WWE merges departments, lays off slew of digital, editorial, and production staff

[Big Red Machine]

https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2021/05/25 ... ion-staff/

BY BRUCE LEE HAZELWOOD, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

May 25, 2021


Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com has reported that WWE has merged their Advanced Media Group with the TV department, resulting in many employees being laid off. He reported many worked on the YouTube and WWE.com side, as well as some from the editorial and production staff.

Sapp also noted that HR meetings were scheduled for this afternoon for those who were laid off. He said, “There are some high ranking people in those departments and longtime supervisors among the cuts.”

Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com reported that of the high ranking officials, those who were laid off included Jaylar Donlan, WWE’s Executive Vice President, Advanced Media Group who had been with WWE for eight years. He also reported that multiple divisions will be folded under and overseen directly by Kevin Dunn.

Johnson said the reasoning behind the cuts is that WWE felt there were too many redundancies, citing having two graphics department as an example (one for TV and one for digital).

[cero2k]

Redundancy cuts are the worst. half of the people lose their jobs, the other get double the work with no pay raise.

[Big Red Machine]

Redundancy cuts are the worst. half of the people lose their jobs, the other get double the work with no pay raise.

You're assuming that the people who were staying already had their plates full. If that were the case, then they wouldn't have cut that many people when they merged the departments.

Also, this might be my ignorance of graphic design talking, but I assume that WWE will want uniformity across platforms, so I don't think the result of this will be the remaining people having to come up with twice as many ideas so much as just the one set of ideas being applied across all platforms, and all they'll have to do is program the pre-existing graphics in. Like I said, I could be totally wrong on this and I have no idea how much work it is to put a graphic into a computer, but I don't think their actual workload will increase too much.

[cero2k]

Redundancy cuts are the worst. half of the people lose their jobs, the other get double the work with no pay raise.

You're assuming that the people who were staying already had their plates full. If that were the case, then they wouldn't have cut that many people when they merged the departments.

Also, this might be my ignorance of graphic design talking, but I assume that WWE will want uniformity across platforms, so I don't think the result of this will be the remaining people having to come up with twice as many ideas so much as just the one set of ideas being applied across all platforms, and all they'll have to do is program the pre-existing graphics in. Like I said, I could be totally wrong on this and I have no idea how much work it is to put a graphic into a computer, but I don't think their actual workload will increase too much.

Plate full or half way doesn't mean that you're not getting more work than before, and likely, for no pay increase. Work doesn't mean that you need to have a full plate all the time, and for sure, people deciding that redundancy needs to be eliminated, don't actually know what a plate size is, they just see redundancy of positions. If the company found themselves with a lot of employees doing little work, then fire the incompetent manager, not the employees that were only doing their share of the work given.

WWE does have uniformity for the most part either way, but they also generate a crazy amount of graphics for
- website graphics
- network graphics
- show posters
- email lists
- match graphics
- ppv theme design
- tshirt designs
- other merch designs
- general publicity per each show
- and much more probably

As much templating you can do, it's still A LOT of work to be done, on a monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily basis.

[Big Red Machine]

I totally see what you're saying, but I'm not sure all of these things are handled by the TV graphics department. I'm pretty sure that merch designs are their own department. And I think part of the point of this is to make, TV graphics, YouTube stuff, website graphics, and general publicity stuff pretty much the same.

For match graphics, I always assumed they have a stock graphic for every wrestler that they just plug into background. I don't think that takes too much time. I'd be shocked if it takes one person as much as an hour to do the match graphics for both Raw and Smackdown each week.


Also- and I realize that I might well be in the minority here- I think it would be a better use of the company's resources to go with the more simplistic approach towards PPV graphics where the logo is pretty much just the name of the show and you just change the color and maybe slightly change the font every year.

I'm also not sure that you're right that the people making the cuts don't know if people's plates are full or not. Any time things have been added to my workload, my boss has always checked in with me first to see if I thought my plate was full or not, and that has even been in the case of "someone just got fired and we need someone to take over this project." If this was a planned thing, then surely any responsible company would make sure the people who are going to be having their workload increased won't be burdened to the point they will fall behind, because that outcome wouldn't be good for the company, no matter how much money they are saving by eliminating salaries of redundant employees.

[cero2k]

Also- and I realize that I might well be in the minority here- I think it would be a better use of the company's resources to go with the more simplistic approach towards PPV graphics where the logo is pretty much just the name of the show and you just change the color and maybe slightly change the font every year.

As a big fan of when WWE used to have different stages for each show, I'd totally vote for the extra expense to make shows unique.

I'm also not sure that you're right that the people making the cuts don't know if people's plates are full or not. Any time things have been added to my workload, my boss has always checked in with me first to see if I thought my plate was full or not, and that has even been in the case of "someone just got fired and we need someone to take over this project." If this was a planned thing, then surely any responsible company would make sure the people who are going to be having their workload increased won't be burdened to the point they will fall behind, because that outcome wouldn't be good for the company, no matter how much money they are saving by eliminating salaries of redundant employees.

I've honestly experienced both things, good managers that make sure you get the right workload for you, and the right tasks for your expertise. I've also experienced jobs (my last one at a WWE-size company, if not bigger), where a coworker left, I took over her tasks "for the meantime", and because things need to get done, the company decided that I was managing ok and didn't hire a new person until I brought it up, and even then, they just trained the new person for new tasks because my manager was a wimp that never spoke up to the client's demands and his own manager.

I think they key there is 'responsible company', while WWE tends to fall on the 'greedy company', as most companies their size do.

[Big Red Machine]

I think they key there is 'responsible company', while WWE tends to fall on the 'greedy company', as most companies their size do.

I'm not going to say that WWE isn't greedy, but if you look at it historically, that greediness has always expressed itself on the wrestling side, not the (lacking a better term) "normal" side (to the point where when they once had to cut a bunch of salaries, the only people in the office whose salaries go cut were people like JJ, Prichard, Ross, etc.) And I can't imagine we wouldn't have heard something if there was something to hear because those people are taking a lot less of a risk by speaking out (especially after they leave) than wrestling people are.

[cero2k]

I think they key there is 'responsible company', while WWE tends to fall on the 'greedy company', as most companies their size do.

I'm not going to say that WWE isn't greedy, but if you look at it historically, that greediness has always expressed itself on the wrestling side, not the (lacking a better term) "normal" side (to the point where when they once had to cut a bunch of salaries, the only people in the office whose salaries go cut were people like JJ, Prichard, Ross, etc.) And I can't imagine we wouldn't have heard something if there was something to hear because those people are taking a lot less of a risk by speaking out (especially after they leave) than wrestling people are.

Given everything that WWE has, at any point, tried to get into, there must be a ton of stories like that, but because they're the 'wrestling' company, maybe it's not something that makes a lot of noise in financial news, and the wrestling news sees it as 'not wrestling' enough.

Maybe it is them trying to do so much stuff all over the place that has allowed them to relocate people, especially in production, but I also personally know people from the old 24/7 division, where the job was to watch and flag and note the whole WWE library for things that needed to be digitized. From my understanding, once the library catches up to the digital stuff of the 2000's, most people were released in a big group, and I don't think they were 'contractors', because my friend proudly keeps bringing up having a release letter from WWE.

[Big Red Machine]

I think they key there is 'responsible company', while WWE tends to fall on the 'greedy company', as most companies their size do.

I'm not going to say that WWE isn't greedy, but if you look at it historically, that greediness has always expressed itself on the wrestling side, not the (lacking a better term) "normal" side (to the point where when they once had to cut a bunch of salaries, the only people in the office whose salaries go cut were people like JJ, Prichard, Ross, etc.) And I can't imagine we wouldn't have heard something if there was something to hear because those people are taking a lot less of a risk by speaking out (especially after they leave) than wrestling people are.

Given everything that WWE has, at any point, tried to get into, there must be a ton of stories like that, but because they're the 'wrestling' company, maybe it's not something that makes a lot of noise in financial news, and the wrestling news sees it as 'not wrestling' enough.

There was a time when the wrestling news would see it as "not wrestling enough," but not anymore, and there have been people like David Bixenspan who have looked around for these things from the past and haven't found anything.
As for the regular media... they LOVE sh*tting on pro wrestling. If something came out, they would have made a big deal out of it.

Maybe it is them trying to do so much stuff all over the place that has allowed them to relocate people, especially in production, but I also personally know people from the old 24/7 division, where the job was to watch and flag and note the whole WWE library for things that needed to be digitized. From my understanding, once the library catches up to the digital stuff of the 2000's, most people were released in a big group, and I don't think they were 'contractors', because my friend proudly keeps bringing up having a release letter from WWE.

Call me heartless, but if you were hired specifically to help inventory a library (or finish digitizing one), then you shouldn't be too shocked to be released when the project is finished.

[cero2k]

Maybe it is them trying to do so much stuff all over the place that has allowed them to relocate people, especially in production, but I also personally know people from the old 24/7 division, where the job was to watch and flag and note the whole WWE library for things that needed to be digitized. From my understanding, once the library catches up to the digital stuff of the 2000's, most people were released in a big group, and I don't think they were 'contractors', because my friend proudly keeps bringing up having a release letter from WWE.

Call me heartless, but if you were hired specifically to help inventory a library (or finish digitizing one), then you shouldn't be too shocked to be released when the project is finished.

Yeah, that's why contractors exist, I don't know if these people were part of a bigger part and given that job, but it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't get hired as contractors. The impression I got my friend was that he was an actual employee.

[Big Red Machine]

Maybe it is them trying to do so much stuff all over the place that has allowed them to relocate people, especially in production, but I also personally know people from the old 24/7 division, where the job was to watch and flag and note the whole WWE library for things that needed to be digitized. From my understanding, once the library catches up to the digital stuff of the 2000's, most people were released in a big group, and I don't think they were 'contractors', because my friend proudly keeps bringing up having a release letter from WWE.

Call me heartless, but if you were hired specifically to help inventory a library (or finish digitizing one), then you shouldn't be too shocked to be released when the project is finished.

Yeah, that's why contractors exist, I don't know if these people were part of a bigger part and given that job, but it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't get hired as contractors. The impression I got my friend was that he was an actual employee.

So what you're saying is that WWE gave them benefits when they didn't have to?

Or maybe WWE legit doesn't understand the difference between employee and contractor? That's not a good for WWE, but at least it's consistent and makes their treatment of wrestlers based on ignorance rather than malicious advantage-taking.

[cero2k]

So what you're saying is that WWE gave them benefits when they didn't have to?

Or maybe WWE legit doesn't understand the difference between employee and contractor? That's not a good for WWE, but at least it's consistent and makes their treatment of wrestlers based on ignorance rather than malicious advantage-taking.

What I'm saying is that they were hired for a job at a division, were eventually used for this specific project, and when the project ended, instead of going into a new project, like most employees in most companies would, were released like if they had been contractors.

If you're a lawyer and are given a case, you don't get fired after you're done with your case, you move onto a new one.

[Big Red Machine]

So what you're saying is that WWE gave them benefits when they didn't have to?

Or maybe WWE legit doesn't understand the difference between employee and contractor? That's not a good for WWE, but at least it's consistent and makes their treatment of wrestlers based on ignorance rather than malicious advantage-taking.

What I'm saying is that they were hired for a job at a division, were eventually used for this specific project, and when the project ended, instead of going into a new project, like most employees in most companies would, were released like if they had been contractors.

If you're a lawyer and are given a case, you don't get fired after you're done with your case, you move onto a new one.

But not always for the same client. And if you're hired as a corporate lawyer at a time when the company is facing a rash of lawsuits, I don't think it's unfair if you're let go when the amount of lawsuits dies down. Ditto with a PR person during a publicity storm, etc.
Being moved on to a new project makes sense, but it requires there to be a new project to which your skills are suited for you to move onto. If the project is done and everything else you could do is already being covered by someone else... well...

[cero2k]

But not always for the same client. And if you're hired as a corporate lawyer at a time when the company is facing a rash of lawsuits, I don't think it's unfair if you're let go when the amount of lawsuits dies down. Ditto with a PR person during a publicity storm, etc.
Being moved on to a new project makes sense, but it requires there to be a new project to which your skills are suited for you to move onto. If the project is done and everything else you could do is already being covered by someone else... well...

That is incredibly fucked up. Imagine being a great employee and you get moved to this new big project, you're so efficient you finish the project, but since someone already filled out the tasks you were doing before, you're gone because your position just became redundant.

[Big Red Machine]

But not always for the same client. And if you're hired as a corporate lawyer at a time when the company is facing a rash of lawsuits, I don't think it's unfair if you're let go when the amount of lawsuits dies down. Ditto with a PR person during a publicity storm, etc.
Being moved on to a new project makes sense, but it requires there to be a new project to which your skills are suited for you to move onto. If the project is done and everything else you could do is already being covered by someone else... well...

That is incredibly fucked up. Imagine being a great employee and you get moved to this new big project, you're so efficient you finish the project, but since someone already filled out the tasks you were doing before, you're gone because your position just became redundant.

I'm talking about someone who is hired at the beginning of a project to work on that project, not someone moved from elsewhere in the company. In the case of someone moved onto that project from another part of the company, I would assume they evaluate which of the redundant talents to cut based on a mix of ability, sandbox skills, and seniority.
And if someone brought on at the beginning of a project is good enough, they'll want to keep that person on and will let someone else go when they do redundancy cuts.

[Thelone]

I don't know if I'm just so used to temp/short contracted work, but I don't see what the big deal is.

[cero2k]

I don't know if I'm just so used to temp/short contracted work, but I don't see what the big deal is.

It's not as long as the company has been upfront that short term is the nature of the hiring. I was just saying that the nature of redundancy cuts tend to such for everyone, the ones who are fired and the ones who stay.