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Skydance Offers Buyouts, Gives 5-Day RTO Order (variety.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the one-time-offer dept.
Skydance, as it begins integrating Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, is offering voluntary buyouts to some employees and imposing a five-day-a-week office requirement. Layoffs are also expected as the company targets more than $6 billion in annualized cost savings within three years. Variety reports: The new program was outlined by chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz in a memo to staffers Monday. "As we bring our teams together, we recognize that not everyone will see their future here, and we respect that. To give eligible employees the option to move on in a way that works for them, we are introducing a Voluntary Buyout (VBO) Program," the execs wrote. "Those who qualify will receive an individual communication with their personalized details and terms, and a window to decide whether to accept this one-time offer."

They added, "Please know we don't take any of this lightly. We are clear about what we're building: a company that tells the stories people around the world love, embraces new ways to connect with audiences, and leads the next era of media and entertainment. We have the talent, the creative firepower and the ambition to do it, and we will get there together."

[...] In the Oct. 26 memo, Ellison and Kreiz also said the new Skydance is moving to a mandatory five-days-per-week in-office policy across the company. "We believe in-person collaboration is vital to our culture and to the success of our business. Especially in a creative company like ours, the best ideas come from people in the same room, sharing perspectives, challenging one another and solving problems," the execs said. "We truly believe this is in the best interest of our company and our people. We've seen the benefits firsthand at Paramount, and we want every part of Skydance to share in them."

Skydance Offers Buyouts, Gives 5-Day RTO Order More | Reply

Skydance Offers Buyouts, Gives 5-Day RTO Order

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  • RTOAI (Score:3)

    by anonymouscoward52236 ( 6163996 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @06:05PM (#66394788)

    I am going to coin a new term. Return To Office as AI. ðY (That is to say: not. We don't need you anymore. Here's a buyout.)

  • ha (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gabrieltss ( 64078 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @06:20PM (#66394824)
    The "mandatory five-days-per-week in-office policy" is all about quite firing.

    • Re:ha (Score:5, Informative)

      by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @07:13PM (#66394940)

      The buyouts are a solid indication that Skydance is looking to reduce headcount. Announcing a 5 day RTO policy at the same time shows that the management also views RTO as a pathway to reduced headcount. Less about being quiet and more like being very conspicuous.

      • They'll reduce headcount all right, and keep the ones who are desperate and can't get remote work. The best employees are more likely to be able to land jobs that allow remote work. Nice move Skydance.

    • The "mandatory five-days-per-week in-office policy" is all about quite firing.

      Hardly, there's a significant portion of the management workforce who always hated the idea of WFH where employees were not visibly manageable. They have a separate loud firing policy in place currently.

      The reality is companies were pushing for return to office but were at odds with how to sneak it in as a new policy in a way that doesn't single handily look like a reversal of previous "new normal". You typically see this coincide with mergers, building renovations (or relocations), or simply changes of CEO

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Obviously. But it is the most extremely stupid way to do it because you are going to lose everybody that you actually critically need. Some immediately, some when they see the whole company has gone to shit. And these people usually have no trouble finding jobs where they get treated better.

      I by now firmly believe that the economics grads behind this level of stupid cannot see individual people as valuable. They see everybody just as resource to be used and they see them as essentially the same. That any la

      • Obviously. But it is the most extremely stupid way to do it because you are going to lose everybody that you actually critically need. Some immediately, some when they see the whole company has gone to shit. And these people usually have no trouble finding jobs where they get treated better.

        All the WFH proponents on Slashdot are always making the case they are Super, Ultra, Mega productive and would be missed terribly if they took their homework elsewhere. Even the ones admitting their awesome productivity affords them time during work hours to get their laundry done, zip off to the grocery and walk the family pooch are essential to the company's utter survival.

        I, however, am sick of calls going unreturned to the voicemail void, sending emails that apparently go to /dev/null and hearing th

  • Went conspicuously overboard on wfh?

    Made a point of attaching a class or political valence to it in the process?

    Now enjoy the backlash to take it away from the abusers *and* the normies.

    Universal answer to why we can't have nice things: morons who abuse it combined with a lack of adults in the room to police it.

    • Misplaced resentment (Score:5, Interesting)

      by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @06:53PM (#66394888)
      I work for a company that successfully went fully remote, so I didn't experience much of what you're complaining about.

      That said, you're lecturing the powerless in defense of a scam, and it is kinda gross.

      There were literally months of articles and lawsuits predicting Oradance would have to make vicious labor cuts because generally (a) media consolidation plays like this always do, and specifically (b) this outfit is drowning in debt. This was as predictable as a Trump whine after a court loss. I can't tell if you're intentionally playing the fool to bang on your personal resentments or not, but Ellison isn't fooling anyone else.

      And back on the WFH thing, if folks in your workplace abused things, that's a management problem. Lots of other outfits handle it just fine. We let two people go that I know of who couldn't hold it together without being in an office, early on (I think in 2021). And for several years we've been performing better than we were before[1].

      If your army is fat and lazy, you replace the commander, not the grunts.

      [1] To be clear, I'm not crediting WFH for all that. There are multiple reasons for our performance. But one big change we made when we went remote was instructions to hiring managers to find the best people they could and don't worry about where they are unless the job required it. And given that geographically we compete with Google and Facebook and the LLM vendors without being able to match pay, that mattered. We've picked up a lot of great talent over the last half decade, and most of it has stayed because management is also smart enough to understand the value of retaining people.

    • Hate to break it to ya... not ever single thing has to be about a class or a political side.

      I do agree with the last sentence... but not the political bull that you attach to it.

  • "As we bring our teams together, we recognize that not everyone will see their future here, and we respect that" nice NLP wording... it translates to "you're not firing me, it is I who don't want to be here" (nevermind if you're bullying me...)

    • Don't worry... AI will take all of their jobs and/or there won't be any jobs for beginners just out of school.
      On the application, you have to have ten years experience in this position... even though nobody will hire you without that real world experience. And, if you get hired, you're doing like 6-100 people's jobs, same for any fast food joint (just wait until fast food attaches AI to robots equipped with machine vision... you'll see some sh** then).

      Trust me, people... AI ain't going anywhere... the only

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Archfeld ( 6757 )

        The Fry's (Kroger) near where I live now has robots in the parking lot retrieving carts. They didn't get rid of anyone because all their courtesy clerks left and went to work InstaCart I think.

        • Sounds like more fun than retrieving shopping carts. No tax on tips too, so there's that incentive driving people away from fixed hourly to more gig-like service jobs.

        • (Not sure what Fry's is)

          But, that's what is gonna happen everywhere... and, there's no fixing it.
          Your job on the assembly like at Frigidaire you thought was so safe? A robot or two (with computer vision and AI) can do your job in half the time... who needs meatsacks? The most value we have is to go in when the robots start battling eachother because one lost a step or ten on its stepper motor (or a programming 'oopsie'), or it needs more grease or oil.
          You're job on the burger line at BK? A robot can do a

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Archfeld ( 6757 )

            Fry's is a regional grocer that was bought out by the national conglomerate Kroger. Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the US. I live in one of the US's 2 biggest seasonal growth regions and the produce at the 'supermarket' is abysmal. For half of the year the farmers outlet is open and I can get super fresh whatever is in the fields. When the farms move to Salinas I am stuck with brown lettuce and shitty tomatoes, and green bannanas.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Generative AI cannot produce reasonable quality without talented and experienced people to do the prompting. And they will lose all of those now, because it is exactly these people that have no trouble finding jobs where they are treated better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rta ( 559125 )

      "As we bring our teams together, we recognize that not everyone will see their future here, and we respect that" nice NLP wording... it translates to "you're not firing me, it is I who don't want to be here" (nevermind if you're bullying me...)

      As these things go, it's fairly standard. Ultimately no matter what they say it's going to suck for people who are canned.

      In the US they don't have to offer either buyouts or severance so that is at least decent of them. And offering buyout packages is "nice" in that it makes it more likely for people who NEED the job to not get laid off, even though it's bad for the company since basically the people who take them are often high performers who can find other jobs, whereas the ones who stay are people wh

  • More specifically ... (Score:3)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @06:47PM (#66394878)

    we recognize that not everyone will see their future here

    We recognize that we don't see everyone having a future here. #FTFY

    We have the talent, the creative firepower and the ambition to do it, and we will get there together."

    But not with you.

    Noting that if the "some people" offered voluntary buyouts don't accept them, they'll be part of the non-voluntary layoffs coming next and while the latter may be a better deal for some, you won't know if that's so until it's too late.

    • We've seen the benefits firsthand at Paramount, and we want every part of Skydance to share in them. The benefit for me is less junk on my DVR...:)

  • Consistent with Paramount's direction (Score:5, Informative)

    by CommunityMember ( 6662188 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @07:37PM (#66394990)
    Paramount, after Ellison's purchase, was in the middle of a RTO process. This latest RTO directive from the combined Skydance company should not have come as a real surprise to staff.

  • I see a bright future for these 5 feet giants from China if they can go to the office instead.
    Or better, stay in the office while my AI overlord does all the work for me.

  • Long-term positive (Score:3)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday October 26, 2026 @09:51PM (#66395182) Homepage Journal

    It's a bummer if any of the employees got rug-pulled but many of the best employees will strike out on their own, form new companies with working conditions they value, and likely hasten Skydance's demise.

  • Will take a few years to become painfully obvious, but with this level of concentrated stupid, they will lose the few people that can actually make good products in their space.

  • That's is crazy. I could go into the office, but then I'd be in an office in zoom meetings all day with other offices! So my employer gets to pay me less to work from home in a lower cost of living area. It's crazy that they only have one location and can all collaberate in person!

  • ANY company doing ANYTHING that makes working conditions worse and/or even hints at staff reduction loses their best and brightest right then and there. No one wants to be part of the mass layoff group being one of a thousand resumes for every job opening.

  • Except for, you know, the people we fired.

  • Most creatives would much prefer or indeed require (to do quality work) periods of isolated solo work where they can think deeply and create with focus, intermixed with collaborative periods.

    Enlightened and actually impactful executives would also work like this rather than being in endless back to back meetings.

    This sounds like a big productivity and quality regression for a company like Skydance.
  • I bet he doesn't even have a fucking office. His forehead is too big. Fuck that guy and his creepy ass dad.

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