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- da-dum! 🥁 what hr can learn from netflix
da-dum! 🥁 what hr can learn from netflix
spoiler: it's not how to survive squid game
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Howdy HR friends!👋
Hope you’re all having a super start to the week!
Today we’re looking at another famous HR example. This time from Netflix.
Because it’s not just monster salaries that attracts and keeps talent at Netflix. It’s their best in class (common sense) approach to HR.
No time to hang around, so let’s jump in shall we?
🚦Coming up
In today’s edition
🎬 Netflix's HR Revolution: Lessons for Every People Team
🛋️ The Break Room: Would you adopt Netflix's "principles over policies" approach in your organization?
📚 Human Readsources: AI's impact on workplace transformation, summer productivity challenges, and navigating “viral” workplace relationships.
💭Opening thoughts
It all started with a “magic” manual
It’s a spell-binding read (even for muggles)
Did you know that Netflix, with just 17,000 employees, generates nearly $45 billion in annual revenue?
That's an impressive $2.6 million per employee.
All while maintaining one of the leanest HR policy frameworks in the Fortune 500. One second while we pick our jaws up off the floor! 😮
Their legendary culture memo demonstrates how stripping away bureaucracy in favor of high-performance principles can create some pretty exceptional business outcomes.
As HR pros, what can we learn from the streaming giant?
In short: treating professionals like adults can be both more efficient and more effective.
For easy reading
Today’s edition is presented by
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🧠Let’s unpick
🎬 Netflix's HR Revolution: Lessons for Every People Team
Netflix's famous culture memo has become the HR equivalent of a blockbuster.
Influential, widely discussed, and recently (2024) refreshed for modern audiences.
While most companies build bureaucratic fortresses of policies, Netflix operates on the radical premise that treating employees like responsible adults yields better results.
Their approach of "freedom with responsibility" challenges traditional HR thinking and offers valuable lessons for teams drowning in process.
The power of Netflix's approach lies in its focus on context over control.
As their culture document states, they've replaced formal policies with simple principles like "Act in Netflix's best interest" for expenses and a two-word vacation policy: "Take vacation."
This streamlined approach has helped them scale to 17,000+ employees while maintaining their culture, proving principles can outperform policies.
The key takeaway isn't to copy Netflix's model wholesale, but to examine where your processes might be creating friction rather than results.
Consider where you could replace rigid policies with guiding principles.
And in the next section we’ll look at a few other things you can try to “Netflix-ise” your people processes.
Like implementing simple, more honest feedback mechanisms, or using “take what you need” vacation systems rather than the troublesome “unlimited vacation days”.
You can read more at...
👀Too long didn’t read
TLDR
Treating employees like adults, prioritizing principles over policies, and valuing honest feedback. Re-think your own processes to drive better business results rather than just maintaining bureaucracy.
Today’s edition is still presented by
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🎬Lights, camera, action!
Takeaway and try
🔄 Audit one policy monthly that feels bureaucratic and replace it with a simple guiding principle that treats employees like responsible adults.
🗣️ Create "Candor Circles" where team members can practice giving and receiving honest (and rapid) feedback in a safe environment before implementing more radical honesty company-wide.
📊 Replace your traditional performance review process with more frequent, informal check-ins focused on growth rather than grades.
🏖️ Experiment with a "Take what you need" vacation policy for a single quarter and measure both usage and team performance to see if trust drives better outcomes.
🚪 Rethink your retention strategies by asking departing high performers exactly what would have kept them. Then actually implement those changes for remaining team members.
☕The break room
What’s your take?
📚Additional reading
Human Readsources
🤖 AI Reshapes Work: Human Skills Gain Value (HR Dive) - AI implementation mismatches worker preferences with technical capabilities.
☀️ Gen Z Leads Summer Slowdown at Work (HR Brew) - Younger workers more likely to ease up during summer months.
👀 Tech CEO and HR Chief Caught on Coldplay Kiss-Cam (HR Grapevine) - Tech CEO and HR chief caught embracing at Coldplay concert.
That’s it for today.
Thanks for reading to the end and we hope today’s edition sparked some new ideas for your workplace! 🧠
We know you’re super busy and really appreciate you saving some room for us in your inbox 😀
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