Jason Schreier from Bloomberg, a Bloomberg journalist, shared the story of Brian Birmingham (one of the top developers of World of Warcraft Classic), who was fired in response to criticisms of the employee rating system.
Blizzard has maintained a ranking system in which managers rate the performance of their subordinates since 2021. A certain percentage of workers (5%) are required by managers to assign a special “developing” status, which deprives workers of part of the bonuses and the prospect of promotion in the near future.
“This policy encourages competition among employees, sabotage of other people’s work, the desire to join low-performing teams in order to be the best there, and ultimately undermine trust and destroy creativity”Birmingham wrote a letter to his colleagues.
Birmingham stated that he and other World of Warcraft managers have been able bypass the quota of low employee ratings for the past two years. But he was forced to give an “evolving status” to an employee recently. The heads of departments had to stop assigning such ratings to their subordinates.
Blizzard’s leadership believed it was important to provide professional growth opportunities for the lowest-skilled workers. Bloomberg was told by a spokesperson that the company’s evaluation process involves speaking with many managers. These conversations can also have an effect on an employee’s status.
Birmingham refused to accept the current situation and decided that it was time to leave. “If this policy is removed, then perhaps my Blizzard can still be saved and I will happily continue to work there. If they don’t cancel, then the Blizzard Entertainment I want to work for no longer exists, and I will have to look for another job.”.
Birmingham wrote a letter to his coworkers before he was called by the personnel department and was then fired. The developer was told not to criticize the rating system publicly (“We don’t want Activision executives to come in and make things worse”), but he refused to gloss over the issue.