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Ubisoft to launch an anonymous online tool for staff to report abuse, harassment and sexism

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

An internal email, published by Gamasutra, outlines a plan to establish a “multidisciplinary working group” whose job will be to craft “better solutions and tools to detect, report and resolve any incident or serious problem without delay and in an impartial manner.” As previously reported, an impartial third-party group will also help with these investigations.

“I have gathered all of my direct reports to address this subject and your feedback. I would like us to thoroughly review all of our systems so that these types of situations cannot happen again,” wrote CEO Yves Guillemot in an email to Ubisoft staff.

Chief talent and communications officer, Cecile Cornet, explained that investigations could take “two weeks to two months depending on the case,” adding that specifics of each investigation won’t be communicated in order to protect the confidentiality of all parties. Broadly, Ubisoft is auditing its own process for dealing with similar allegations in the future.

“Some of these investigations end in sanctions (warnings with required training, suspensions, dismissal), while others prove groundless. I hear the need for greater transparency, and one of the ways we will do that is by better tracking and sharing indicators on where we stand,” wrote Cornet.

In more practical terms, Ubisoft will also be launching an “anonymous online reporting tool” by the end of this month, and giving all managers and HR managers mandatory diversity and inclusion training

“[The online tool] will be managed by the Corporate Social Responsibility team in HQ,” Cornet revealed. “In the meantime, we have set up [a] mailing list and I want to thank those of you who have already reached out and with whom we are in contact.

“Diversity and inclusion trainings have started in multiple locations but we need to go further and provide specific training on harassment, sexism and all forms of discrimination in the workplace.”
 

cormack12

Gold Member
So a webform with no authentication or logging.


Dear supreme leader, I heard disparaging remarks about my green hair with purple frosting. Also the man from floor 3 looks at me weird. He is definitely a sexual predator and not checking out my eyebar.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
1984.jpg
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
As long as you still have people on the other end looking at evidence and reviewing each case individually then I don't see a problem. The anonymity works both ways, it also affords the company the time/room to investigate something properly instead of the knee-jerk cancellations demanded by publicly posted accusations.

Will it be abused? Sure it will. That isn't a reason in and of itself to get rid of it. Very few things in this world that can't be weaponized, imagine trying to live without all of them.

Doesn't it make more sense to address these situations as they happen instead of having a purge every decade or so? This way people afraid to speak up until there's something like #metoo to cover them can do so when stuff happens instead of letting it build up in the company like an abscess.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Leaked footage of the HR team listening to their first message:




"MARGE! Is putting your hand on someone elses shoulder sexual harrassment?"
 
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Teslerum

Member
Aye, hopefully it helps bring some people to justice. Its 100x better than the cock of public opinion.
Pretty much, hopefully the people processing the accusations are unbiased and rely on/gather actual evidence. It's just my trust has been shot. Especially if we're talking HR departments in big corporations.

IMO, this should be a service sole offered by a separate company though that's unrelated to Ubisoft or the industry to ensure a more fair process. I don't like this solution usually

As previously reported, an impartial third-party group will also help with these investigations.

Because it still sounds like an investigation would be led internally. And at that point its just words.
 
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UnNamed

Banned
Is this a US problem?

In some part of Europe, employees tends to have a softer, less rigid approach to each others. An American employee would be shocked seeing what happen inside lots of French or Italian companies since common interactions between men and women are really different.
 
This isn't a left/right thing anymore. I know more lefties who are against the SJW/WOKE bullshit than those who are for it. I'm not sure what a proper label for these freaks should be but "lefty" doesn't accurately describe it anymore.

I personally use "old left" and "new left". The old left has balls and integrity. A real enemy to fight. The new left is more of a case for an asylum.
 

Astral Dog

Member
This won't be abused.......
To be honest they REALLY need it, nobody is that shocked to learn Ubisoft is full of creeps and assholes, jesus those accusations :^(

Having a system to protect employees using the company resources is pretty fucked up
 
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Soodanim

Gold Member
Problems within companies start at the top. If complaints were dealt with by higher ups, this system wouldn’t be necessary.

Does Ubisoft not have a HR department?
 
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Astral Dog

Member
Problems within companies start at the top. If complaints were dealt with by higher ups, this system wouldn’t be necessary.

Doda Ubisoft not have a HR department?
Apparently the HR department is 'instructed' to only take action if its a low hierarchy job, anything else gets 'lost' to another department miles away.
This is a big deal imo, not a random employee or a single celebrity accused years back, but a whole system put by the leadership to protect harassers, if even half of the accusations are real Ubisoft has been very nasty
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
I worked for a brief time for a company that had an internal, anonymous, reporting system back in 2012 and on my first day onsite as I went through the onboarding process, the guy who was to be my boss introduced me to all the coworkers and then afterwards privately said to me: remember this guy that guy and that girl? If they talk to you and you don't stop to have a chat with them they'll report you so you've been warned already.
 

nush

Gold Member
giving all managers and HR managers mandatory diversity and inclusion training

I worked for a big international company and they did this "Training" but for something like ethics and accepting gifts. What it entailed was reading a corporate policy online then followed up by a multi choice questionnaire. Except the policy was heavy legalese so hardly anybody understood what it was saying and the examples included in the questionnaire were so America centric that they made no sense to people sitting in European offices. "Can you accept and invite to a collage football match?". I don't fucking know because you're not talking about British football or collages.

However it was training that was impossible to fail because if you chose the wrong answer it would just tell you to try again. So you'd repeat until everyone has passed the test 100% and were all "Trained".

We all just carried on as normal after that getting free games, PS3's, nice weekends as "Friends" with suppliers, big restaurant meals and paid for hookers and nothing happened to actually enforce the revised rules. The same dumbfucks that didn't take care and maybe bragged about it might have got caught. The "Training"was just a checkbox to show how everybody had been "Trained".
 

DogofWar

Member
Coming next into your Medieval village:

Anonymous witch-reporter.
Is your neighbor a witch and should be burned at the stake but you don't feel like putting yourself out there?
Now with this new function you can anonymously report your neighbor as a witch/mage so we can burn them on the stake, unless they manage to prove their innocence somehow.

It will be plenty of fun for the entire village!
 
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