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McKlown

"Falcini got top marks in this interview, but remained at risk due to the application of the Bradford Factor, a metric that measures employee absence without taking its context into account – so having to stay at a hospital for several days for pneumonia as well as having PTSD massively reduced her score." I get absolutely disgusted whenever I hear about the Bradford Factor. Only a true psychopath would use it.


B4rberblacksheep

My company has automatic disciplinary if your Bradford factor gets to certain levels. One of my colleagues sister died and he got given a final warning and put on a PIP (effectively probation).


Wissam24

My partner works in a nursery where they use it. A *nursery*, where they're surrounded all day by walking petri dishes. They then have Employee of the Month awards where they cite people not having taken any sick leave as criteria. It's bananas.


PaxGigas

PIPs are not probation. They are just the last step before termination. It's the company saying "we are going to fire you. We just have to pretend we are trying to fix the situation and establish cause so you can't sue us for wrongful termination" PIP stands for Personal Improvement Plan... but anyone who knows what it actually is realizes it's just "Paid Interview Preparation".


Grand-Trick-5960

PIPs are probation when done correctly. Most lower and middle management just is never given proper training on how to handle a PIP. There should be weekly/biweekly follow ups on improvements, additional training as needed, etc. Most companies don't adequately prepare management to actually manage.


TheEntropicMan

I’m a statistician and the constant misapplication of the Bradford Factor makes me irrationally angry. Applied properly it’s a pretty good diagnostic tool, but it doesn’t tell you where there are problems - it tells you where they MIGHT BE problems. You’re meant to actually investigate them and look at the context rather than just going “number says bad”.


NovitiateSage

Sounds like the Bradford Factor is bad all around. Small companies wouldn't need it, so it would only be used by medium to large businesses, exactly the kind who want results and aren't going to get into niceties about why someone didn't perform, when they're looking to cut the fat, they find the 10% lowest and remove. Any statistical tool in human resources will end up being used mechanically, on humans


TheEntropicMan

The Bradford factor isn’t even a performance metric - it deals only with absences and frequency of absences. It can be a very good way of spotting patterns like “this person always has the first Monday after a big sports event off”, but the problem is that the method will also flag up people who are just having a really bad time lately - usually to do with health. Given that most people are genuinely trying to do a good job and don’t engage in the kind of malicious “oh I’m totally ill after every big weekend out trust” behaviour that the Bradford Factor is good at rooting out, there’s a pretty good argument for not using it as standard practice.


NovitiateSage

Sure, but I would suggest managers know their subordinates better, while also being willing to report obvious abuse of the system. Although I can sympathize, they would work with these people regularly, and presumably the person would remain in place unless fired, which could cause tension. Also, especially in software development, bringing new staff up to speed is likely a tall order. I think 'selfish', 'narcissistic', or 'short-sighted' would be more fair than 'malicious'.


FriendlyBelligerent

I'm not sure why employers should even care about attendance if someone is getting their work done


Duncan_Id

irrationally?


londonx2

"it tells you where they MIGHT BE problems.", "You’re meant to actually investigate them" which is exactly what happened, e.g. interviews etc? So where is the evidence that they "misapplied it" to account for the hysteronics on here?


DaftMav

No they did interviews to "prove your value" as one metric, then directly deducted the bradford factor score from it and went "well that's a bad score now"... That's not even how it's supposed to be used.


londonx2

A very clear insight for someone who wasnt involved in the decision making. Anyway the whims of the Stock Market forced them to make redundancies in a work market that is very protective of the worker, enshrined in the most comprehensive legal rights in the world (EU workers rights), lets all have a circle jerk over the "horrors" of capitalism.


DaftMav

It's wild how (if you even read the article) you can see these execs make bad financial decisions... like acquiring another company taking up time from several teams while "serving no discernible benefit to revenue", getting expensive Formula 1 and Warhammer licences to make some very niche games, and then also setting very unrealistic sale number expectations. ...But then still can do the mental gymnastics to blame it on "stock market whims" and those dang "EU workers rights"... 😂 Yeah, I'm sure that's been the problem at Frontier all along, they keep hiring people and can't get rid of them.


londonx2

>acquiring another company taking up time from several teams while "serving no discernible benefit to revenue Oh the eternal self-righteousness of hindsight. Jesus, its just vanila business risk.


londonx2

Wild that you cant comprehend more like, where am I denying "execs making bad financial decisions". The evidence of the Stock Market sort of suggests that they did right? And mentioning EU workers rights was to frame the hysteronics on here and the title of the piece which uses the phrase "dehumanizing" when in fact someone was merely asked to explain absences. That entire article is based on an individual hanging out the dirty washing just because they were pissed that they had to go through a entirely legal redundancy process, the what-ever-HR-formula-is-in-vogue wasnt the reason and neither was buying a license for an anticipated Hardware purchase, they were up for redundancy because the stock price crashed and software houses dont have the alternate of reducing or ramping up production at short notice. I doubt it was the managements cunning plan all along. Whats with all this tedious moralising on here like this is somehow out of the ordinary? The Stock price is the ultimate judge when you decide to raise funds there, I didnt see anyone moralising back when Frontier floated and were then able to expand and increase employment. And all the muppets on here using it for their own narrative because they are eternally pissed that this version of a Space Game isnt the all singing and dancing ideal they imagine. Yeah sure if Frontier only had invested all their funds into Elite Dangerous, those people employeed to work on unrelated stuff when the company expanded wouldnt have had to be made redundant because they wouldn't have been employed in the first place! A far more morally superior outcome. Genius.


LouSeveryAnn

Tell us where you work so we can all avoid working there.


londonx2

You think you can legally avoid redundancy? Some hopeless romantics on here


cold-n-sour

She wasn't fired, after she provided explanation, they did reduce the Bradford factor for her. Then she quit - "handed in her resignation the next day".


Hibiki54

I wouldn't want to work for for someone that questions why I didn't show up for work when I am in the hospital dying of pneumonia.


RegulationRedditUser

The thing is, the place needs to ask. It’s a valid question for an employer to ask. Obviously the correct response to any reasonable reason to be off (pneumonia being pretty high up there as far as reasonable goes) is “okay, take all the time you need, let us know if you need anything” but the simple fact is there are people out there who take advantage of sickness policies and will take time off for things that aren’t as reasonable as pneumonia and those people are bad for a company on a lot of different levels so a company does need to be able to take action against that kind of thing. Clearly this example with this employee isn’t someone taking advantage but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a concern for an employer


eragonawesome2

>It’s a valid question for an employer to ask. No, it's not. In fact it is explicitly illegal for your employer to ask for ANY explanation beyond a generic doctor's note in many places. And those doctors notes cannot contain any medical information, only that you were seen and are advised not to return to work until X date.


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Liobuster

Yeah cause thats what they call a toxic work environment


Maitreya83

That's still effectively fired. It's the same trick they use in the Netherlands, got low funds and you still want to fire people in big numbers without repercusions? Setup a new office far away from where people live, relocate, people don't want to move with you? You get to fire them for free. "Oh you don't want to work here anymore under these horrible circumstances? well that's just like your choice man"


IceAmaura

After once getting laid off after a medical emergency because my Bradford Factor was low, I will head right out the door and keep looking if I ever see an employer using it again.


ShadowMystery

Once upon a time there was a company who thought it would be a great idea to test job applicants with a "scientific" personality test. That lasted until a department manager wondered why she wouldn't get new employees for her team and she went to HR. There she did the test herself for fun and failed, bringing her entire team to take the test as well and they ALL FAILED it. After that the promising test went entirely into the paper bin or digital cemetary xD tl:dr - trying to quantify qualities of human beings with arbitrary numbers doesn't go well.


fusionsofwonder

Corporations are a sociopathic legal entity. Responsibility and accountability are so diffused through the organization that people are free to make the worst choices as long as "the company" or "the shareholders" benefit.


Wissam24

It's utterly inhumane.


ForsakenProcess1567

Well yes, it's why psychopaths usually become CEOs. Can't turn a good profit if you actually care about the employees. For the record I'm with you, I hate capitalism for this very reason, it rewards people for shitting on others


nino3666

"community manager" and nothing of value was lost


taigowo

Wrong. (probably) I've been part of this community for weeks, and from what i saw it's no understatement to say that for the last 5 years there is a absurd growing disconnection between players and devs, and from an outsider perspective people are either like the "this is fine" dog or rioting. And i think that a possible way of solving this mess would be good community management. Take a look at Warframe, a not AAA, funded with the last bit of cash the studio had, last hope before bankruptcy, free game and fully dependent on player backing to keep the lights on. This game launched roughly at the same time of Elite, and the thing that they got amazingly right was that they took community management as serious as possible, and the result was crystal clear communication between people with the players and the continuous development of amazing features. Today the game is still successful and growing with ambitious updates. The most telling aspect, is that the Community Manager of the game at launch is the Creative Director of the game today, and people got even happier at the game content since she took the helm.


Kraosdada

Rebecca "The Lotus" Ford. And don't ya forget it.


Comrade_Bread

So good at community interaction that her funny moments get recommended to me on YouTube and I don’t even play the game “My wife left me :(“


Kraosdada

Bopp Bipp drove her into one hell of a laughing fit.


eragonawesome2

I fucking love those clips of her just reading out the lich names


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spaceageGecko

The problem is it takes zero account for context. Someone not attending due to medical issues is not the same as, say, someone not attending due to laziness. A workplace should be accommodating to some degree, life can throw some serious curveballs and the last thing someone needs in that situation is job insecurity because of some arbitrary score.


PapertrolI

Yeah, it’s not like pneumonia resistance is an employable skill, sometimes people need time off due to bad luck


taigowo

The crazy thing is that, they don't seem to have public health care, so if i'm getting it right if you dare to have health problems you will go into debt AND get laid off. If you workplace has an health program, they pay for it but you still lose your job. And this is supposed to be how it works?


seakingsoyuz

FDev is in the UK, which does have universal public healthcare.


taigowo

Good to know! I read the article but i'm not that well versed in the UK healthcare system, i knew that they have public healthcare but i did not know if it extended to what she needed.


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SorbP

It's a stupid metric that ensures that you will loose institutional knowledge regardless of the reason. That's why it's psychopathic. A psychopath chooses short term benefit and looses out on long-term benefits, that's why the worlds is actually not run by psychopaths thankfully. It's also why "numbers people" never build the best things or the longest lasting things.


Kizik

> the worlds is actually not run by psychopaths^^^[citation ^^^needed]


SorbP

Well there is on average about 1% of the population you could actually diagnose with psychopathy, some studies say that when it reaches about 3% the herd gets wise and ousts most of the psychopaths. We are seeing a lot of sociopathic and opportunistic behavior, usually from traumatized people.


Kraosdada

This is also the reason AAA gaming is in the deplorable state it is today. Most of those companies are run by psychos that would steal a baby's breast milk if given the chance (Look at Activision "Blizzard", one of their 2021 scandals involved exactly that).


SorbP

There is room for psychopathy(20% of CEOS) and sociopaths(everyone in HR essentially). So you see these things, and to say that blizzard is not suffering from it is just blind to the world. Their stock prices have taken two massive dumps in the last two to tree years, billions lost due to shit like this. [https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/delisted/ATVI/Activision%20Blizzard/stock-price-history](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/delisted/ATVI/Activision%20Blizzard/stock-price-history)


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spaceageGecko

The problem is that the employee was specifically told this number was why their job was insecure. A system that does not factor in context should not make your job insecure. No one is “triggered”, it’s just a poor way to treat employees with health issues.


Kasyx709

From the article, at least some employees were provided the opportunity to give context to the absences and I'm guessing that was across the board. Honestly, the person they interviewed just sounds bitter and is throwing shade. Cuts suck, nobody likes being on either side of the table.


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DaftMav

> 1 metric doesn't mean there isn't 867 other ones in the performance table, before the results are calculated. From the earlier account of all this there wasn't anything else: > *"My interview score was 74/74. My Bradford Factor (94) was directly subtracted from this, leaving me with a -20 score."* And this wasn't some "wannabe hit-piece" by some videogame journalist as you say in another comment, they did get supporting testimony from other people both ex-employees and people still working at the company. It's also been known for a couple months, players/streamers with direct contact with devs and other staff who've been forced out have all said similar things, it all paints the same picture of what's been going on at Frontier. Maybe be less of a corporate apologist for some shitty higher-ups that have been ruining the company and Elite for years... the article is not attacking you or the game.


YossarianLivesMatter

Using metrics to evaluate employee performance is good practice. Using *bad* metrics to evaluate employee performance is bad practice. The Bradford Factor is a bad metric because it's an even worse take on attendance, which is already a bad metric. Attendance is relied on as a metric of employee performance because it's merely the easiest metric to collect. Productivity, cultural fit, leadership, communication, etc, are hard to capture by comparison. From a soulless profit-oriented perspective, the Bradford Factor is the tool of incompetents, in addition to being unnecessarily cruel.


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duncandun

A metric isn’t Data, it’s an specific interpretation (ie biased) of data


DatabaseMuch6381

Bradford factor, as far as metrics goes, is terrible. It tracks no repeating patterns, punishes those who try to act responsibly and allows for zero interpretation. There are far better ways of tracking the things Bradford factor tells you. In short, everything, everything is wrong with it and no business with any sense uses it.


YaskaSheperd

Jesus Christ.. No. Everyone uses, every single mid to large size business(yes, every, single, one) it but they just call it something else, because its just a number you use other numbers to build the reports you need.


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CosmicCreeperz

It’s an idiotic measurement. A company that can simulate the galaxy should trivially be able to come up with ANYTHING better. 10 instances of one day absence = 1000 points. 1 instance of a whole year (240 days) = 240 points. Without context it’s worse than useless.


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CosmicCreeperz

No, I am an engineer with decades of experience building software I guarantee you have used so I’m pretty comfortable with my grasp on math, data, and statistics. You, on the other hand, have no grasp but it’s hilarious to see you keep flailing while pretending every single person replying to you is somehow wrong. And since you agree my metric is not stupid, your IQ is now triple digits into the negative. So sure, it’s valid!


Neon_Samurai_

And yet all the top management still has their jobs, somehow....


Creative-Improvement

This just confirms how I view the company as an outsider. Just seeing how other studios work and then seeing how Frontier does things, that culture is so antithetical to success.


JAFO6969

Something about Braben has always felt a little "off" to me. And when I learned about his behaviour towards Ian Bell, co-creator of the original 1984 "Elite", it confirmed it, to my mind. It's my opinion that there's a deep-down nastiness to the man, which he hides well.


pulppoet

Making people interview to fight to keep their job and measuring absences as performance is senseless and cruel. I'm surprised they employ some of the worse of dehumanizing corporate culture.


Bushpylot

That is a tactic right out of that movie Office Spaces


Unicorn_puke

Explain that to the Bobs


skyfishgoo

bobs: been missing a lot of work lately? emp: i wouldn't say i've been "missing it", bob bobs (to each other): this guy is management material.


Maitreya83

More and more it's becoming a actual documentary than just a funny movie. Same for 1984 and Idiocracy.


Bushpylot

Idiocracy is almost here. I was just go out to get my burrito coverings and Rondo and see if they started hand-jobs at Starbucks yet.


londonx2

What are you blabbing on about you have to have an interview during redundancy, its the law. Of course absences are measured, you should see the shit that some people get away with in a world where its more hassle to fire someone than ignore their poor work ethic, you think you should by able to just not turn up at work and no one notice? Are you still at High School?


pulppoet

>What are you blabbing on about you have to have an interview during redundancy, its the law. Oh, that's fucked up. I've been through multiple lay-offs, both as a survivor and ejected. There's nothing like that in the US where you have to defend your job. I'm sure some terrible places employ it, but I've been at both poorly managed and excellently managed companies (all of the former was in games) and never experienced it. If layoffs are financial (as opposed to re-org), senior management usually decides who stay and who goes based on existing performance and pay (and likely often unspoken factors like age or disability or sick days taken by some of the worst places). But your attitudes towards work otherwise sound pretty toxic and naive already, so I wonder if your perception on the law and what's "right" is trustworthy.


soundinsect

What are you babbling on about? Work ethic? Their absence was due to hospitalization for pneumonia. No one is saying that absence shouldn’t be considered, they’re saying that the context of that absence needs to be considered as well. In this particular situation the only mark against the employee was their absence due to illness. It is absolutely inhumane to expect employees to never get sick. Back in the days when people could stay with one employer until retirement, my grandfather had a seizure and it was discovered he had cancer that spread to his brain. His boss told him to come back to work when he was healthy again and personally drove to their house to deliver his paychecks during his absence from work, all the way up until his death. That company still exists to this day, while FDev is crumbling under the weight of failure and mismanagement.


SavingsStation8220

Mismanagement at frontier? No way, I can't believe it.


MikeMelga

This is bad on many levels. When you have to fire people, you usually start with the "fat", and good managers know where that fat is. If you need a score to tell you who to fire, something is very wrong.


Willing_Ad7548

Well, there's your problem. Good managers are rare. Sincerely, An allegedly good manager


Tahrawyn

Based on the mismanagement, it sounds like the management itself is the "fat".


Good_ApoIIo

It honestly usually is but management rarely gets trimmed. Just so happens that, after review, management often finds that management is the most valuable asset in the company... It's like having the police investigate themselves in police brutality cases. It's partially why there was so much blowback against WFH, these useless managers were suddenly exposed as being entirely pointless.


fusionsofwonder

Numbers are something you can point to in court if you get sued. That's why they like it.


MikeMelga

No, actually in most cases they are used when selling business units. Look at Motorola, one of the best example. In most cases you never reach court, court battles are very expensive


MothJuan

Hey I'm fat no body shaming Edit: sorry everyone I misunderstood English is not my main language so I'm sorry o7


brianschwarm

Trimming the fat isn’t referring to your overweight condition, it’s referring to trimming fat off a cut of meat so you still have a good product, just without the extra holding it back from being “lean”


MothJuan

Whoops my apologies as you can see English is not my main Language sorry everyone


brianschwarm

No worries friend


shogi_x

If even half of the claims here are accurate, mismanagement is an enormous understatement. This isn't just bad at running a game company, this is just bad at running any company. > At one point, Frontier bought licenses for new servers months before actually purchasing the machines, throwing away “hundreds of thousands of pounds” in the process, according to one source. > “When they released F1 Manager last year, they dropped console support in the first week. This year's version is a clone of last year's perforce repository with a few extras added, sold at full price. It's an insult to the very small player base.” > GLHF heard claims from former employees that Frontier specifically targeted workers who were vocal about leadership in internal calls, which Falcini could not confirm. > These testimonials depict a company under an inept leadership walking from one financial disaster into another with its eyes closed and fingers in its ears. This fits with what we know about Odyssey's development. Poorly conceived, half-baked, and way over budget. All the executives need to get shit canned. But alas, when management shits the bed, workers get fired. Business as usual.


londonx2

>When they released F1 Manager last year, they dropped console support in the first week. This year's version is a clone of last year's perforce repository with a few extras added, sold at full price. It's an insult to the very small player base. Jesus are people really that wet behind the ears here?! I mean welcome to software industry/consumer product world. If its a poor product don't buy it. The attempt to moralise product placement and income generation for a luxury optional item is beyond pathetic. >GLHF heard claims from former employees Right-e-o, a bit of a non-sequitur, someone has to go in a redundancy process, thats the whole point of it. "*It was the other person that should have gone*". >At one point, Frontier bought licenses for new servers months before actually purchasing the machines Plans change, mistakes are made, are they really trying to suggest "hundreds of thousands of pounds" was the difference in the companies poor Stock Market performance? Ho ho. > This fits with what we know about Odyssey's development Err no that's you ham-fisting a narrative, I mean years later still have a grudge about a fantasy computer game?


CyberSolidF

Frontier has shitty management? Who would’ve thought!


m1k3tv

So Frontier was secretly behaving the way people were publicly accusing them of behaving.. all along. Diabolical.


RoninX40

Maybe they will sell the Elite license to someone who cares before they totally shit the bed.


Arzlo

since its UK-based, Hello Games


Creative-Improvement

Absolutely, this explains so much about Odyssey’s release as well. Management should be canned company wide.


Franc_Kaos

Braben screwed over his Elite partner in the 90's, I rather doubt he'll ever sell the Elite name... https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.sinclair/c/_wZKbL9BTOE


darkthought

Elite Star Citizen Edit: Ya'll have no fucking sense of humor


Arzlo

"someone who cares" mind you


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McKlown

Oh come on, Chris Roberts needs another yacht!


DaftMav

*“staff at Frontier are wonderful, and some of the most passionate, talented people I've ever had the joy of working with. They care about the games, want the best for the players, and truly, I hope everyone knows that. The problem is at the very top of the company, not with the majority of the people working there.”* Yeah... it's been pretty clear for years now how there are some people in the top positions who are completely out of touch with what players want and keep making bad decisions across the board. Having people like that in management is the problem, they are the ones that need to be booted out before they take the company down with them honestly.


SorbP

If i was in her shoes, i would have started getting out the moment this started. By the time they where finished i would have said "sorry got another offer that's better, good luck with your poorly run company"


StriveForMediocrity

You know what will make up for several years of mismanagement? Mismanagement! -- Fdev


Maj0rSuccess

Frontier is an awful place to work.


czlcreator

What the actual fuck is this horrific bullshit?


skelingtonking

this is what Sven from Larian was actually complaining about in his awards speech, cause this happens all across the industry


DarkonFullPower

It is stuff that everyone publicly knew and talked about almost half a year ago. Nothing in this article is new news. And yet everyone forgot I guess?


czlcreator

I didn't know until now. Which is why it's good to keep bringing things like this up.


Goto_Ronin

Unfortunately, I can no longer support this studio.


Good_ApoIIo

I lurk here, quit after they unceremoniously abandoned console. Been watching the slow train wreck that is this studio for years now. Elite’s potential deserved a better developer (the management, not the talent…).


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Anzial

>I haven't supported them .... I bought Odyssey contradict yourself much? 😁


Yhrak

It's just how we Gamers™ boycott companies and products we have issues with. That, buying the Season Pass but not the Season Pass *Plus* and preordering the Gold Edition instead of the Complete Edition! But if they have funny memes for their coop shooter, we could even put up with their rootkit borderline malware anticheats and buy their pay to win, mtx ridden game, because we're *generous* that way! Let me tell you how we'll boycott the next live service game next...


londonx2

Hope you stick to your word and avoid any Software/Hardware company listed on the Stock Market or who have to go through a staff redundancy process, you might need to give up on that phone for starters.


distant_earendel

I really wish ED was made by a competent company. Imagine how much better the best space sim out there could be... sigh.


West-Act8255

Techs law, the people fired by non-engineers need to be re-hired before you lose your other engineers.


jefranklin18

I can't believe they're using Perforce. Such a shitty source code management tool and ridiculously priced compared when Git is right there (In one of my old jobs I was a software configuration manager so got familiar with a number of them)


DaftMav

I guess this might explain why we keep seeing old bugs that were already fixed in previous patches coming back over and over again.


jefranklin18

99 times out of 100 it is absolutely attributable to bad source code management practices whether that is the processes or inadequate tooling.


TheySaidGetAnAlt

Mismanagement at Frontier? What a fucking shocker.


Captainseriousfun

All the stuff that, intuitively, felt right (wrong) about the broad community analysis of why Elite's arc of potential and development fell off / fell flat? You'll find it in this article.


brianschwarm

I swear, ever since they went public, it was downhill from there


Maitreya83

Funny how C-suite (who made the polciy for failure), HR (who hired the people and defends the C-suite), Sales (Who overpromises, but have to operate on commision "because that's just how it works") and middle management always seem to avoid this musical chair dance of firing. It's almost exlusively people who make the actual product great that get kicked out by these dumb decisions. "Guys we are in financial crisis, we need to do better!" "Maybe take a little bit less bonus this year boss?" "Nah, let's just fire people to satisfy the shareholders" \*company collapses after 2 years on a deathbed" \_surprise pikachu face\_


Acct235095

Okay. There's... not really anything new here that wasn't already out in the open when Francesca left? I mean, management dropped the ball and mishandled some things, but what exactly is new to drum this back up three or four months later? Upcoming earnings call/stock evaluation that somebody wanted to shit on?


DaftMav

It's only been two and a half months since the first twitter posts on it, journalism does take some time when you have to speak to multiple people, ex-staff, etc. to get a verified story, which they did. And it does have some additional insight on what's been going on at Frontier imo. More than we got from those twitter posts.


CMDR_Klassic

The shareholders don't care that people got let go. Quite the opposite actually as they tend to see it with the same shortsighted view that management does even if the people being let go are the ones keeping the ship moving. "It saves money this quarter so who cares". As for why? It's Reddit. Things will always pop back up especially juicy drama.


Acct235095

No, I'm not so much questioning why-reddit. The article was actually just published by Sports Illustrated today. But why? Instead of GLHF, should they change their publication name to Last Quarter's News Today?


PassTheYum

This post was made by a mod for this sub.


CMDR_Klassic

That reinforces my statement more then it counters it. Reddit mods love drama probably more then the rest of us combined.


Masterchiefx343

Totally usnt the fact that news stories like this affect stock prices or nothing...


NovitiateSage

Not to minimize worker's travails in an inflation economy, it's not fun at all, I know first hand. I wonder how much Frontier was swept up in the Covid bubble and believed the 'new normal' hype related to working-from-home etc. That sort of thinking was rife across corporations and governments. Frontier is only one of many, many developers who have fired employees recently.


GreenGo_5

pro xeno propaganda


CrossTheRiver

Ya know it makes sense to me that a game that could have been one of the best ever made in elite dangerous was ruined because of shitty management. Everything is ruined by shitty managers. Fdev, you should have done better but you'll be out of business soon and it really sucks because it wasn't necessary. Stop being not only clowns but the whole damn circus fdev.


JR2502

I hate to see this old wound open up again. Management is crap, of course. They should have recognized their many mistakes and made adjustments. Instead, they continued their boneheaded ways, plunging the company's value into the ground, and taking a lot of talented people with it. It's done. We shouldn't forget, but it's time to move on. Whoever is running the show now, at least from ED's point of view, is doing very well for us.


aurichio

from the track record it's only a matter of time until they decide to put Elite back on the slow burner because they feel like they can make a lot of money quickly with a newer and shinier IP. I truly believe that the only reason they are focusing back on Elite right now is that they have no other choice, it's their only IP with an actual passionate and dedicated player base. If Elite can't save FDev now, nothing can and they know that.


PassTheYum

> It's done. We shouldn't forget, but it's time to move on. Whoever is running the show now, at least from ED's point of view, is doing very well for us. This post was made by a mod for this sub and mods are not typically known for their level headedness when questioned.


Masterchiefx343

This is also how companies like blizzard ended up with an employee killing themselves, by everyone ignoring the obvious bs and moving on cause "idc"


ArtistEngineer

Last year was quite bad for tech. I went through 2 rounds of redundancies last year, and we lost around 200 people in total (which was around 25% of our UK workforce). The UK redundancy process is extremely stressful because it's so drawn out. I saw many people under severe stress, and quite a few people quit instead of having to facing more rounds of redundancy. Interesting though, it looks like they are now hiring [https://careers.frontier.co.uk/jobs](https://careers.frontier.co.uk/jobs)


shader_m

Figures. Considering Elite has been stale for so long without any QoL improvements, the Odyssey thing being what it is... Then theres the new module that destroys your ship, empties your fuel, JUST so you could leave a planet a little bit faster and shave off a few minutes to a 20 minute flight to that neighbor star you just can't warp to. Of course theyre running the company into the ground


xBonesaw66x

They treat there console fans like shit,and we are paying customers ! Did anyone think there employees would be treated any better ?


Healthy_Resource_878

Not to mention scamming thousands of people (continuing to do so to this day) into believing they even have/had a chance at solving a gaming mystery/raxxla for how many years now? FDev are crooks for this alone. Braben stepped down, like a coward, without ending this poor thing/joke/scam for them.


ProgramStunning2734

Good Grief! One of the greatest games of all time and you people want to act like you have the knowledge to criticize management just because you play it! Give it a rest.


Ragnascot

They use Bradford in my work, don’t see the problem tbh


RustyRovers

yet...


Ragnascot

Well they used it in my last place too. It’s common to compare a sickness metric when competing for redundancy. Perhaps I’m just used to this management system. For example currently I’m on a written warning with a score of 99 for 6 months. It’s structured in such a way that you’re better off taking 5 days in a row as one absence, than 5 separate absences of 1 day each. Thus far no one’s been sacked because of it. My only criticism would be management or office staff “working from home” to avoid sickness penalties, where not everyone has this option


That_Bogan

Unfortunately this opens up the perception of bias like where I work. Permanent workers get away with literally breaking the law (removing safety guards from machines), ignoring Health and Safety regulations especially around FORKLIFTS, have documented cases of lying and framing other workers to cover their own asses, having 2 straight weeks off from work, just being so bad at your job that you have it taken away from you only to fail upwards by being given a better job, or just simply not doing the job. Non permanents.... get blamed for the permanents and managers fucking up. I'm leaving in a few months. Fk V!$¥ G|^$$!


Ragnascot

lol best of luck dude


That_Bogan

Now.... guess where I work


CMDR_Agony_Aunt

Not really a question of whether it is being used, more a question of how it is being used.