Activision Blizzard: A deal of several million euros to please the court

“The agreement reached with the EEOC last year reflects our unwavering commitment to a safe and fair work environment for all employees,” said Bobby Kotik, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “Our goal is to make Activision Blizzard a model for the industry and we will continue to focus on eliminating harassment and discrimination in our workplace. Court approval of this decision is a milestone. important. .

As part of the agreement with the EEOC, Activision

Establish an $18 million fund to reimburse eligible claimants.
Continue to improve policies, practices and training to prevent harassment and discrimination in the workplace, including the introduction of an expanded job evaluation system. This improvement continues.
Include an impartial third-party employment equality advisor—a non-employee who must be certified by the EEOC—who provides ongoing oversight of the company’s contractual compliance. The findings of this independent consultant will be reported directly to the EEOC and Activision Blizzard’s Board of Directors.
Engage an internal EEO coordinator with relevant experience in gender discrimination, harassment and related retaliation to assist the company. Stacey Jackson took office on March 16.
Today’s milestones arrive as Activision continues to develop its corporate culture. Activision has already taken the following actions:

Develop a new company-wide zero-tolerance policy on harassment and retaliation;
The Ethics and Compliance team has been doubled, adding two workplace managers, the Vice President of Ethics and Compliance, the Principal Investigator, the Director of Ethics and Compliance, the Director of ethics and compliance investigations and third party risk management. Our Way2Play heroes, investigators and volunteer staff who support education initiatives and two ethics directors, and help others understand reporting options, encourage conversation and advise management on how to strengthen our program global ethics and compliance;
Significant increase in investment in relevant education;
Increased transparency with new reports on equal pay and diversity representation;
$1 million contribution to WIGI to help women succeed in the global gaming industry;
Refusal of arbitration for individual complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination arising after the events of October 28, 2021;
For each recruitment, a new tool was released that tracks data on the representation and representation of women and candidates and the application, interview and recruitment phases of our recruitment process among underrepresented ethnic groups. This tool will allow us to be transparent about our progress on diversity and help us reinforce our goal of having diverse slates of candidates for open positions;
We have developed stricter alcohol policies across the company;

We recently launched your Feedback Above, which allows more than 90% of our managers to receive personalized feedback;

He launched Level Up U, a paid training program designed to train participants in game development and prepare successful participants for roles as corporate engineers.

Additionally, by October 2021, Activision aims to increase the representation of women and non-binary employees by 50% over the next five years. He also pledged to invest $250 million over the next 10 years in startups that will help expand the capabilities of gaming and technology for lesser-known communities.

We are pleased that the federal court, which reviewed our agreement with the EEOC, found it to be “fair, reasonable and sufficient, and in the public interest.” Court approval is an important step in our journey to ensure that everyone at Activision Blizzard always feels protected, heard and empowered. We hope the court’s findings clear up any confusion that may exist, including the view that many of the objections to our agreement are false and speculative. “Once all the terms of the agreement have been assessed and approved, we can move forward,” Kotik said.