Blizzard’s HR Head Is Leaving the Company

Yesterday Bloomberg reported that the president of Blizzard, J.Allen Brack has departed from the company. Bloomberg has also reported that the Head of HR, “Jesse Meschuk” has left the company as well this week. This all follows a scathing lawsuit by the State of California over Activision Blizzard’s abhorrent behavior towards its staff, notably its female employees, citing sexual discrimination and harassment.

Since then, numerous Blizzard employees have stepped up going to Twitter about these awful matters and talking about the behavior they experienced within Blizzard. This was also followed by a massive workplace protest by employees from within Blizzard, which is likely the cause of these new departures. Ever since these details have come to light numerous people have commented on this matter including ex-CEO Mike Morhaime publicly apologizing stating, “To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you.”

According to a thorough report by Axios, it has also come to light that HR was part of the problem and that none of the employees actually trusted HR to be of any help. Stating that reporting cases like this to HR was often met with bullying, skepticism, and pushback. One employee talking about a heated argument with her manager because he stood over the employee’s desk and wouldn’t let her leave or reach her phone was told by HR that it wasn’t harassment since the manager didn’t touch her.

The employee told Axios that due to this incident she stopped getting any projects and described her career as “stunted” following the HR report. Also stating that she wasn’t considered for promotion for 3 years after that incident while the manager was “untouchable.”

A spokesperson for Activision claims that “We will not tolerate anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences,” a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard told Axios. “If employees have any concerns about how Human Resources handled claims, we have other reporting options, including anonymous ones.” 

While the above statement is obviously a BS PR response it has to be said that this entire matter had utterly deplorable and one can only hope that any who were involved in allowing these disgusting practices to take place be reprimanded in the strictest manner and be an example for the rest of the industry to facilitate changes and improvements for all kinds of people working within this industry.