Ubisoft fires employee 🚫 who publicly criticized its RTO plan 🏢

Ubisoft terminates a Montreal level design lead after he publicly opposed the company’s return-to-office mandate, citing a breach of its Code of Conduct.

Ubisoft continues to raise eyebrows 🤨 around how it is treating employees as it attempts a business overhaul 🔄. David Michaud-Cromp, a level design team lead at Ubisoft Montreal, said last week that he was suspended 🛑 for three days without pay after voicing opposition to the company’s return to office mandate 💼. Today, Michaud-Cromp posted on LinkedIn 🔗 that he has been fired. “I was terminated by Ubisoft, effective immediately,” he wrote ✍️. “This was not my decision.” ❌

#Ubisoft

A spokesperson for Ubisoft 🗣️ gave Kotaku the following statement regarding Michaud-Cromp’s dismissal: “Sharing feedback or opinions respectfully does not lead to a dismissal 🤐. We have a clear Code of Conduct 📜 that outlines our shared expectations for working together safely and respectfully, which employees review and sign each year. When that is breached, our established procedures apply ⚖️, including an escalation of measures depending on the nature, severity, and repetition of the breach.” We’ve reached out to the company for additional confirmation and comment 📧.

This is the latest in a sequence of bad press 📰 Ubisoft has faced regarding its workforce. Shortly after many employees at Ubisoft Halifax unionized 🤝, the parent company shut down the studio 🔒. In announcing the closure, Ubisoft said the move was part of a broader cost-cutting endeavor across its operations ✂️; it shut down a support studio and cut more jobs later in January, with even more layoffs proposed 📉. Most recently, unions representing other Ubisoft workers called for a three-day strike 🪧 in response to the “penny-pinching 💰 and worsening our working conditions” they alleged of the company’s management 👔.

All these issues could all be coincidental timing 🤔. But if so, they’re coincidences that don’t reflect favorably on Ubisoft 📉.