Turning a famous culture memo into an employer brand, and knowing whether it competes.

Background

Netflix’s “Freedom & Responsibility” culture deck, first released publicly in 2011, changed how companies talk about culture. It rests on five simple principles: encourage decision-making by employees, share information openly, communicate candidly, keep only highly effective people, and avoid rules.

Those principles shape everything from untracked vacation to a five-word expense policy: “Act in Netflix’s best interest.” Netflix sums up its structure as “highly aligned and loosely coupled,” which let it move from mailing DVDs to streaming and then to producing its own content.

Brief

• Give leaders evidence, not just conviction, when backing employer brand work.
• Show whether Netflix is competitive as an employer, both over time and against the companies it competes with for talent.

What we do

• We measure Netflix’s Employer Brand Index, analyzing public conversation from 130+ sources and scoring all 16 Employer Brand Attributes.
• We benchmark Netflix against the companies it competes with for talent.
• We track results over time, so Netflix can compare itself with its own past performance.

What Netflix did with it

Netflix treats its culture memo as an external document: the first thing a candidate reads about the company. It aims to be a bit different, credible and aspirational, and is comfortable that it won’t appeal to everyone.

At the center of its EVP is the chance to join a dream team solving very hard problems. The Index gives the data to show whether that proposition is landing with talent, and how Netflix stands against its competitors.

Netflix’s Perspective

Results

The outcomes include:

• Evidence for leadership. Employer brand ideas come with data, not just conviction.
• A competitive view. Netflix can see how it stands against the companies it competes with for talent.
• Progress over time. Netflix can compare its employer brand with its own past performance.