The Week in Comms

Skydance rolls out RTO and buyouts in memo; Microsoft announces buyout offers to give employees ‘choice’ and ‘support’

Plus, Amazon tells engineers it’s changing their work guidelines.

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

1. Skydance tells employees it’s offering buyouts and instituting RTO
Skydance co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz announced that the company is moving to a full-time RTO work schedule and is offering buyouts to employees as the company works to save nearly $6 billion following the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. In a memo to employees obtained by The Wrap, Ellison and Kreiz covered each change in its own section.
 
“While many of you are already in the office five days a week, we understand this may be a significant change to the daily routines of others. To give you time to plan and adjust, we will take a phased approach by location. You will receive ample notice before changes take effect, and we will work closely with managers to support you through the transition.”
 
“As we bring our teams together, we recognize that not everyone will see their future here, and we respect that. To give eligible employees the option to move on in a way that works for them, we are introducing a Voluntary Buyout (VBO) Program. Those who qualify will receive an individual communication with their personalized details and terms, and a window to decide whether to accept this one-time offer.”
Notably, this memo comes on the heels of an announcement from Ellison and Kreiz earlier in October that the recent Skydance merger will lead to changes, implying that it includes layoffs. In a memo obtained by Variety earlier this month, the co-leaders said, “Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce.”
Skydance’s memo makes it clear to employees that post-merger, this is a new company with a new culture coming. That transparency extends to the buyout offers, effectively telling employees that if they’re not on board with the changes, here’s a chance to pocket some money and find something new before changes take hold in earnest. In times of major change like a merger, communicators should make expectations for employees transparent. In Skydance’s case, they’re telling employees there is an off-ramp shortly after the transaction went final rather than waiting for the new culture to become instilled.

2. Microsoft rolls out buyout offers for 60,000 staff members

In an internal memo posted to the company’s website earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it’s offering 60,000 employees buyouts as a new approach to changing how the company works. The note, attributed to Amy Coleman, executive vice president and chief people officer at Microsoft, stated that the voluntary exit offer “gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support.”

Coleman also stated that Microsoft will continue to keep its attention on the work while it figures out how to adapt to business needs.

The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We’ll learn from it. At the same time, we’ll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee. These are a few of the ways we’re trying to meet different business needs while continuing to create opportunities for our own people to grow and contribute.

My promise is to continue to provide clarity, listen and learn and keep improving.

Coleman is clear in her message that the offer is new for Microsoft, and she concludes her note with a personal promise to keep providing clarity and to listen to employees. That signals a commitment to keep communicating with employees going forward as the company reimagines itself. When your leaders make these kinds of promises during times of change, comms pros need to plan the follow-up before the announcement goes out. Identify what you’ll share next, when you’ll share it and where employees can ask questions in the meantime.

  1. Amazon updates role guidelines for engineers in internal memo

Earlier this week, Amazon told its software engineers to start using AI in their daily work if they haven’t already. The memo, attributed to Terk Terkowitz, vice president and distinguished engineer at Worldwide Amazon Stores, said that senior engineering leaders at the company developed the updated work guidelines. In the memo, Terkowitz wrote the best way to measure AI use is by long-term outcomes, but that those outcomes can take time to show up, be hard to measure and be hard to separate from other trends. The note also told engineers who haven’t started using AI to learn it and apply it to their daily work as soon as possible, and tells those already using it to keep finding better ways to do so.

In some cases, we have tackled those problems by using input metrics instead, like token usage or adoption of AI tools, or throughput metrics like code changes and reviews. We are all aware of how deeply flawed these metrics are, primarily because they are disconnected from what matters.

Using these input metrics, with care and judgement, as you think about your career and your organization’s performance is appropriate.

If your work does not benefit from current AI tooling, that is a finding, not a failing. Document why, share it with your community of peers, bring it to your manager, and work to find solutions. An engineer who can explain where AI does not yet help their work is demonstrating the judgement we are asking for.

Amazon’s memo asks engineers to change how they work and names its own weak spots while doing it. Leaders call their AI metrics deeply flawed but still explain how to use them. In addition, by stating that when employees discover AI isn’t helping them do their jobs properly, it’s a “finding, not a failing,” the note frames the changes in a somewhat positive light. In addition, the memo provides some clarity about how engineers will be measured going forward and some steps on what to do when automation doesn’t fit their workflow. That’s a somewhat unique message in an environment where the tone of AI adoption comms is so often, “go quickly and figure it out.”

If you’re communicating a change in how people work, address it clearly and be honest about the limits. That kind of transparency in internal messaging can help win trust when change may make some employees uncomfortable. That’s especially true when it comes to AI, which continues to change the way people work at a breakneck pace.

4. How about some good news?

Sean Devlin is the senior internal communications editor at Ragan. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.

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