Strike in front of the studios, employee anger and expressed unrest: Ubisoft is going through a delicate social crisis. The announcement of a return to more in-person work and less teleworking did not reassure people. Invited to the Tech&Co Multijoueurs show, Xavier Poix, director of the Ubisoft France, Southern Europe and China studios, wanted to return to this situation.
“The work was already hybrid (at Ubisoft, editor’s note) and we are very attached to it,” he recalls. “In France, the system was to work two days in the office and three days at home. We want to rebalance a little to be more together to create our games, because we believe that is really the only way to produce them well.
“Co-build with employees”
Ubisoft employees will therefore return to three days of in-person work and two days of teleworking to find creativity together, we understand between the lines. A “global” decision that does not concern only France, since some studios have already “gone back to working four or five days a week”, but applies to the entire group.
“We are currently thinking about how to implement this. Today phase 2 begins, that of co-construction. We really want to co-build the entire implementation of this system with the representatives chosen by our employees and with all employees,” announces Xavier Poix.
Therefore, Ubisoft will open a phase of talks with unions and employees. Meetings with certain employees, unions and representatives have already begun. “It’s quite a long job. We’re going to take our time, because we want it to be very, very well done,” says the person in charge of the French studies, aware “of the problems that could arise for some people who have slightly adapted their lives differently.” Adjustments will be made on a case-by-case basis depending on studies and contexts.
The head of Ubisoft acknowledges that the company has not necessarily managed communication well, which is always “quite difficult”, but he specifies that since Ubisoft is a global group, communication had to be done globally, for all employees, without ignoring cases. specials.
“This is what probably could have caused a lot of concern and we understand it perfectly,” admits Xavier Poix. “(Communicate better), that’s what we’re going to do today, with all employees. We’re going to implement all of this locally, study by study, in choosing the days to work together, as ‘we want to achieve it.'” And promise “a fairly pragmatic and really flexible approach at this level.”
In search of serenity in studies.
Accused of forcing a return in person to hide a plan for covert departures, Xavier Poix insists that this is not the case and that the serenity of the studies remains the priority. “We have never made massive layoffs and we defend our unique strategy of being in the construction of studios, in internationalization,” he responds.
“Today we are 19,000, of which 15,000 people work in the studios and we absolutely want to maintain this internal production force that allows us to innovate and create brands. There is no way to disguise the opposite.”
When asked if he feels discomfort in his studies, Xavier Poix does not deny it, but asks that we talk more about the games. “The main discomfort is when we stop talking about our games. “Most of us in studios only dream of talking about games,” he explains, invoking the controversies that arise too frequently at the top, topics that have nothing to do with each other. video games, but also “probably the frustration of not being able to talk” about the projects employees work on.
Given the social situation, Ubisoft wants to calm things down by opening a negotiation phase and also talking about “extremely positive things” that “value our developers, their daily work, their creations.”
“We believe in improvement, we are happy to develop our games. We have things to solve and a transformation to make,” he admits. But he wants to give peace of mind: everything will be fine in the coming months. “We will give all the energy necessary to do it,” he concludes.
Source: BFM TV
