Employer Branding & Recruitment 16/02/2024

Net ix’s : a best-in class example of employer brand

About the business :

In 1997, Reed Hastings founded a company : an online service for renting and buying DVDs
delivered to your home. It then o ered rentals on a monthly subscription basis. Its subscription
video-on-demand service began in 2007. Since then, the company has launched the distribution
of a large number of lms and TV series, as well as original creations, to which it devotes
increasingly signi cant investments.

In 25 years, Net ix shifted from an online service for renting and buying DVDs delivered to the
home to a well-known respected streaming service. Understanding the consequences of the
digital revolution ahead of anyone else, Reed adapted at breakneck speed, rejecting all the rules
and developing his own doctrine of change and management based on freedom and
responsibility.

As a pioneer in the subscription video-on-demand sector, Net ix faces competition in France and
around the world from other rms in the lm and television industries, as well as in
telecommunications and e-commerce. Facing those giant businesses like Disney, Meta, Microsoft
…, Net ix could only focus even more on the power of storytelling whilst hiring.

Net ix’s culture :

It took 10 years for Reed Hastings and Patty McCord, former chief talent o cer at Net ix to write
and create Net ix’s culture deck. Net ix’s rst slideshow on culture was rst publicly released in
2011. It was entirely based on 5 simple principles:
1. Encourage decision-making by employees
2. Share information openly, broadly, and deliberately
3. Communicate candidly and directly
4. Keep only highly e ective people
5. Avoid rules

For Net ix’s CEO, a successful culture is one where people can disagree openly and move
forward with candor. After a mistake separating too quickly the DVDs from the streaming service,
the CEO discovered that employees didn’t feel at ease to share it was a bad idea. Net ix therefore
changed the culture to really focus on farming for dissent : it’s each leader’s responsibility to
stimulate people to really say what they think might be wrong.
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On Net ix’s website, you can nd a detailed view of the company’s culture :

• Valued behaviours : curiosity, innovation, passion, integrity, inclusion, communication, courage,

sel essness and judgement
• Honest and productive feedback
• Dream Team : hiring and retaining the best talents & being a professional sports team, not a
family
• Freedom and responsibility
• Disagree then commit
• Informed captains : Net ix identi es an expert in their area who will listen to other people’s view
but will then make the nal call
• Artistic expression
• Representation matters
• Context not control
• Highly aligned, closely coupled
• Ethical expectations
• Employees direct our philanthropy
• Seeking excellence to drive success

Another important element about Net ix’s culture:

As a company, Net ix is organised to emphasise the importance of learning from data, including
from A/B tests. Because Net ix tests all ideas, and because most ideas are not winners, their
culture of experimentation democratises ideation. Product managers are always hungry for ideas,
and are open to innovative suggestions coming from anyone in the company, regardless of
seniority or expertise.

Net ix and its unique management policy :

Net ix only has one ve-word principle : « act in Net ix’s best interest ».

Indeed at Net ix, the quality of employees is more important than procedures, innovation takes
precedence over e ciency.

So Net ix being all about freedom, there is no vacation limits or business expenses limits for
instance. Nonetheless the CEO talks a lot about his 6-week vacation to create a favourable
environment for others to feel they can take their holidays too. Other members of the C suite and
top managers are encouraged to brag about it too.

Net ix aims to empower its employees, seing them as adults capable of making decisions rather
than children seeking and requiring attention. Rather than chasing the small employees’ mistake,
the businesses should focus on how to innovate faster and be even more exible.

Employer Branding :

What Net ix o ers :

• An environnement with the best talents also referred by Net ix as « talent density » : their aim is
to hire and pay extra to have the best 10 people rather than 100 medium employees. They look
for the employees who scare them a bit rather than only the ones they are happy to have a drink
with
• A really challenging work in a fast changing environment
• A well de ned culture (they don’t hesitate to openly share that Net ix’s culture isn’t for everyone)
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 Employer Branding & Recruitment 16/02/2024
Net ix believes the way to get the best from its people is to inspire rather than instruct or manage,
and that is exactly what a powerful employer brand has the potential to do: unite a diverse
collection of people and motivate them to work together to achieve a common goal

But to continue attracting top talent to a company, companies will need to expand the current
narrative to include other topics, such as : what the company is doing to create equity and impact
in the world.

Employer Branding is not only about hiring, it is also about shaping the perception of a company’s
work culture and having those stories be aligned to its larger brand. Net ix believes in the
importance of consistency in how the business tells its story. Employment branding needs to be
anchored on the main drivers of business (clearly excellence and being the best) and the culture
memo. Net ix is about being radically transparent including in how the business thinks about
decision making.
Employer Branding was created at Net ix in 2017 and throughout the years, it has grown and
evolved.
Since its start at Net ix, Employer Branding has sat on three di erent teams including Talent
Acquisition, Marketing (Editorial & Publishing) and now Communications. While most employer
branding functions sit within Talent Acquisition, Net ix believes Employer Branding should be part
of a company’s Communications strategy in the future. One of the reason is that Net ix tries to
use some of the assets they produce for the business itself. That said, you have undoubtedly
crossovers in terms of assets that are produced for marketing, communication and public
relations that HR can use. As an example, you can think of Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming
Net ix’s Chief Action O cer : the communication was done by the marketing team to support all
the projects that Net ix has with Arnold but at the same time, Arnold talked about how Net ix is
edgy hence leaning in HR/culture. Another reason is that Netlifx tries for its employer brand not to
be disconnected. Both employment brand and company brand need to be aligned and
consistant.
Over the past few years, Net ix has built a binge-worthy employer brand from the ground up.
Net ix’s LinkedIn page grew from 300k to 6.5 million followers. Known as WeAreNet ix podcast
across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to di erentiate it from the consumer brand, and simply
as Net ix on LinkedIn, the brand currently has an audience of almost six million people. And
while it’s aimed at working professionals who might be interested in joining the company, as an
external-facing brand, it still re ects on Net ix as a whole.

When leading an Employer Branding strategy for a global company, you always need to be aware
of what’s happening in the world where your audiences live. So when the world seemingly
changed overnight as a result of COVID-19 and the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, the
employer branding team knew it would have to adjust its strategy to re ect and be sensitive to the
new reality. The team changed Net ix’s strategy three times from March to December. In other
words, Net ix shifted to be more in-line with reality and went from edgy and humorous to themes
of courage, community, unity, authenticity, and joy. To add value, you need to simplify the
message.

Let’s deep dive on Net ix’s employment branding:

- Diversity and inclusion matters at Net ix

Net ix’s view on diversity & inclusion : When Laverne Cox is nominated for an Emmy, this is an
irrevocable moment of advancement. In order for Net ix to tell these stories, they need to have
inclusion on-screen. And the best way to have it on-screen, is to have it in writer’s room. And the
best way to have it in writer’s room, is to have it in our internal community.

To achieve it, Net ix focuses on guiding and assessing their recruiters and researchers so that
they can create a very equitable interview process.
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 Employer Branding & Recruitment 16/02/2024

In parallel, an employee heads the inclusion recruiting programs team at Net ix, which helps them
look at gaps in representation and nd ways to narrow them now and in the long term.

For example, Net ix is looking to expand access to Black students in the tech industry. Therefore
Net ix partners with Norfolk State University in Virginia for its rst-ever HBCU Virtual Tech Boot
Camp, providing scholarship to diversity workforce. Net ix also moves $ 100 million in deposits to
bolster Black banks : Net ix will permanently shift a share of its cash to nancial institutions that
serve Black communities for them to lend more.

Net ix also has Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to create this sense of inclusion and
belonging. ERGs are communities of employees who create space to connect on their shared
experiences. Net ix has 15 ERGs serving Latinx, veteran, Indigenous, Black, and disability
communities to name a few.

Data :

• Net ix has the rst women ever nominated as a cinematographer and the rst trans director
ever nominated for an Academy award.
• Women make up half of Net ix’s workforce (47.1%), including at the leadership level: directors
and above (47.8%), vice presidents (43.7%) and senior leadership (47.6%).
• Nearly half of Net ix’s U.S. workforce (46.4%) and leadership (42.0%, director level and above)
are made up of people from one or more underrepresented racial and/or ethnic backgrounds,
including Black, Latinx or Hispanic, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Paci c Islander
backgrounds.
• The number of Black employees in the U.S. doubled in the last three years to 8% of their
workforce and 9% of their leadership (director level and above).

- Compensation and bene ts

• Equitable pay : Net ix practices “open compensation,” which means the top 1,000 leaders
(directors and above) at the company can see how much any employee is paid. This
encourages open discussions about pay disparities. Their talent team routinely analyses pay
across the company to look for disparities, including an annual compensation review. In both
cases, when Net ix nds pay gaps, Net ix recti es them.

• Inclusive Bene ts

Parental leave : Flexible parental leave policy : « take care of your baby and yourself ». New
parents generally take 4 - 8 months.

Family forming & reproductive support : Net ix offers a family forming bene t to support employees
on their fertility, surrogacy, or adoption journey. It’s available to employees regardless of marital
status, gender, or sexual orientation. And Net ix covers comprehensive transgender and non-
binary care in our U.S. health plans. Outside of the U.S., Net ix is also exploring how they can
expand transgender coverage.

Mental Health : Globally, Net ix provides access to mindfulness and meditation as well as free
counseling and coaching sessions.

Finance :
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 Employer Branding & Recruitment 16/02/2024
Each employee can choose each year how much of their compensation they want in salary versus
stock options. In the scenario where employees are interested in stock-options, Netlifx believes
that candidates are sophisticated enough to understand the trade-o s and make their own call.
Compared to other tech businesses, Net ix doesn’t use those stock-options as « golden
handcu s » : they were distributed every month and with no vesting period.

To help attract and retain stunning colleagues, Net ix pays employees at the top of their personal
market. At Net ix, you have the ability to impact the world through the work you do,
revolutionising internet entertainment and sharing great storytelling globally. Net ix realises you
may also want to make an impact in a more personal way by giving to charitable organisations
you care about. Net ix wants to do its part to support you and the organisations important to you
through match contributions up to $20,000.

- Transparent communication

Net ix frequently creates unscripted videos in which employees talk about some aspect of the
employer brand. One such series that the employment branding team produced is called “Net ix
Culture Explained.” Each video features real employees discussing some aspect of the culture
memo that people ask about the most.

Rather than simply explaining that the company o ers unlimited vacation, for example, Net ix’s
team got ve employees around a table and lmed them talking about their own experiences with
the policy and their opinions about it — including any downsides they see. In their view,
businesses should allow employees to talk about your company in their own words — even if
those words are hard to hear.

This transparency extends beyond things the company can directly control. Take Net ix’s “She
Rules” video series, which shines a light on female employees from di erent backgrounds.

For Net ix’s employment branding team, it’s also important for the employer branding team to
have strong empathy and a deep understanding of human connections, and to appreciate the
importance of storytelling.

This transparent communication re ects both internally and externally. If so far, we have
mentioned more the external aspects, let’s also mention that internally company leaders regularly
share information about strategy, company performance and upcoming challenges. This open
communication has a direct impact on employee retention as well as attracting new talents.
Another aspect is that Net ix has stopped doing formal yearly performance reviews. Instead they
instituted informal 360 degree reviews with a very simple format. On a regular basis, people are
asked to identify things that colleagues should stop, start or continue.

An undeniable well-known best in class that businesses

can look up to

Net ix is not only known for its content but also for its culture pioneering point of view.

Net ix took the No. 1 spot on Hired’s 2018 survey of tech workers ranking the companies they’d
most like to work for, moving up from fth place on the job site’s 2017 survey.

At least 2 books have been written about Net ix’s culture :

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- « La règle ? Pas de règles !: Net ix et la culture de la réinvention » by Erin Meyer and Reed
Hastings

- Powerful : Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord, the former Chief
Talent O cer

Sources :

https://www.amazon.fr/Règle-Pas-règle-Net ix-réinvention/dp/2283034337
https://about.net ix.com/en/news/net ix-inclusion-report-2021
https://about.net ix.com/en/news/creating-more-access-for-black-students-in-tech
https://jobs.net ix.com/work-life-philosophy
https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/how-net ix-adjusted-its-
employer-branding
https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/net ix-employer-branding-
secrets
https://jobs.net ix.com/culture
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_S_WRR3d9p2FLGYOPeCMf_up5x0W39Af n
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/when-your-organization-is-famous-for-your-employer/
id875778180?i=1000625451832
https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/net ix-tech-workers-survey-1202963011/
https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-net ix-reinvented-hr
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/how-net ix-built-
its-company-culture/
https://net ixtechblog.com/net ix-a-culture-of-learning-394bc7d0f94c
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