.
From HR -> “People and Culture” -> “Chief Disruptors”
I wish there was a transcript I could read. I’m intrigued by the topic. Gaming has long had a real problem with interpersonal issues and toxic work culture - it’s very understandable why HR became a more important part of the industry. Certainly HR is overstepping by trying to run the entire company so to speak, but I don’t want to speak too much without taking the time to watch the video.
Whoops, I spoke too soon - there is a transcript!
Edit: Oh Jesus Christ, someone in HR really fought back against the term “Senior Technical Artist” because it might offend elderly people? The pendulum swung too far smh
“You see, from my persepctive, what happened is that HR decided that the day-to-day work of actually helping people wasn’t enough. They wanted a seat in the executive meetings and they got it. Today, most executives have HR sitting in influencing decision and driving cultural change and a lot of them want to run the entire company.”
Oooooook…HR aren’t the decision makers here. The executives are. @[email protected] is correct on this - the directives are coming from C suites that fear controversy and risk.
If game makers don’t want endless meetings about safe spaces, maybe they shouldn’t force their women coworkers to crawl around on the floor so they can upskirt them like at Blizzard? Source
This was only 5 years ago.
Honestly I have worked at companies where the head of people and culture is in the room with executives, they are at the top levels and involved in PR/marketing. I think Laura here has a point, HR was needed for exactly what you said with the Blizzard type situations. Obviously horrible, and should be stopped. However, the bell has swung the in the other direction now, to the point that nothing can be done without sixteen layers of approval. I think that’s very bad for a creative medium, and needs to come back to somewhere in the middle.
I’d like to see some sources on this proving that the rampant sexism and toxic work environments have been done away with in the last 5 years before being this confident about it.
There’s room to have a discussion here, most certainly. But not in a way that scoffs at the entire idea of needing to be respectful of others in a work environment.
Who said they’re done with? You’re pulling out just as many extreme examples as you say the video is. God forbid I talk about a nuanced subject where the answer can lie in the middle somewhere. Why must everything here be that there are two polar opposite views and nothing can ever exist beyond those two? I’m not interested in having a conversation with you are going to keep arguing that if I have this position that I must have the most extreme version of the position.
I’m having a conversation with you. God forbid I reply to your points.
The video is very strongly opinionated about HR being useless now and that HR is ruining games. It completely ignores WHY HR became so involved in the gaming industry at large. I’m trying to have a conversation with you about it.