FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
March 27, 2007
Netflix's Autonomous Workforce
Hey bosses, Are you having trouble recruiting and retaining top-notch talent? Maybe you're not giving your employees enough autonomy.
Employees at online movie retailer Netflix are allowed to take as much vacation time as they want--on the clock, reports the San Jose Mercury News.
Vacation limits and face-time requirements are "a relic of the industrial age," says Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings.
Netflix's time off rules--or lack thereof--are part of a broad culture of employee autonomy instilled in the company when Hastings founded it a decade ago. The executives trust staffers to make their own decisions on everything - from whether to bring their dog to the office to how much of their salary they want in cash and how much in stock options. Workers are treated, as Chief Talent Officer Patty McCord likes to say, as adults.
As somebody who has worked in an office that allows dogs I have to interject here to state that pets in the office is a horrible idea--allowing employee autonomy in this decision is a tacit endorsement of urine stained carpets and outright discrimination against Americans with allergies.
Also consider this little tidbit:
At Netflix, roughly 340 employees in Los Gatos and Beverly Hills manage the company, write the computer code, design the Web site and strike deals with Hollywood studios. The other 1,000 are hourly workers at a customer service center in Hillsboro, Ore., and at DVD mailing hubs around the country. Those workers receive a free Netflix membership and DVD player after three months on the job, and the same healthcare benefits as salaried workers. But they have a fixed amount of paid time off.
How very bourgeois, Netflix.
While it would be quick to pin the autonomy movement on the Silicon Valley crowd, a Yahoo spokeswoman scoffed at Netflix's model: "We're a grown-up company, with over 12,000 employees, and you have to have some semblance of process and procedure."
Still, flexible schedules are now available to 28 percent of full-time U.S. workers, almost twice the number in 1991, reports the non-profit advocacy group Corporate Voices for Working Families.
So bosses, how much autonomy are you willing to give your employees? Is there any way the Netflix model could be applied to any other business? And is it really good form to offer one sector of your workforce new-world autonomy while treating the other sector like industrial-era serfs?
Posted by Alex Pasquariello at March 27, 2007 12:51 PM | Category: human resources |
6 Comments
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100% Autonomy. You could hire labor based on a little labor market within your firm. I am sure these employees form habits, and after time as this little labor market finds equilibrium and managers can accurately gauge labor hours based on past employee trends...students taking more time off during finals, working more in summer, etc. Just like regulations hinder progress so do stiff schedules. This could cultivate the work force that produces on the production curve, not within it. These would be employees with dedication, and loyalty. Today loyalty is at least a 2-weeks notice. Lowering attrition, has a short run affect of lower search cost. The externalities of this type of policy are positive, and endless.
We're a small enough company to allow dogs and to have a loose vacation/time-off/work-from-home policy.
We've got 14 employees. All of them have a spotlight on them, and it becomes apparent if their job isn't getting done. Additionally, they all bought into the dog-friendly-environment before coming on board.
Size must surely present challenges to the maintenance of this kind of unified corporate culture, but hey, that's why you hire exceptional leaders, right?
For me, the freedom described in Netflix would make it a more attractive workplace for self-starting dog-lovers. Doesn't every owner want to be able to describe their office that way?
I have run companies in the US and now China. It is amazing the differences between the two countries. In the US an employer can let an employee go with no reason and no notice. In China you must have a reason and if it isn't a "you're a bad employee" type, you are required to give 1 month severance.
The type of work model that Netflix describes would not work currently in China. There are lots of reasons, but this isn't the place for a comparison between US & China workplaces.
Dogs are just gross, it's a wonder that anyone likes them.
If more companies would actually walk their flexibility talk I think we'd have more committed workforces and better bottom lines. While there is no long term loyalty inherent in today's culture, people are more likely to stay where they are happy, healthy, and being compensated well. If the job works in their life, all the more reason to stick around.
As for the negative comment on dog policies.... I agree pets in the workplace could be tricky. If dogs, then why not cats, birds, ferrets, etc, etc, and while there may be an allergy issue -- what about the rest of us that have other allergies? In my current day job I have 2 people with perfume/cologne issues to which I'm allergic. Does anyone care? Heck no. I asked them to tone it down & to some degree they did, but no manager, HR or otherwise is going to care about my allergy sensitivities in the workplace, so how is this different than animals?
WorkEcology now provides tools and analysis on the cost of specific diagnosis and chronic conditions to employers. We are pilotting this beneift over the next 6 months.
We can address issues that speak to the need for flexible time.
For example, as I understand it, American Airline pilots are now without a contract for a year or more and they want flexible time.
WorkEcology can confidentially organize a study of the top 5-10 diagnosis that your workforce is being treated for and analyze the cost of those diseases if work is not organized to assure treatment and well being. We can also project the cost of treatment for lifelong chronic conditions.
In the bio pharm world one person died of HIV AIDS who could not afford the uncovered portion of his/her treatment not covered by health insurance. The cost of losing this employee knowledge was $3M to the company in r&d related costs.
I will be thinking more about this and we now have an institutional investment partner and a premier medical group working on this issue to form our benefit plan.
Any company interested in joining the alpha, should contact me at coregroup@workecology.com. In the subject line please write WE-MEDICAL.
Thanks.