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Is Netflix's 2009 Culture Deck Still Relevant Today To Shape Company Culture?

This article is more than 5 years old.

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I recently listened to the latest Without Fail podcast by Gimlet Media founder Alex Blumberg where he interviews former Netflix Talent Officer of fourteen years, Patty McCord. In 2009, McCord, along with Netflix CEO Reed Hasting, published the Netflix Culture Deck which at the time created some reaction in the HR and tech world. I became curious about this deck, first due to my professional interest in company culture, in particular how fundamental and difficult it is to build one, but also because the Netflix Culture Deck is now eighteen years old. I wanted to find out if there were any aspects of the deck that are still relevant and be inspired by today. Certainly, the Netflix of ten years ago is not what we know of Netflix today. So Hasting and McCord must have done something right but is HR now stuck in 2009? What is still relevant from it and why? And where is HR heading?

THE NETFLIX DECK IN THREE COMPREHENSIVE POINTS

  1. ACTIONABLE – In general, the deck offers actions for each concept. It offers concrete examples of what it means when applied in the office setting.  For example, each of the nine value is followed by actionable steps. A one-word value can mean a plethora of things depending on each employees experience and background. So by giving specific details about how Netflix understands each word, it gives a framework on how to embody the values. For example, if the value is HONESTY; then the Action is that ‘You only say things about fellow employees you will say to their face.’
  2. QUESTION-BASED MINDSET – The deck asks the direct employee questions as well as prompting them to question their management team. For example: ‘When one of your talented people does something dumb, don’t blame them. Ask yourself what context you failed to set.’ Netflix is a company that hires self-aware, empowered employees who proactively challenge themselves, their manager and their team. At each level, questions are key in sorting out challenges.
  3. UPFRONT – Netflix’s culture is not for everyone. Being upfront about their company culture helps them to accelerate their selection process. People who do not align with the culture will not thrive and therefore probably do not apply to a job at Netflix. The definition of freedom is extensively laid out; for example, employees are required to perform highly and they can also choose how many leave days they take.

WHAT NOW, IN 2019?

This deck was created to reduce the administrative load of HR at Netflix. Empowering employees and being specific about their goal in the organization, frees the HR department from tedious shores and following heavy processes. I interviewed Rob O’Donovan, CEO and co-founder of CharlieHR to find out a bit more about how HR evolved and where it is going:

First, nobody knows how to define HR, it is an ambiguous term that on one side refers to dealing with clinical policies, and on the other side refers to management, which impacts everyone in the company. HR biggest challenge is that no one knows what it really means. We experienced a huge shift in leadership and what we believe every great HR department should focus on is to, one, hire the best talent and secondly, create a workplace people want to work for. HR moved from being about structure and processes to build high-performing organizations. The question HR asks now is; How can we best value people in the organization so we create more and more impact?

Since 2001, the use of technology within organizations changed dramatically as well as how the board cares about its workforce. On one side CharlieHR helps companies to automate all of the administrative duties and on the other side, it gathers anonymous data on how the company is run. In the same vein as the Netflix’s deck, CharlieHR focuses on freeing time for the HR manager or the Talent Team so they can focus on developing strategies for employees to work the best way possible.

O’Donovan explains that data is at the core of what they offer. CharlieHR gathers data by sending a weekly survey to all employees with simple questions such as ‘Do you feel your ideas are listened to?’. ‘It is crucial nowadays to present the company cases with real data so they can take decisions reflecting employees needs and build a high performing organization. From small businesses to corporate, everyone at board level is caring about retaining great talents, so all of that data is key to keep the best talents. The reason why we started CharlieHR is because the best advantage companies have is their people.’

CharlieHR

IS FITTING IN THINKING ALIKE?

O’Donovan believes that there is no right or wrong culture, each company needs a strong culture and be vocal about it in order to hire adequate employees.

A company openly saying ‘this is who we are, if you don’t fit in, we are not for you’, makes me wonder if the company is building a culture leading to groupthink? After the extensive research on the benefits of hiring diverse teams in the last years, is there a danger to create homogeneous teams by being so categorical? Is it legitimate to reduce fitting into a culture to thinking the same way? Lots to ponder on, I would love to know your thoughts on the subject, especially if you worked at a company where groupthink was at play.

The Netflix Culture deck finishes with the words ‘We keep improving our culture as we grow. We try to get better at seeking excellence.’ Beyond new technology, market crashes, and societal shifts, the secret sauce to a successful company culture seems to be following these steps; adopt clear goals, listen, adapt, grow, fail, repeat. So to answer my earlier questions, I believe we can still learn from what was created in 2001 but regarding the future of HR, it is a safe bet to imagine Artificial Intelligence being part of the team soon.

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