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[Tams]

I thought gaf loves wfh policy but there are so many corporate slaves here lol. I have been doing wfh since 2016 and i wont be going to office ever. I do all my tasks within time frame. Its is the best way to reduce expenses.

There's lots of work that simply can't be done from home, and lots more where at least parts are done far better in person, in an office.

Making video games is one where things go much better if people meet in person fairly frequently.

 

[Bernardougf]

All that is missing in this thread is the theme from Les Miserables and the worlds small violin ...

 

[Tams]

I dont know about france's employees but if it's anything like here in Montreal then I can understand. After being assured they would be working 100% from home from now on, some left the island of montreal and relocated pretty far for a cheaper cost of living but then Ubi went back on their decision. That was pretty shitty

Not legally obligated no, you're right. It's just really shitty. Asking your boss if WFH is here to stay so you can finally move from a big town, where renting costs as much as a rural house, being told yes and then all of a sudden having to commute for 4 hours a day.

And before someone says get a new job, yeah good luck finding work that will pay as much in a rural area now.

It's shitty, but you don't make such big life changes, for something so integral and important without it in writing, in triplicate, having had it checked by all those responsible.

That's what being an adult is about. You are responsible for checking that such guarantees are in place and secure before you make massive changes that rely on them.

 

[A2una1]

There is very little functionally difference between working from home and talking to your coworkers on teams or slack, or doing so in the office. You can go to the office once a week for your weekly refinement/planning or whwhatever.

Our planning is done in Jira and Confluence. Everyone is sitting in front of there PCs, Meeting in Person isn't doing anything beneficial to our current process.

 

[cormack12]

New sidequest unlocked

 

[Big Baller]

700+ people who can do more meaningful jobs.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I work from home 100%, but I know full well that if I don't get my job done then that privilege will be yanked in a heartbeat. That's the way it should be. If Ubisoft WFH employees are not getting the job done then they have only themselves to blame for this.

This is exactly it. WFH is a privilege that you get when you prove you can perform even when you’re sitting at home in your PJs surrounded by distractions + nobody can see what you’re doing. It’s not some God-given right.

Ubisoft is a bloated, underperforming company that’s made some inexcusable mistakes lately. No shit they’re shortening the leash now. What would you expect?

Hell, if my company were in that situation, you can bet that my ass would be in the office more than the required minimum + I’d make myself as useful and visible as possible. Not crying about the horrors of going in to work THREE days a week.

Pathetic.

 

[Bernardougf]

I work from home 100%, but I know full well that if I don't get my job done then that privilege will be yanked in a heartbeat. That's the way it should be. If Ubisoft WFH employees are not getting the job done then they have only themselves to blame for this.

Even if they are meeting their "quota" and doing their jobs.. if the company at this moment think its time to return to office .. its time .. not much anyone can do.... its a job not slavery ... you can always find another or try to re-adapt to office work.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Pro tip for any up-and-coming dev studios: don’t open an office in France and hire 700 French developers. Maybe it seems like a good idea now, but trust me, it isn’t.

 

[StereoVsn]

I work 3 days from home and 2 days in the office, within multi-discipline teams on projects with scopes, not huge, not small, of say €30/40 mio. My experience is that the 2 days in the office are a must to get everyone aligned and the train moving. We wouldn't be able to meet our deadlines/planning if we didn't meet in the office.

Yeah, I like having a day or two in the office with my team so we can hammer out any issues and agree on architecture decisions if any have to be made.

In general I find that for even moderately complex project I can get a design done and approved with a week or two of in person meetings. That same design and decision tree will take months remotely.

At the same time once folks just need to get working it’s fine to have most of the time WFH with some in person reviews.

On the Ubi issue here, I think we are lacking a lot of context. In general the company has been lambasted for problems on their work environment, terrible managerial decisions and so on. This isn’t something that would be general responsibility of rank and file employees. And if promises were made regarding WFH that prompted lifestyle changes like moving away to different towns and so on, it’s a shit demand to go back on their word.

 

[MikeM]

Yves, I'll make this simple for you.

If they don't want to come back to the office, fire them. During hard times for your business you need dedicated soldiers, not these lackadaisical slackers.

Fuck that. Too many “dedicated soldiers” going along with poor leadership is what landed Ubisoft here.

Where people work is irrelevant. What people contribute in their work does. So long as they are performing in the latter, leave them alone.

Our roads are already clogged to shit- get more people off of them and let those who actually need to be in the office get there faster.

 

[Tarnpanzer]

80% working from home slacker here.

What I would like to add: Don´t give people privileges but then take them back from them. It´s never good for morale.

 

[DragonNCM]

 

[Topher]

Even if they are meeting their "quota" and doing their jobs.. if the company at this moment think its time to return to office .. its time .. not much anyone can do.... its a job not slavery ... you can always find another or try to re-adapt to office work.

Especially true when a company is in such a bad position as Ubisoft. Hell, Ubisoft is actually being very reasonable by only requiring three days a week, imo.

 

[Mr Moose]

They are striking because they have to go back to working where they are supposed to?

 

[DragonNCM]

Actually I have solution for this !
Lay them off, hire Chinese or whatever developers from third forsaken country. You pay them low, they work 24/7 ( even they never need to live work), they don't use vacations, calling sick days & actually they may
surprise you with their talent.
WIN !!!

 

[YCoCg]

That's union workers for ya. Never give a shit about customers, or even business partner suppliers. Me, me, me.

Oh fuck off with this, as opposed to shareholders who are all Me, Me, Me, or the CEOs who are all Me, Me, Me.

 

[KiteGr]

If daddy is fired, it's a bad time to ask for a Pony.

 

[DragonNCM]

There's lots of work that simply can't be done from home, and lots more where at least parts are done far better in person, in an office.

Making video games is one where things go much better if people meet in person fairly frequently.

 

[PauloRoberto]

I can see two things here:

- whoever says WFH is a problem shows a idiotc prejudice... I work for a american company here at brazil and o work lite a camel somedays (backend development for financial market).
- who MUST deliver to show that WFH is still valid, and that CLEARLY is not the case for Ubisoft.
- nobody would say WFH is a problem if ubisoft results were more 'astrobotty' or 'silent hilly' so to speak.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The demagogy about WFH in just two screenshots.

Fantasy

Reality

 

[Evil Calvin]

Get back to the office and STFU! People have gotten lazy and used to 'working' from home since Covid.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

I would say WFH doesn’t hinder production as much as it increases apathy about your company and its products/services. The koolaid can really only be drank in the office with others present.

Ubi games seem to champion status quo, just enough, let’s just sign off and do what we did in the past.

If Ubi is at a creativity inflection point, the only way forward may be to loose the employees move forward creatively. The most influential roles should be in office, others can stay home.

 

[Ogbert]

Covid has properly fucked a generation.

Got used to sitting at home, wanking in their pyjamas and doing no more than an hour’s work a day. On full pay.

Sack them all.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Oh fuck off with this, as opposed to shareholders who are all Me, Me, Me, or the CEOs who are all Me, Me, Me.

Not all companies have big time shareholders. And not all companies have giant millionaire and billionaire CEOs. Most companies have modest levels of employment and salaries.

Why should Spirit Aerosystems get nailed since Boeing strikes fucking up the vertical chain?

 

[Felessan]

I thought gaf loves wfh policy but there are so many corporate slaves here lol. I have been doing wfh since 2016 and i wont be going to office ever. I do all my tasks within time frame. Its is the best way to reduce expenses.

wfh is on average is a ~20% hit to performance (based on some internal statistics I saw), and you can't just hire 1 more for every 4 people - it will stretch management capacity. So wfh is a big hit to everything in project (quality, speed etc) and should be allowed only for those who can prove that they can work without significant impact on productivity.

 

[YCoCg]

Not all companies have big time shareholders. And not all companies have giant millionaire and billionaire CEOs. Most companies have modest levels of employment and salaries.

We're talking about Ubisoft here, they're not some small company, your anti union talk is pointless in this aspect.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

wfh is on average is a ~20% hit to performance (based on same internal statistics I saw), and you can't just hire 1 more for every 4 people - it will stretch management capacity. So wfh is a big hit to everything in project (quality, speed etc) and should be allowed only for those who can prove that they can work without significant impact on productivity.

Agreed.

At my work some people are allowed to come in less. Those jobs are lone wolf kinds of jobs where they dont interact with anyone. And when they do it's totally fine doing it on MS Teams. These are transactional roles involving invoicing and claims and such. You dont need someone sitting beside another person in a room to sort them out. It's all about SAP order numbers and sorting out incorrect pricing issues over the net (whether internally or with the customer's team).

But most jobs I see internally (sales, marketing, catman, finance) require some kind of people interaction to get ideas, sort out issues, or sit with people to chat. Someone will say, "But cant you just do all that over a Zoom call". Ya you can, but it wont be the same. You build a corporate culture with team camaraderie. Not telling 200 people in the building to do Skype meetings. When you got people in a room, it's harder for them to fuck around watch TV or doing the dishes. and you get endless people calling in saying they cant hear, people need to speak up, the audio cut out, they cant hear the Q&A session at the end, or they cant see the host's PPT slides due to tech issue. Get your ass to the office and you can see and hear everything like normal. I always sit midway back in a board room and see and hear everything fine - even Bob's question from the back of the room.

That's probably why all these game studios since covid wfh have been fucking up with shit games, shit DEI politics, big game delays and employees on twitter complaining about a crappy culture. When you got 1,000s of people trying to make a video game together, it looks hard to do all that remotely on a zoom call, despite claiming wfh is so much more refreshing, productive, and morale boosting since they save on commute time and gas.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

We're talking about Ubisoft here, they're not some small company, your anti union talk is pointless in this aspect.

Sure it's valid.

Company is going down the shitter and they want more money and job security. That's always a unions top priority. Trying to take advantage of a struggling company hoping management bends. And the more any strike in any industry happens the more it fucks up customers wanting the product. Why should customers get tangled up in messy union/management squabbles treating them like an afterthought (Spirit Aero furlough is a great recent example)?

Doesnt matter if it's airplanes or video games, act like an adult and get to work and negotiate deals on the side.

Teachers unions are the worst. They strike right before school years start messing with kids and parents schedules.

Anything for a buck.

 

[Tajaz2426]

Oh man. I can just close my eyes and imagine getting to say, “Step into my office all 700 of you”. “FIRED” I would mount that on my damn wall.

Gives me goosebumps.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

What’s her OF

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Oh man. I can just close my eyes and imagine getting to say, “Step into my office all 700 of you”. “FIRED” I would mount that on my damn wall.

Gives me goosebumps.

There's sketchy rumours saying UBI will fire 8,000 people if they get bought out (go lean as the new company takes over).

End of the day it's just all business. Make a good product that sells and makes good sales and profits and you'll have a 10x better chance at keeping your job. UBI has 20,000 employees which I think is more than any other game studio. So they had enough success over the decades to grow grow grow. And like anything in life, what goes up can also go down too. People cant be that dumb or entitled thinking its guaranteed things can only be greener. It's like school. If you want an A, do a good job. If you dont you get a C. And if you really fuck up, you fail or stay in the same grade.

UBI has way more employees than Activision and EA, but has a fraction of the sales and profits.

But if they want to keep their job and grow to 25,000, then execute awesome performance and Yves and gang might grow the people count as they got more money to spend to grow sales even more.

 

[Lorianus]

These threads are always pointless its 50% americans saying "lolz 700 people who dont want to work" and 50% europeans saying "good for them use your union given rights" every damn time.

 

[username12]

Do you think they will win any favors treating their employees this way? If morale is lower, then the quality of work will suffer, and so will the company.

Their argument is that their jobs can be done from anywhere. Okay. People in India or other places much cheaper than Paris will gladly come into an office full time for much less pay and will be thrilled by the opportunity.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Their argument is that their jobs can be done from anywhere. Okay. People in India or other places much cheaper than Paris will gladly come into an office full time for much less pay and will be thrilled by the opportunity.

But they'll fight back.

No different than outsourcing manufacturing cars or durables or PCs etc....

"You cant outsource to foreigners because they are dumbasses who have shitty workmanship. Our quality is way better, so keep us"

 

[YCoCg]

Doesnt matter if it's airplanes or video games, act like an adult and get to work and negotiate deals on the side.

I believe we've spoke about this before but your way of working just doesn't apply to most industries, the employer will screw over their workers as much as they can if it saves them money. Loyalty is a two way thing and one side gave it up first for more money and it wasn't the workers.

 

[Felessan]

At my work some people are allowed to come in less. Those jobs are lone wolf kinds of jobs where they dont interact with anyone. And when they do it's totally fine doing it on MS Teams. These are transactional roles involving invoicing and claims and such. You dont need someone sitting beside another person in a room to sort them out. It's all about SAP order numbers and sorting out incorrect pricing issues over the net (whether internally or with the customer's team).

But most jobs I see internally (sales, marketing, catman, finance) require some kind of people interaction to get ideas, sort out issues, or sit with people to chat. Someone will say, "But cant you just do all that over a Zoom call". Ya you can, but it wont be the same. You build a corporate culture with team camaraderie. Not telling 200 people in the building to do Skype meetings. When you got people in a room, it's harder for them to fuck around watch TV or doing the dishes. and you get endless people calling in saying they cant hear, people need to speak up, the audio cut out, they cant hear the Q&A session at the end, or they cant see the host's PPT slides due to tech issue. Get your ass to the office and you can see and hear everything like normal. I always sit midway back in a board room and see and hear everything fine - even Bob's question from the back of the room.

Yup
I agree that some jobs can go wfh if they stay responsible or their pay is adjusted for their productivity. While the others could get disasterous impact. It's especially heavy on managers jobs. Those are the first to get mandatory office presence, as it's very hard to sort problems that require maintaining control environment and/or complex negotiations "over the phone".

Their argument is that their jobs can be done from anywhere. Okay. People in India or other places much cheaper than Paris will gladly come into an office full time for much less pay and will be thrilled by the opportunity.

It's just ignorance.
It's a lot of hassle and require special business processes and people to manage outsourced stuff.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I believe we've spoke about this before but your way of working just doesn't apply to most industries, the employer will screw over their workers as much as they can if it saves them money. Loyalty is a two way thing and one side gave it up first for more money and it wasn't the workers.

I cant speak for Europe because it seems there's a lot more union membership there, but in Canada and US that's totally untrue because there's way more % of jobs in the economies that are non-unionized. And the economies run fine and people get paid fine.

A lot of kinds of jobs probably have 0% unions (or close to it) and its not like they are ball broken making minimum wage. As an example since video game workers are a white collar desk job, so are the jobs I've always had. The number of people in sales, marketing, legal, demand planning, finance etc.... who are unionized is very low. People can figure out how to make a living and keep a job.

Most union jobs skew to government related jobs or manufacturing. The types of jobs that can be replaced easy. Thats why there's unions. BUT, if they can simply prove they can do a better job than a random foreigner dude that's cost efficient there should be no worry.

 

[RavageX]

Nothing wrong with WFH in and of itself. Bless anyone that can do that. Some of us don’t have that luxury though, and to hear people say having to go to an office to make video games three days a week is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” is disgusting. Shame on people for being so entitled.

Sounds like they need a good kick in the ass honestly.

 

[YCoCg]

I cant speak for Europe because it seems there's a lot more union membership there, but in Canada and US that's totally untrue because there's way more % of jobs in the economies that are non-unionized. And the economies run fine and people get paid fine.

And yet US workers have some of the worst conditions and job security around, how's your sick pay? How's the holiday pay? How's your emergency procedures? How's your maternity and paternity? How's your security when it comes to getting someone higher up who dislikes you for no reason and makes your job worse for it? Don't get me wrong I DO agree that a lot of people are banking too much on WFH and are being entitled towards it but in instances like this a union would be acting towards what their members put forward and in this case it's over WFH.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For anyone out there working at a company where WFH is a sticking point, trust me. If you want to boost on-site attendance, do what we do.

Get the secretary to order in lunch for the company a couple times per month. And watch how those days the office is packed with people happy chatting and eating with each other.

So despite all the rhetoric about what a time, energy and cost hassle its is driving back to the office is, offer them some free food and drink and watch as almost every person in the office shows up that day. Only the most hardcore people who moved far away during covid probably still wont show up. But vast majority of people will come in for a free plate of food and a warm can of Pepsi.

So given my experience, maybe it's not so much about time and hassles or whatever. Maybe it's just a lot of people are dirt cheap. But if they get lunch covered, then it's worth coming in.

 

[RCX]

I will buy this cursed thing when it hits $0.50 per share.

Then as majority shareholder I will force them to make my Rayman Legends sequel. After that I don't give a shit what happens.

 

[newtypepilot]

Considering how many people including myself have lost their jobs during and post covid, it's asinine how butthurt these people get over wfh.

Personally, I hated wfh. My old job implemented it because they didn't want to continue leasing the office. It was nice for awhile but since normally there's constant communication between coworkers, it became a waste of time trying to talk on discord to get things done.

 

[Crank III]

Do you think they will win any favors treating their employees this way? If morale is lower, then the quality of work will suffer, and so will the company.

Capital vs Labor rule 101: when dealing with those FILTHY, DISGUSTING, DIRTY, poors.... The beatings will continue until morale improves.

 

[Boneless]

These threads are always pointless its 50% americans saying "lolz 700 people who dont want to work" and 50% europeans saying "good for them use your union given rights" every damn time.

Its because in the US you live to work and in the EU you work to live.

I get it, I would be jealous as hell as well if I worked on-site 5 days a week and you have people that get to work from home.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

UBI Paris fine works of art.

Our Projects - Ubisoft Paris

paris.ubisoft.com

 

[Puscifer]

Yves, I'll make this simple for you.

If they don't want to come back to the office, fire them. During hard times for your business you need dedicated soldiers, not these lackadaisical slackers.

You can really tell sour grapes territory of who's mad they can't work from home

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You can really tell sour grapes territory of who's mad they can't work from home

Not everyone likes working from home. I did it during covid for two years straight. I like being back hybrid style. But I'd do it 5 days if it was mandated. It's not difficult to figure out how to drive to work like before covid.

But believe it or not, some people like getting out, talking with coworkers like human beings face to face, and working for successful companies who arent like tech companies who overhired during covid. Also, trying to do VPN from home logging into servers and pulling reports takes longer at home and is more prone to bombing then being directly connected to a dock at work where it always works fast.

But you know how it goes with helping keep a job vs losing a job. Its a combo of doing good work and showing face time. People gassed first are low performers, and ones who try to act invisible.

 

[PonyStation4]

This is the kind of thing you do when the economy is good, the company is posting profits and is actively hiring. Not when the company's shares are falling, product sales are missing expectations and a potential buyout is on the table.

 

[UnrealEck]

I have this argument with my manager (soon to be ex-manager) every week about office staff. People are utter lazy these days. In my place it started with Covid. One day a week you get to work from home because....the virus only gets you on one day...or who the fuck knows.
Then people started just staying home whenever they liked. Suddenly people had to look after the kids or the dog.