It’s not a particularly good time to be an employee of Riot Games. Recently the League Of Legends developer saw a sizable portion of their employees stage a mass walkout to protest the company’s forced arbitration policy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Riot Games as a company is changing its stance on the issue.
Riot Games has come under hot water for allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and generally being a toxic work environment. The situation eventually reached its boiling point, and several lawsuits were filed. Things continued to get even uglier, as Riot’s legal policies require these lawsuits to be placed into private arbitration. And of course, when cases are resolved in private arbitration, the company typically stands to have a better chance of winning then the employee. This didn’t sit well with employees, thus leading to the walkout.
You might think that a public protest and the ensuing bad publicity would be enough for Riot to alter its policies, but apparently that’s not the case. Riot released a statement on the matter, clarifying why their private arbitration policy will remain intact:
“Ultimately, given the complexities of ongoing litigation, we will not change our employee agreements while in active litigation. We know not everyone agrees with this decision, but we also know everyone does want Riot to continue to improve.”
Riot has said that newly hired employees will be able to be exempted from the forced arbitration clause, but that obviously does nothing for current employees. Riot has also stated publicly that they have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to any form of discrimination or harassment. Although considering the reputation that Riot has gotten as of late, it’s kind of hard to believe anything their executives or lawyers have to say.
Riot has said that they are taking steps to become a better and more inclusive company. They’ve committed to updating their code of conduct, as well as creating an internal jobs board in order to help current employees find new and better roles in the company. They’ve also announced that they will commit themselves to “interviewing a diverse slate of candidates for new job listings,” which really sounds like something they should have been doing in the first place. On top of this, there will also be workshops, councils, and scorecards all designed to help promote diversity, and hopefully make the Riot offices a much healthier work environment.
A vocal majority of the employees who were part of the walkout are quite underwhelmed by this decision. Most are disappointed by the company’s response, and fear that their actions are just a bandage meant to cover up the issues that truly need resolving. It’s also rather disheartening that it took a mass protest for Riot to even begin to take these measures. Riot needs to show that they’re truly taking responsibility, and that they’re actually going to make serious changes that will allow all workers to feel safe and secure.
Otherwise, there’s only going to be more walkouts, and more bad press in Riot’s future.