Some companies are dealing with the growing shortage of managerial talent and the rapid changes in employment patterns. Others, instead of struggling, are adapting and adopting new paradigms.
One such company is Netflix, today’s entertainment and streaming giant.
Although the rise of its international visibility is relatively recent, Netflix has been operating since 1997, and today it is one of the world’s most successful companies with nearly 100 million subscribers across nearly two hundred countries.
In 2013, its shares tripled in value and the company won three Emmy awards. For 2020, it won 21 Emmy awards out of 160 nominations.
How does Netflix do that?
In addition to a very clear value proposition, Netflix has opted for a unique organisational culture and talent approach.
The Netflix dream team
Like most companies, Netflix wants to hire the best. But unlike many, it is also committed to keeping only the best talent, so if an employee’s skills or talents are no longer growing the company, the company lets them go.
Using a general criterion called the “Keeper test”, managers are encouraged not to keep people on their team that they are not entirely satisfied with. The rule is very simple, ‘Would you be willing to fight for this employee if he or she decided to leave the company?” And if the answer is “no”, Netflix thinks, why don’t you let them go and make room for someone you would fight for?
“The best thing you can do for your team, maybe more than just let them play football or put in a free sushi bar, is to hire only committed employees. Excellent employees make everything else go smoothly.” − Paty McCord, manager of Talent Education at Netflix.
A work team, not a family
In companies like Google, which take pride in being a “big family”, it can be seen how the lack of concise criteria and the subjectivity of hierarchical relationships can cause unusual delays in projects that should be simple.
Netflix has put all that aside. Its employees must become familiar with an organisational culture in which the company clearly states it is a team, not a family or a “recreational kindergarten”.
Every employee who comes to Netflix must read a document that contains its positions regarding the work culture, which includes in a perfectly clear way the 10 criteria that make an employee stay in the company or not, since these are the true values of an organisation:
- Good judgment
- Communication
- Curiosity
- Courage
- Passion
- Loyalty
- Innovation
- Inclusion
- Integrity
- Efficiency
This document, with its policy of responsibility and freedom has caused a stir among Silicon Valley companies.
And such important figures as Sheryl Sanberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, have confirmed that it is probably one of the most important documents that will define the course of human resources in companies of this type.
Target-oriented work teams
Most companies seek to consolidate a stable work team. At Netflix, on the other hand, the dynamics have more to do with forming highly efficient work groups that once they meet their objective dissolve, join into new groups and dissolve again.
Although it is not the typical work scheme of companies, it is what defines film crews in Hollywood films and consultancies, for example.
Being fired from this company does not mean that an employee is bad, it just means that they are not a spectacular employee.
In addition, Netflix’s work policies are specifically oriented to avoid the most common vices that reduce the productivity of work teams.
The emphasis is on results and people, not processes. If someone gets amazing results with little effort, they will be rewarded above anyone else who gets good results with hard work.
‘Compared to what we want to achieve, we suck’
One of the qualities that distinguishes Netflix’s labour policy document from others is that it uses completely open, frank, clear language and avoids any kind of politically-correct euphemisms.
In this way, it naturally establishes how it interprets the company’s present and what future it aspires to.
Company leaders must be able to make decisions that anticipate at least six months into the future and push the limits of their productivity.
They also must try new things and find strategies that bring the team closer to achieving its goals more quickly.
At Workana, as at Netflix, we are convinced that the foundation of a great company is its culture.
We also believe that a strong and consistent organisational culture can be formed with remote teams and freelancers. In fact, more than half of our employees work under this modality and this has innumerable benefits.
And, above all, we are 100% aware that the best talent and the professionals most committed to a project can be freelancers.
Wanting to hire an entire team of professionals? Workana can help! Click here to find out how they can help your company grow with remote experts.