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EA employee survey shows positive change
Only a few years after "EA Spouse" exposed Electronic Arts as a white-collar sweat shop, the company released to GameDaily results of an internal employee survey showing it's changed since then. The survey, completed by 77% of EA's global workforce, showed that 63% felt motivated and excited about their job and are committed to making EA better.Gabrielle Toledano, Exec. VP of Human Resources, says that compared to three years ago when the survey was last done, the results showed a "significant improvement" at the company. This newest survey shows that there has been an improvement in overall satisfaction and morale, with much of the change credited to EA's restructuring into a "city-state" model. Toledano believes the survey shows a good start and that things at the company really have changed. "There's simply no tolerance at EA today for what was going on during EA Spouse."
Free Radical implementing overtime pay ... seriously
The notion of paying overtime is absurd for many employees and observers in the gaming industry, but Free Radical (Haze) tells Develop magazine that they're looking to change perceptions of working in the industry by offering overtime pay to employees. Steve Ellis of Free Radical says the days of "bonuses that pay off your mortgage are long gone" and that they've "decided to start paying people for the work that they do -- even when that work is outside their normal hours."Ellis says that the industry as a whole will eventually go this way, but they prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Although there are so many companies who are guilty of not paying their employees for working extra hours, EA gets picked on more often than not because of the infamous EA Spouse saga. Of course EA's image has changed recently to become a great place to work according to Fortune Magazine. Now please pardon us while we check with our local priest to make sure there wasn't an update on Hell freezing over we missed.
EA gives no mea culpa on Wiki controversy
Electronic Arts was caught red-fingered yesterday revising the company's Wikipedia profile and removing some key people (founder Trip Hawkins) and controversies (EA Spouse) from its history. Statements given by an EA spokesperson to GamesIndustry.biz concerning the matter indicate that the publisher feels that its employees committed no wrongdoing. "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information," said the spokesperson (emphasis added by us). Of course, omitting key information -- such as who created your company -- is itself inaccurate. As previously noted, many of the edits have already been reversed by the Wikipedia community.
