How Netflix Fosters One of the Best Workplace Cultures

Have you ever wondered about the role of culture in a workplace?

Positive corporate culture is when employees work well together as a team and aim for growth, and such a culture is critical to strategy. Culture sets the tone for the whole workplace and is often the deciding point when it comes to whether employees want to continue working.

The culture of ‘Freedom and Responsibility’ set forth by the so-called Netflix Culture Deck represents the key factors of the company’s vast success. They give their employees higher levels of freedom and standard while not sweating tiny details. They seek to trust and empower people by giving them a chance to rise to the higher expectation levels, and a clear majority of people can do it.

Take a look at these five aspects that make up their culture:

1. Appreciate Values:

   Netflix focuses heavily on the values that the company inculcates. During hiring and promotion decisions, they give importance to the values, skills, and behaviors that are embodied in the individuals. They prefer people who have a good sense of judgment, who can communicate effectively and are creative and innovative.

2. Give Employees Freedom:

   They have eliminated a formal vacation policy and allowed their employees to take time off whenever, as long as they hold Netflix’s best interest. Netflix opines that employees should feel a personal sense of ownership with the company. Furthermore, they have banished another formal policy of expenses and travel. To their advantage, the employees were more economical, and it results in the company saving more money instead.

3. Encourage Development:

   Netflix has eliminated their formal performance reviews since they were too infrequent and ritualistic. Instead, they have implemented what would prove to be way more beneficial: ongoing conversations and informal reviews. They support full-fledged honesty and make the feedback non-anonymous and discuss openly. Instead of mentoring and rotational assignments, they encourage self-development efforts.

4. Pay Top of the Market:

   For an employee to give their best, Netflix considers the highest possible salary instead of an average salary with bonuses. They want their employees to stay with them because they are genuinely passionate about the job, not because they are waiting for some incentive. Their mentality is to pay more than any of their competitors would and to pay them as much as a replacement would cost.

5. Only High Performers Allowed:

   Netflix engages in a test called the Keeper’s Test. It asks the manager, “If someone on my team told me he was leaving for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep him here?” If the answer is no for a particular employee, they are given an excellent severance package.

While there are a lot of positives to be learned from this culture, it cannot just be copied and pasted them into other organisations. As Netflix claims, context matters more than control. Having a strong company culture is essential to a company’s success, and it is about time that we all start incorporating the best possible approaches in our organisations.