Companies crack down on complaining: Pinterest, Ubisoft explain firings of critical employees

Greetings, comms pros! Let’s take a look at a few news stories from the past week and see what we can learn from them.

1. Pinterest chief fires employees for creating a layoff tracking tool

Pinterest CEO Bill Ready called an employee-created layoff tracking tool “obstructionist” in an all-hands meeting. After the platform announced layoffs for 15% of employees, some staffers made a tool to keep track of who was being let go. According to CNBC, the employees made the tool after the January 27 layoff announcement and were fired last Friday.

“Healthy debate and dissent are expected, that’s how we make our decisions,” Ready said at a companywide meeting last week, according to audio obtained by CNBC. “But there’s a clear line between constructive debate and behavior that’s obstructionist.”

The biggest internal comms issue is that we don’t see a definition of what’s obstructionist and what’s constructive — and that uncertainty can cause a lot of issues for employees in the middle of a layoff. Perhaps employees felt confused about which of their colleagues remained and thought the tool was genuinely helpful. How will they know if they’ve crossed a line if they haven’t been told what the line is? Additionally, the word “obstructionist” does a lot of heavy lifting in this statement, implying malicious intent.

An organization is fully within its right to define what is and isn’t acceptable employee behavior, and Pinterest’s leadership made it abundantly clear that this fell outside the realm of the permissible. Communicating guidelines clearly in employee handbooks and other inward-facing messaging can help drive home what employees can and can’t do on the job.

2. Ubisoft says it fired employee critical of RTO process for violating company’s conduct code

Game developer Ubisoft fired an employee for publicly criticizing the company’s RTO policy, citing its Code of Conduct as the basis for the termination. According to a report from Kotaku, engineer David Michaud-Cromp initially received a three-day suspension but was ultimately terminated for calling out the RTO initiative on his LinkedIn page. He also linked his post to a YouTube video that was critical of RTO processes and claimed the moves were simply meant for companies to profit rather than any cultural reason.

So… Ubisoft wanna bring back 5 days in the office… because they “believe in collaboration”… but c’mon, we’re not completely stupid… we very well know why you want to go back to 5 days in the office…

Ubisoft said that the public comments violated the company’s Code of Conduct. The statement specifically cited that respect was a major part of that conduct code.

“Sharing feedback or opinions respectfully does not lead to a dismissal. We have a clear Code of Conduct that outlines our shared expectations for working together safely and respectfully, which employees review and sign each year. When that is breached, our established procedures apply, including an escalation of measures depending on the nature, severity, and repetition of the breach.”

Ubisoft’s communication frames the firing as a clear-cut violation of rules that calls for employees to be respectful in their roles. It makes it clear that the rules apply both in the office and outside it as representatives of the company.

If the first two stories of the week tell us anything, it’s that organizations are in the power position when it comes to defining acceptable employee actions and communication. The days of the COVID-pandemic and employee leeway are long gone.  If employees don’t toe the line, there’s a good chance they’ll find themselves out of a job.

3. The Washington Post explains its massive layoffs

The Washington Post cut 300 of its 800 newsroom positions, citing a shifting news media landscape. In a note to employees cited by Poynter, executive editor Matt Murray said that the media world had evolved greatly, with changes to search due to AI as a major factor.

“We have concluded that the company’s structure is too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product,” he wrote. “This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward.”

Murray’s statement ascribes the paper’s shortcomings not to anything The Post’s journalists did, but instead to external forces that nearly all publications are dealing with amid a sharp uptake in AI tech in media. By citing that the paper was “too rooted in a different era,” Murray signals that the layoffs are a transition point for the publication and its employees, linking the layoffs to the long-term health of The Post.

The Washington Post isn’t the first outlet to undergo layoffs and changes because of automation-related influences, and it likely won’t be the last.

4. How about some good news?

• Jaguars were recorded meowing in the wild for the first time.
• The James Webb Space Telescope spotted a galaxy 13.5 billion light years away, the furthest humanity has ever found.
• The world’s oldest example of rock art was discovered in Indonesia.
• Ragan Training is an excellent place for communications professionals to find inspiration and valuable resources.
• You should be rewarded for your work. Find out how to earn an award here!

Have a great weekend comms all-stars!

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.