Discussions responses

1. In 2013 Yahoo made some drastic changes to how they promote their internal employees. Basically what they ended up doing was having top ranking managers rank employees on a “curve”. Putting working on a bell curve scale like this means that managers are forced to give some workers failing grades even if their work is only slightly lower than their peers. Many workplace practice experts have stated that this is part of what lead to the decline of Yahoo and caused many good working processionals to quit or get fired do to how they were perceived in their “rank”. Instead of fixing the issue right away, Yahoo stood by their decision but suffered from plenty of bad press a bad employee rating and a short staff.

If I was a lead at Yahoo, the crisis communication I would develop would start with.

1. A Draft and send out a memo to the team stating that there will be a change made and that any decisions made from the curve system are incorrect.
2. Create a better plan that promotes employees in a fair way and hold a meeting with top managers to explain to to do this new system in person.
3. Draft a press release that communicates apologies and calmly goes over the new plan for the future of the company.

The company should have immediately showed remorse for their bad decision and they should have made an attempt to redeem some of the workers that were let go. Additionally, they should have provided information about how they plan to do business in the future and a statement about the benefits that they do offer for those who are currently working at the company.

2. The video game development field often comes with culture differences or political turmoil due to its popularity worldwide. On October 6th, a Hong Kong Hearthstone player Blitzchung voiced for the liberation of Hong Kong during a post-match victory interview. The interview instantaneously cut to commercial and Blitzchung was almost immediately hit with a one-year Hearthstone tournament ban as well as being denied all of his prize money earned throughout the season by Blizzard (Porter, 2019). In response to Blitzchung’s punishments, a widespread outcry accused Blizzard of injustice by imposing a harsh punishment against Blitzchung’s activism.

Blizzard did not exercise internal or external communication nor did they appear to have a crisis communication plan. It was evident that imposing such a ban was more than likely going to cause public rage and disappointment due to the severity of the protesting in Hong Kong. Sharing understanding between the individuals, Blitzchung and other Hong Kong players, and the company, Blizzard was overlooked (McLean, 2016). Imposing the ban on Blitzchung lead to Blizzard led to Blizzard losing 3.2% of their shares in the span of a week (Witkowski, 2019). In addition to the loss of shares, Blizzard users began to uninstall and unsubscribe to Blizzard services, ultimately affecting sales and revenue. This issue ultimately shook up the trust loyal Blizzard users had for the company.

Blizzard should have developed a crisis communication plan prior to suspending Blitzchung to avoid the public backlash received from millions of users. One week after the player’s initial ban and prize month withhold, Blizzard announced that they will reduce the ban to six months and allow Blizchung to receive his prize money (Byers, 2019). The company later stated that the decision to punish Blitzchung in such a way “wasn’t adequate” and “rushed” (Byers, 2019). Though Blizzard responded after the damage was done with assurance contributing to their support for “Every Voice Matters” to hopefully give cushion to the controversy, players were still weary of their past decisions (McLean, 2016). It is clear that Blizzard immediately understood their mistake with not developing a cohesive plan before blindly banning the player.

Crisis Communication Plan:

1. Appoint trusted Blizzard Spokeperson to deliver information
2. Diligently, fairly, and thoughtfully compose a punishment to reduce outrage
3. Reform policies relating to political statements being publicly addressed
4. Impose ban or hiatus
5. Assure the decisions were for the player’s and the company’s best interest to save the relationship between all parties involved including Blizzard users.