14 ms·

How Netflix Reinvented HR (2014)

124 points by tim_sw 10y ago

Jun8 10y ago
"Despite her work ethic, her track record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her skills were no longer adequate." I guess I'm too soft-hearted to be successful as a C-level manager, but I find the pragmatic, calculating nature of this approach appalling, even though I agree with many parts of the argument. I had recently listened to the Planet Money episode about her work (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/28/435583328/episode-647-hard-work-is-irrelevant http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/28/435583328/episo...), at the end she was let go from Netflix abruptly, too, probably using the practice she installed. Maybe I was biased with a Robespierrean expectation of karma returning, but she sounded like that was quite a blow to her, despite all her earlier rationalistic rhetoric. Now, reading it again, brought to mind this: "It couldn't be called ungentle But how thoroughly departmental" (http://allpoetry.com/Departmental http://allpoetry.com/Departmental)
- hammock 10y ago
  Reading the title and description of that Planet Money episode, I have never heard of a coach even at the professional sports level who said hard work was irrelevant.
  - mudetroit 10y ago
    They don't say it, but if you watch how they behave that is the reality. The hardest worker won't tay on a pro sports team if they can be replaced by someone more productive, even if that person doesn't work as hard. At the end of the day pro sports, when done by successful organizations is all about production.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Hard work can be a prerequisite for ability but it is no substitute for it.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I think the key thing here is that they didn't just nuke her, the employee received a "generous" severance package. I think it's ok practice if it's a expected part of the job and is built into the compensation. But don't be fooled -- this sort of thing is a subtle change in status for finance and engineering jobs. You're no longer a professional, you're labor. That's a concept that tradesmen accept, but I don't think the average IT guy does. The company need to acknowledge what that means too. If I'm just some keyboard puncher, I could give a fuck about what is best for the company.
  - throwawaysocks 10y ago
    > If I'm just some keyboard puncher, I could give a fuck about what is best for the company. Exactly. The one-sided sense of loyalty implicitly demanded in this article is astounding. Fuck that shit.
    - Godel_unicode 10y ago
      It sounds to me like this is a market where Netflix buys loyalty not with loyalty in return but with cash and "A" colleagues. As long as they're upfront about it, that seems fair to me.
      - NathanKP 10y ago
        Exactly. Netflix has a massive culture problem. That's why they have to pay engineers 300k per year to work there.
        sokoloff 10y ago
        I have to say that I immediately loved the Netflix culture deck when it first went public. If that's truly reflective of their culture, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but it appeals to many.
        NathanKP 10y ago
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  The severance package was described as spectacular. A spectacular severance can be life-changing. I understand, the details are important, and can't be shared, but if it truly is as good as described, she's probably way way better off than if she'd stayed at Netflix. If all she did with that severance was go back to school and finish a four-year degree, then she'd absolutely kill it in the job market with her track record. Very possibly double her salary.
  - e12e 10y ago
    Reading the article, after browsing the comments, I assumed the article would appear somehow employee-hostile. While, looking from Norway, the concept of at-will work states like California seems crazy -- if you're already in the situation that you can fired for basically no reason -- this sounds like a pretty good deal. At least if they make good on the idea of "spectacular severance packages" and the honesty and communication goes two ways. I do note that they don't trust their storage/stock workers as much, and she kind of glosses over that bit. I don't understand why people would expect any loyalty from California-based tech companies, is there any precedence for that? I thought the entire business was generally based on pretty predatory hiring and firing practices? As if the colluding on salaries scandal wasn't enough of a hint?
    - blackguardx 10y ago
      It is not just California, the whole US. California has some of the best labor laws here.
      - e12e 10y ago
        But not all states are at-will states? Some states you actually need a reason to fire someone? Or so I thought?
        ryanbrunner 10y ago
        It's not quite as simple as states being either "at-will" or "not at-will". Every state in the U.S. is to at least some degree an "at-will employment" state, although different states will have different exceptions. At a bare minimum level, all states except 7 recognize public policy exceptions to at-will employment (firing employees for doing something compliant with public policy, like filing a disability claim). At a "getting further away from pure at-will employment" level, 11 states require employers to act in good faith when firing employees (which basically excludes malicious firings)
schwap 10y ago
> the generous severance would let her regroup, retrain, and find a new career path. Now I'm no executive, but is there a reason the blindingly obvious strategy of investing the money they're clearly willing to expend in training so that this individual's skills did fill a need they had?
- throwawaysocks 10y ago
  Getting a CPA would have been a very long road for a person with an associates, and they likely needed to replace her with one or more CPAs right now, not in 2+X years. That said, it's hard to imagine there wasn't something she could have done, somewhere in the company.
  - hx87 10y ago
    That's why demotion, or reassignments that amount to demotion, needs to be destigmatized and seen as a rational, practical realignment of skills and requirements instead of as a black mark of shame. Have you promoted an excellent worker past their level of competence? Simple-demote them! Everyone leaves happy.
    - CaveTech 10y ago
      Most employees will not want to admit that they're incompetent at what they're doing, nor will they want a demotion. A promotion gives a sensen of entitlement, and if an individual actively strived for a position they will not want to let it go. Now if someone was given a random promotion and it turned out to be a bad fit, that individual may be more willing to step back down.
      - hx87 10y ago
        I'd wager that most people desire promotions for the increase in compensation, not responsibilities. Perhaps a slight decoupling of promotions and raises is in order.
        10y ago
ninkendo 10y ago
> The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else. > Most companies spend endless time and money writing and enforcing HR policies to deal with problems the other 3% might cause. Instead, we tried really hard to not hire those people > Netflix didn’t pay performance bonuses, because we believed that they’re unnecessary if you hire the right people. Oh, so that's what you're supposed to do! Of course, you must mean you have a foolproof system for finding "A" players in your candidate pipeline then, and then it's just a matter of selecting only the best! Sorry for the snark, but these things are practically truisms. Everybody wants to hire the very best people. Everybody wishes they didn't need incentive structures, because in an ideal world everybody is always incentivized to just do great work all the time because they're such an "A" player. But really, unless they back it up with any real evidence that they've actually solved the hiring problem and found a reliable way to determine who the good candidates are, I'm more apt to call the whole thing luck. Or maybe, just maybe, all the things Netflix is doing (lax vacation policies, no bonuses, easy to fire people) are just things companies should be doing regardless of how supposedly good at hiring they are. > We also believed in market-based pay and would tell employees that it was smart to interview with competitors when they had the chance, in order to get a good sense of the market rate for their talent Oh god, so it is true! We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. A rumor got around that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. As a result, we no longer interview candidates who are currently working at Netflix, because we can never believe that they're serious about it. It's a huge risk to your employees to do something like this, because once word gets out about it, it becomes seriously difficult to explore other jobs while you're still employed.
- kylec 10y ago
  We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. We started developing a theory that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. Have you considered that you're offering them less than Netflix is currently paying them? Netflix pays a _lot_.
AndrewKemendo 10y ago
I know this is now a meme about how "We at globocorp only hire 'Rockstars' and etc.. etc...", but this point to me is really salient: The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else. I firmly and wholeheartedly believe in that. Find the absolute best people for the job, that play well with the team, pay them really well and treat them like adults. It's a winning combo that has repeatedly worked. Argue all you want about how there aren't enough of "the best people" which I also agree with - but that's why it's worth working really hard to recruit them.
- zachrose 10y ago
  Wouldn't the practice of "A" players only hiring other "A" players imply a certain monoculture to your team? Do you hire junior "A" players who aren't really at the levels of skill or professionalism as their senior counterparts, but who have the potential to be and can still be given economically viable work to do? Do you call these people "lowercase 'a' players" or something? How do you count on your "A" players to recognize top talent in slightly different domains or areas of expertise? How do you account for people being creative and unique, like the person who has a background in something else but who adds value by being able to bridge cultures and bring new, unfamiliar ideas to your existing "A" players?
  - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
    Wouldn't the practice of "A" players only hiring other "A" players imply a certain monoculture to your team? Yea, probably. If the goal is the dominate some sector, then having a mono-culture is incredibly valuable. Singular focus, shared task, shared vision is just staggering when it comes to effectiveness. All high functioning teams, from sports, to military and especially in business share this. And yes it looks like a cult from the outside - partly because it shares cult-like aspects. It's worth defining what "A" players are, however because I think while there is a pool of them, not all of them would work out for any team. I think people get the wrong idea that mono culture means no diversity. That's basically what your questions do. I think back to the spy world and while everyone has the idea that all of the best spies in the world look like James Bond, the reality of it is that the best spy teams in the world look - well like a cross section of the planet. Old people, young people, uber nerds, jocks, preppies etc...but they all have a critical piece of a singular mission of collecting some critical piece of information. Here is how I define an "A" team: A team that for a defined macro-goal, there is no better possible combination of persons on the planet to be filling the individuals roles, which accomplish micro-goals in furtherance of the macro-goal. You compose that as needed. It doesn't "look" any way - but there are common features among the individuals usually: Domain expertise, Flexibility, Leadership Ability (which includes followership), Emotional Maturity etc...
SirensOfTitan 10y ago
> Despite her work ethic, her track record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her skills were no longer adequate. > If your employees are fully formed adults who put the company first, an annual bonus won’t make them work harder or smarter. The contrast painted here is astounding. It demands so much loyalty from the employee, and in return, offers no loyalty whatsoever from the employer.
- greg7gkb 10y ago
  The 'demand' of loyalty isn't higher than at any other company. And in fact, this point is specifically called out in the culture deck: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/33-Loyalty_is_Good_Loyalty_is http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/33-Loyalt... As for the annual bonus, Netflix assumes that everyone is functioning at a high level and pays as if they were making the top-end of the bonus range at other companies. Which is part of the rationale behind the high base compensation.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    That won't be the case for many of the management readers of this article though. They will implement a no bonus policy and pay at or below market rates (before bonuses) and then grumble to themselves "millennials are so lazy!" when the 2 year turnover is 90%.
  - inthewoods 10y ago
    "Pays as if they were making the top-end of the bonus range at other companies" To me, this is the problem - who determines this and what is their dataset? I worked at a company in the past that claimed to do this, but to do this they generally need some sort of data source. And the data sources for salary data are tough to use in this way - positions/responsibilities vary, regions vary, etc. Just tough to get this right - even with the best intentions.
    - shados 10y ago
      It's pretty damn easy actually, once you're a certain size at least. The hiring and retention pipeline makes it painfully obvious. As an employee, you don't get to see all of the requests for raises, all of the people negotiating salaries, etc. But there's people in the company who do. That's all the data you need.
siliconc0w 10y ago
I'm not sure about 'reinvented'. The jury is still out on 'unlimited vacation' - i'd much prefer a generous but structured policy. In the case of "Maria" the QA Engineer I think it's better to give her a plan to grow her skill-set if she is smart and hardworking instead of firing her. Simple policies like how much to spend on a meal aren't expensive to implement and make things clear and understood. Whether you codify it or not there is, eventually, going to be an informal policy - might as well write that shit down instead of leaving it ambiguous.
- zyxley 10y ago
  > I'd much prefer a generous but structured policy. Same here. If I have X weeks of paid vacation, I know I can take X weeks of vacation. If I have 'unlimited vacation', I know I can take... some amount, I guess... but I have to constantly vigilant to the whims of HR and management to keep from taking 'too much'.
  - lmm 10y ago
    I like having unpaid holiday as an option, I think that's something a lot more companies should be doing. That way the company's interests are a lot more aligned with mine regarding how much holiday I take.
- inthewoods 10y ago
  Unlimited vacation, to me, is all about off-loading company liability. The company doesn't have to accrue for vacation days, and employees take roughly the same amount of vacation. It helps with hiring senior people who are coming from large companies where they had been for a while and had accumulated a large amount of vacation benefit.
  - overcast 10y ago
    It turns out, that employees actually end up taking much less time off because of the guilt culture it creates.
hobaak 10y ago
Why are the 2 examples of named employees are women? Seems like women are easy target. It kind of misleading that all underperformed ones are women.
- Gustomaximus 10y ago
  If there was a large sample id be with you. But here...storm in a teacup?
- hobaak 10y ago
  Why is it downvoted! I am just pointing that out as a fact.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    If the two former employees were men, would you have commented on it?
abpavel 10y ago
> We had no vesting period—the options could be cashed in immediately. Most tech companies have a four-year vesting schedule and try to use options as “golden handcuffs” to aid retention, but we never thought that made sense. That's only possible when equity is a direct substitute for the income, similar to when an employee would buy the stock/options through their broker for the money out of their paycheck. Imagine hiring your 5th employee for 1.5% of the company and they leave the next day.
- lmm 10y ago
  Options are usually cash-settled so they don't have that problem
- cwilkes 10y ago
  They probably have some sort of fast / monthly vesting schedule instead of some (what I think is truly bizarre but common) yearly vesting cycle. If a person wants to leave 18 months into it let them go with 18/(412) percent instead of having them wait around another 6 months to get 50% instead of 25%. For the 1 day employee that could work out to 1/(4365) * 1.5%. But there should be a cliff as having them jump that early can be disruptive.
lsiebert 10y ago
It seems like companies like Netflix don't want to train loyal capable employees in new skills.
hardwaresofton 10y ago
Just a heads up if you've never thought about it this way: HR exists to protect the company from employees. From a purely business-minded standpoint, I gather that they're taking a risk basically dealing with people unprotected (with "common sense"), and at the level of pay/performance, people are so happy/willing to buy-in/comply (or get fired when they're not) it hasn't bitten them in the rear. If I were to over-simplify what they've actually done, it seems more like they changed the culture closer to survival-of-the-fittest (which seems quite optimal), and put more actual power in the hands of managers (which could be good, if you have a good manager).
- robbiemitchell 10y ago
  This sounds similar to how investment banking works.
  - hardwaresofton 10y ago
    Yup, and I think it may have similar repercussions. Generally though, investment banking is generally pretty successful at making people rich (whichever side they're on) -- maybe a similar effect will be observed on Netflix's software.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
I am so tired of hearing about "unlimited" vacation as if this is some revolutionary idea for improving employee morale. This intentionally blurs expectations and puts the burden on the employee to try to figure out the hidden acceptable number of days they can take before being viewed as simply "adequate." And it could all be avoided if the company would simply define a number so expectations are crystal clear. Simple. Instead, what happens, is it becomes an internal competition to see how few days you can take and creates a very toxic atmosphere where people are judged based on the days they take. Companies should be setting a static number of days/hours and encouraging their employees to take ALL of those days off, or at the very least, pay them out or roll them over if they don't use them.
- GnomeChomsky 10y ago
  I think I prefer a "minimum vacation days" policy—e.g. each employee has to take 20 days, but you're free to take more as needed.
  - JamesSwift 10y ago
    I've heard that floated before and I think I'd really like it. I think it would probably devolve into "each employee takes EXACTLY 20 days" however, due to the same psychological stresses present in the other schemes. So the best suggestion I think is to have the minimum be generous in itself. Say, 30 days.

124 points by tim_sw 10y ago

Jun8 10y ago

"Despite her work ethic, her track record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her skills were no longer adequate." I guess I'm too soft-hearted to be successful as a C-level manager, but I find the pragmatic, calculating nature of this approach appalling, even though I agree with many parts of the argument. I had recently listened to the Planet Money episode about her work (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/28/435583328/episode-647-hard-work-is-irrelevant http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/28/435583328/episo...), at the end she was let go from Netflix abruptly, too, probably using the practice she installed. Maybe I was biased with a Robespierrean expectation of karma returning, but she sounded like that was quite a blow to her, despite all her earlier rationalistic rhetoric. Now, reading it again, brought to mind this: "It couldn't be called ungentle But how thoroughly departmental" (http://allpoetry.com/Departmental http://allpoetry.com/Departmental)

hammock 10y ago
Reading the title and description of that Planet Money episode, I have never heard of a coach even at the professional sports level who said hard work was irrelevant.
- mudetroit 10y ago
  They don't say it, but if you watch how they behave that is the reality. The hardest worker won't tay on a pro sports team if they can be replaced by someone more productive, even if that person doesn't work as hard. At the end of the day pro sports, when done by successful organizations is all about production.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Hard work can be a prerequisite for ability but it is no substitute for it.
Spooky23 10y ago
I think the key thing here is that they didn't just nuke her, the employee received a "generous" severance package. I think it's ok practice if it's a expected part of the job and is built into the compensation. But don't be fooled -- this sort of thing is a subtle change in status for finance and engineering jobs. You're no longer a professional, you're labor. That's a concept that tradesmen accept, but I don't think the average IT guy does. The company need to acknowledge what that means too. If I'm just some keyboard puncher, I could give a fuck about what is best for the company.
- throwawaysocks 10y ago
  > If I'm just some keyboard puncher, I could give a fuck about what is best for the company. Exactly. The one-sided sense of loyalty implicitly demanded in this article is astounding. Fuck that shit.
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    It sounds to me like this is a market where Netflix buys loyalty not with loyalty in return but with cash and "A" colleagues. As long as they're upfront about it, that seems fair to me.
    - NathanKP 10y ago
      Exactly. Netflix has a massive culture problem. That's why they have to pay engineers 300k per year to work there.
      - sokoloff 10y ago
        I have to say that I immediately loved the Netflix culture deck when it first went public. If that's truly reflective of their culture, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but it appeals to many.
        NathanKP 10y ago
vinceguidry 10y ago
The severance package was described as spectacular. A spectacular severance can be life-changing. I understand, the details are important, and can't be shared, but if it truly is as good as described, she's probably way way better off than if she'd stayed at Netflix. If all she did with that severance was go back to school and finish a four-year degree, then she'd absolutely kill it in the job market with her track record. Very possibly double her salary.
- e12e 10y ago
  Reading the article, after browsing the comments, I assumed the article would appear somehow employee-hostile. While, looking from Norway, the concept of at-will work states like California seems crazy -- if you're already in the situation that you can fired for basically no reason -- this sounds like a pretty good deal. At least if they make good on the idea of "spectacular severance packages" and the honesty and communication goes two ways. I do note that they don't trust their storage/stock workers as much, and she kind of glosses over that bit. I don't understand why people would expect any loyalty from California-based tech companies, is there any precedence for that? I thought the entire business was generally based on pretty predatory hiring and firing practices? As if the colluding on salaries scandal wasn't enough of a hint?
  - blackguardx 10y ago
    It is not just California, the whole US. California has some of the best labor laws here.
    - e12e 10y ago
      But not all states are at-will states? Some states you actually need a reason to fire someone? Or so I thought?
      - ryanbrunner 10y ago
        It's not quite as simple as states being either "at-will" or "not at-will". Every state in the U.S. is to at least some degree an "at-will employment" state, although different states will have different exceptions. At a bare minimum level, all states except 7 recognize public policy exceptions to at-will employment (firing employees for doing something compliant with public policy, like filing a disability claim). At a "getting further away from pure at-will employment" level, 11 states require employers to act in good faith when firing employees (which basically excludes malicious firings)

schwap 10y ago

> the generous severance would let her regroup, retrain, and find a new career path. Now I'm no executive, but is there a reason the blindingly obvious strategy of investing the money they're clearly willing to expend in training so that this individual's skills did fill a need they had?

throwawaysocks 10y ago
Getting a CPA would have been a very long road for a person with an associates, and they likely needed to replace her with one or more CPAs right now, not in 2+X years. That said, it's hard to imagine there wasn't something she could have done, somewhere in the company.
- hx87 10y ago
  That's why demotion, or reassignments that amount to demotion, needs to be destigmatized and seen as a rational, practical realignment of skills and requirements instead of as a black mark of shame. Have you promoted an excellent worker past their level of competence? Simple-demote them! Everyone leaves happy.
  - CaveTech 10y ago
    Most employees will not want to admit that they're incompetent at what they're doing, nor will they want a demotion. A promotion gives a sensen of entitlement, and if an individual actively strived for a position they will not want to let it go. Now if someone was given a random promotion and it turned out to be a bad fit, that individual may be more willing to step back down.
    - hx87 10y ago
      I'd wager that most people desire promotions for the increase in compensation, not responsibilities. Perhaps a slight decoupling of promotions and raises is in order.
      - 10y ago

ninkendo 10y ago

> The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else. > Most companies spend endless time and money writing and enforcing HR policies to deal with problems the other 3% might cause. Instead, we tried really hard to not hire those people > Netflix didn’t pay performance bonuses, because we believed that they’re unnecessary if you hire the right people. Oh, so that's what you're supposed to do! Of course, you must mean you have a foolproof system for finding "A" players in your candidate pipeline then, and then it's just a matter of selecting only the best! Sorry for the snark, but these things are practically truisms. Everybody wants to hire the very best people. Everybody wishes they didn't need incentive structures, because in an ideal world everybody is always incentivized to just do great work all the time because they're such an "A" player. But really, unless they back it up with any real evidence that they've actually solved the hiring problem and found a reliable way to determine who the good candidates are, I'm more apt to call the whole thing luck. Or maybe, just maybe, all the things Netflix is doing (lax vacation policies, no bonuses, easy to fire people) are just things companies should be doing regardless of how supposedly good at hiring they are. > We also believed in market-based pay and would tell employees that it was smart to interview with competitors when they had the chance, in order to get a good sense of the market rate for their talent Oh god, so it is true! We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. A rumor got around that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. As a result, we no longer interview candidates who are currently working at Netflix, because we can never believe that they're serious about it. It's a huge risk to your employees to do something like this, because once word gets out about it, it becomes seriously difficult to explore other jobs while you're still employed.

kylec 10y ago
We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. We started developing a theory that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. Have you considered that you're offering them less than Netflix is currently paying them? Netflix pays a _lot_.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

I know this is now a meme about how "We at globocorp only hire 'Rockstars' and etc.. etc...", but this point to me is really salient: The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else. I firmly and wholeheartedly believe in that. Find the absolute best people for the job, that play well with the team, pay them really well and treat them like adults. It's a winning combo that has repeatedly worked. Argue all you want about how there aren't enough of "the best people" which I also agree with - but that's why it's worth working really hard to recruit them.

zachrose 10y ago
Wouldn't the practice of "A" players only hiring other "A" players imply a certain monoculture to your team? Do you hire junior "A" players who aren't really at the levels of skill or professionalism as their senior counterparts, but who have the potential to be and can still be given economically viable work to do? Do you call these people "lowercase 'a' players" or something? How do you count on your "A" players to recognize top talent in slightly different domains or areas of expertise? How do you account for people being creative and unique, like the person who has a background in something else but who adds value by being able to bridge cultures and bring new, unfamiliar ideas to your existing "A" players?
- AndrewKemendo 10y ago
  Wouldn't the practice of "A" players only hiring other "A" players imply a certain monoculture to your team? Yea, probably. If the goal is the dominate some sector, then having a mono-culture is incredibly valuable. Singular focus, shared task, shared vision is just staggering when it comes to effectiveness. All high functioning teams, from sports, to military and especially in business share this. And yes it looks like a cult from the outside - partly because it shares cult-like aspects. It's worth defining what "A" players are, however because I think while there is a pool of them, not all of them would work out for any team. I think people get the wrong idea that mono culture means no diversity. That's basically what your questions do. I think back to the spy world and while everyone has the idea that all of the best spies in the world look like James Bond, the reality of it is that the best spy teams in the world look - well like a cross section of the planet. Old people, young people, uber nerds, jocks, preppies etc...but they all have a critical piece of a singular mission of collecting some critical piece of information. Here is how I define an "A" team: A team that for a defined macro-goal, there is no better possible combination of persons on the planet to be filling the individuals roles, which accomplish micro-goals in furtherance of the macro-goal. You compose that as needed. It doesn't "look" any way - but there are common features among the individuals usually: Domain expertise, Flexibility, Leadership Ability (which includes followership), Emotional Maturity etc...

SirensOfTitan 10y ago

> Despite her work ethic, her track record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her skills were no longer adequate. > If your employees are fully formed adults who put the company first, an annual bonus won’t make them work harder or smarter. The contrast painted here is astounding. It demands so much loyalty from the employee, and in return, offers no loyalty whatsoever from the employer.

greg7gkb 10y ago
The 'demand' of loyalty isn't higher than at any other company. And in fact, this point is specifically called out in the culture deck: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/33-Loyalty_is_Good_Loyalty_is http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/33-Loyalt... As for the annual bonus, Netflix assumes that everyone is functioning at a high level and pays as if they were making the top-end of the bonus range at other companies. Which is part of the rationale behind the high base compensation.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  That won't be the case for many of the management readers of this article though. They will implement a no bonus policy and pay at or below market rates (before bonuses) and then grumble to themselves "millennials are so lazy!" when the 2 year turnover is 90%.
- inthewoods 10y ago
  "Pays as if they were making the top-end of the bonus range at other companies" To me, this is the problem - who determines this and what is their dataset? I worked at a company in the past that claimed to do this, but to do this they generally need some sort of data source. And the data sources for salary data are tough to use in this way - positions/responsibilities vary, regions vary, etc. Just tough to get this right - even with the best intentions.
  - shados 10y ago
    It's pretty damn easy actually, once you're a certain size at least. The hiring and retention pipeline makes it painfully obvious. As an employee, you don't get to see all of the requests for raises, all of the people negotiating salaries, etc. But there's people in the company who do. That's all the data you need.

siliconc0w 10y ago

I'm not sure about 'reinvented'. The jury is still out on 'unlimited vacation' - i'd much prefer a generous but structured policy. In the case of "Maria" the QA Engineer I think it's better to give her a plan to grow her skill-set if she is smart and hardworking instead of firing her. Simple policies like how much to spend on a meal aren't expensive to implement and make things clear and understood. Whether you codify it or not there is, eventually, going to be an informal policy - might as well write that shit down instead of leaving it ambiguous.

zyxley 10y ago
> I'd much prefer a generous but structured policy. Same here. If I have X weeks of paid vacation, I know I can take X weeks of vacation. If I have 'unlimited vacation', I know I can take... some amount, I guess... but I have to constantly vigilant to the whims of HR and management to keep from taking 'too much'.
- lmm 10y ago
  I like having unpaid holiday as an option, I think that's something a lot more companies should be doing. That way the company's interests are a lot more aligned with mine regarding how much holiday I take.
inthewoods 10y ago
Unlimited vacation, to me, is all about off-loading company liability. The company doesn't have to accrue for vacation days, and employees take roughly the same amount of vacation. It helps with hiring senior people who are coming from large companies where they had been for a while and had accumulated a large amount of vacation benefit.
- overcast 10y ago
  It turns out, that employees actually end up taking much less time off because of the guilt culture it creates.

hobaak 10y ago

Why are the 2 examples of named employees are women? Seems like women are easy target. It kind of misleading that all underperformed ones are women.

Gustomaximus 10y ago
If there was a large sample id be with you. But here...storm in a teacup?
hobaak 10y ago
Why is it downvoted! I am just pointing that out as a fact.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  If the two former employees were men, would you have commented on it?

abpavel 10y ago

> We had no vesting period—the options could be cashed in immediately. Most tech companies have a four-year vesting schedule and try to use options as “golden handcuffs” to aid retention, but we never thought that made sense. That's only possible when equity is a direct substitute for the income, similar to when an employee would buy the stock/options through their broker for the money out of their paycheck. Imagine hiring your 5th employee for 1.5% of the company and they leave the next day.

lmm 10y ago
Options are usually cash-settled so they don't have that problem
cwilkes 10y ago
They probably have some sort of fast / monthly vesting schedule instead of some (what I think is truly bizarre but common) yearly vesting cycle. If a person wants to leave 18 months into it let them go with 18/(412) percent instead of having them wait around another 6 months to get 50% instead of 25%. For the 1 day employee that could work out to 1/(4365) * 1.5%. But there should be a cliff as having them jump that early can be disruptive.

lsiebert 10y ago

It seems like companies like Netflix don't want to train loyal capable employees in new skills.

hardwaresofton 10y ago

Just a heads up if you've never thought about it this way: HR exists to protect the company from employees. From a purely business-minded standpoint, I gather that they're taking a risk basically dealing with people unprotected (with "common sense"), and at the level of pay/performance, people are so happy/willing to buy-in/comply (or get fired when they're not) it hasn't bitten them in the rear. If I were to over-simplify what they've actually done, it seems more like they changed the culture closer to survival-of-the-fittest (which seems quite optimal), and put more actual power in the hands of managers (which could be good, if you have a good manager).

robbiemitchell 10y ago
This sounds similar to how investment banking works.
- hardwaresofton 10y ago
  Yup, and I think it may have similar repercussions. Generally though, investment banking is generally pretty successful at making people rich (whichever side they're on) -- maybe a similar effect will be observed on Netflix's software.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago

I am so tired of hearing about "unlimited" vacation as if this is some revolutionary idea for improving employee morale. This intentionally blurs expectations and puts the burden on the employee to try to figure out the hidden acceptable number of days they can take before being viewed as simply "adequate." And it could all be avoided if the company would simply define a number so expectations are crystal clear. Simple. Instead, what happens, is it becomes an internal competition to see how few days you can take and creates a very toxic atmosphere where people are judged based on the days they take. Companies should be setting a static number of days/hours and encouraging their employees to take ALL of those days off, or at the very least, pay them out or roll them over if they don't use them.

GnomeChomsky 10y ago
I think I prefer a "minimum vacation days" policy—e.g. each employee has to take 20 days, but you're free to take more as needed.
- JamesSwift 10y ago
  I've heard that floated before and I think I'd really like it. I think it would probably devolve into "each employee takes EXACTLY 20 days" however, due to the same psychological stresses present in the other schemes. So the best suggestion I think is to have the minimum be generous in itself. Say, 30 days.