Disney technical staff are pressing management for answers, as the company has already carried out several rounds of large-scale layoffs this year, and there are rumors that more layoffs are yet to come.
Several employees told Business Insider that they were troubled by low morale, with some even deliberately pretending to be "very busy"; during the company meeting on Thursday, some colleagues also openly expressed their dissatisfaction.
A Disney software engineer wrote during the Q&A session of the all-staff meeting on Thursday afternoon: "Do we know when the cost-cutting plan will start?"
Business Insider saw screenshots of some issues. This issue was submitted in written form during the Q&A session of the meeting.
This uncertainty emerged following a report by Bloomberg a few days ago. Bloomberg stated that Disney plans to lay off thousands of employees, and sources said the company also asked some managers to set an annual cost-saving target of 20%. Disney declined to comment on Bloomberg's report. Disney also did not respond to the request for comment regarding Business Insider.
A senior technical employee asked, "Would it be better for employee morale if employees heard about future changes to benefits and layoffs from management first, rather than from the media?"
The third technical employee asked, "How do you expect these cost cuts to affect MPA?"
MPA refers to Disney's “Media Platform Alliance”, which includes the streaming media distribution, infrastructure, and metadata teams.
The fourth employee asked management if they had any understanding of the reasons behind the "quotation for the early retirement scheme." Disney had previously offered this scheme to some executives, and Deadline first reported on the related news at the end of August. Disney's creative director, Dana Walden, stated at a Bloomberg event on October 1st that the company offered an "extremely generous" early retirement plan.
Two employees from the streaming media department who attended the meeting stated that during this all-staff meeting, Disney's leadership in the streaming media business did not provide any specific answers regarding whether layoffs would occur or when they might happen.
An employee also asked what arrangements Disney has made for these newly hired c.ai employees, referring to the 66 employees recruited by the company from Character.AI for a cost of 60 million US dollars. Character.AI is a AI chatbot startup that filed for bankruptcy in mid-October. Disney's new chief technology officer, Karandeep Anand, was previously the CEO of Character.AI and joined Disney at the beginning of October.
This technical employee asked, 'What kind of work will they do?'
After the meeting, several Disney employees expressed their dissatisfaction on Blind. Blind is an anonymous forum, but it verifies users' work emails before allowing them to view a company's page.
A Blind user said, "Their answers during the Q&A session made my blood pressure soar."
Another user with the ID Blind described this all-staff meeting as “forced positivity,” stating that management “completely ignored the actual changes and issues that were undermining morale.”
"Greatly undermines motivation"
Before the team meeting on Thursday, four employees stated this week that reports of layoffs and the potential for such actions were affecting morale within Disney.
A senior engineer said that reports of upcoming layoffs "are very disheartening," and even though he had just received a positive annual evaluation, he still felt down because of it.
"I've experienced this enough times to know that it doesn't mean it's safe," said this person.
Another software engineer said that Disney employees are now very nervous and eager to prove that they are doing their duty.
“Everyone seems to be busier than before,” said this person, noting that some higher-level technical staff are also “attending meetings that they would have skipped otherwise.”
In the first seven months after the appointment of CEO Josh D ' Amaro, Disney carried out three rounds of layoffs. At the end of October, they submitted a WARN notice in California, indicating that the company planned to lay off 159 employees from the parks.
