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BuzzFeed HR issue
Secondary Case: BuzzFeed Organizational profile of BuzzFeed BuzzFeed is a News and Entertainment company based in the New York City. It was founded in the year 2006 by Jonah Peretti, the current CEO, and John S. Johnson III. BuzzFeed produces social news, lists, videos and quizzes. BuzzFeed’s flagship channel, BuzzFeed Video has gained immense popularity. The videos have 10.2 billion views and the channel has more than 12.6 million subscribers. BuzzFeed primarily focuses on creating viral content. Due to the various viral hits, it has grown into a global media and technology company. BuzzFeed has not gained its success from the Google search results or even from his homepage. It has done so through word of mouth. The articles and videos liked by people were shared to their friends and thus creating a buzz. It has faced a lot of allegations and criticism over the years. They have faced multiple copyright infringement lawsuits and have been accused of plagiarizing a lot of their content from their competitors. In 2014, Pew Research Centre observed BuzzFeed be an unreliable source in their analysis of trust levels of news sources. Event of Interest BuzzFeed announced its Development Partner’s programme which offered its homegrown stars new creative opportunity in exchange for a vow of exclusivity. However, two employees (Jenny Lorenzo and Brittany Ashley) were fired for violating the contract by featuring in a show outside of BuzzFeed, “Gent-fied”. This led to a wave of employees resigning. This issue took place in June 2017 and came to limelight due to the “Why I left BuzzFeed” videos. Though the employees did not portray BuzzFeed in a negative manner felt the work environment was suffocating. However, in the light of the recent events, the employees that left their jobs do not agree with the previous statement. The other reasons stated by the employees for resigning their job are: 1. Though the former employees accept that they signed a contract which said that the content belongs to the organization, they felt that enough credit wasn’t given for their work. Moreover, they weren’t allowed to work on projects outside BuzzFeed or reply to comments on their videos on YouTube. According to the recent videos posted by the former employees, the organization is “owning their name”. Individuals also felt that they weren’t making videos that they could relate to, rather making ones that the organization thought would go viral on the internet. According to articles that have addressed this issue, “when taking an ethical standpoint, it (BuzzFeed) is a scary place for a creator to be”. 2. The former employees have joined organizations or created their own channels that provide a free work environment. Following this, fans and audience have pointed out that BuzzFeed has copied certain videos that were made by their former employees. 3. As stated by the employees, “BuzzFeed concentrated on producing more videos than producing quality videos and thus focusing on money-making”. This the former employees claim, added pressure and when at the end they(interns) do become producers or actors or designers, their zeal for the work is destroyed and the employees also felt very drained out. Analysis and Interpretation While most of BuzzFeed’s actions were in compliance with their contract, their environment was toxic and did not make employees feel appreciated. Most individuals who work at BuzzFeed are both highly motivated and incredibly creative. People who work here have “messy minds” and the corporate structure present at BuzzFeed hinders their growth and leads to them feeling suffocated. Most interns were subjected to a high-pressure environment which focused more on the quantity of video rather than quality. When these same interns became producers, by social cognitive theory, they didn’t break out of the environment but further helped propagate it. BuzzFeed lacked a humanistic approach to their employees. Rather than nurture their growth, employees felt that they were in an environment which thwarted their growth. Nor were their feelings accepted. Moreover, their failures were looked down upon. What employees craved for was genuineness, empathy and acceptance. With the presence of highly motivated individuals in the organization, all BuzzFeed had to do was create a happy environment to allow employees to broaden and build creating a happy, healthy and creative environment. Add to that most of the employees at BuzzFeed scored 300+ on the SRRS scale. This was due to the lack of communication and the frequent change in management and managerial decisions. Stress leads to unproductive, unhappy employees with low creativity. Also, BuzzFeed tried to motivate employees through incentives such as pay packages and catered lunches. In this way, they tried to shift the locus of control making it external rather than internal. Rather than motivating the employees this further demotivated them when they did not achieve these material goods. Conclusion and Future Recommendation The stringent terms of the Development Partners Program hampered the creative integrity of the employees which shouldn’t be the case in a responsible organization. For BuzzFeed to regain its employee loyalty and improve the quality of content produced: 1) They should give their content creators the due recognition that they deserve, help them associate with the work and interact with the viewers. 2) The employees should be given an opportunity to develop their own work, which will be under BuzzFeed’s umbrella organization and negotiations can be made accordingly. 3) Incentives that promote intrinsic motivation among employees should be exercised. 4) The organization should focus more on connecting with its employees and viewers to increase quality rather than vitality through feedbacks and suggestions. 5) Most importantly, the organization should be more transparent in its distribution of power and organizational hierarchy. BuzzFeed has silenced or rather hushed most of the allegations of the disgruntled employees by referring to them as “growing pains”. Once the company starts taking responsibility for its own employees and treating them as an integral part of the company that is “wanted” or “appreciated”, the increased satisfaction would reflect greatly on the creativity and dedication of its loyal workforce. Credits: Prachi Upadhyay Shivangi Sharma Shaurya Goel
Kaviyashree Rajkumar