An Analysis of Human Resource Management at Netflix

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Netflix. It begins with an introduction to the concept of HRM and its purpose within the company, emphasizing the importance of employee motivation and satisfaction. The main body of the report delves into key HRM functions that contribute to achieving business objectives, such as performance management, reduced bureaucratic structures, and training and development. It also examines workforce planning strategies, including attracting, engaging, building, and retaining employees. The report further explores recruitment and selection approaches, differentiating between internal and external methods, and critically evaluates these approaches, providing examples of job roles and their associated recruitment processes. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, highlighting Netflix's emphasis on skills, performance, and organizational goals. The report is supported by references to relevant academic sources.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Concept of HRM and purpose to Netflix.....................................................................................3
Key functions of HRM for achieving business objectives..........................................................4
Concept of workforce planning...................................................................................................4
Recruitment and selection approaches.........................................................................................5
Critical evaluation of recruitment and selection approaches.......................................................6
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource is the key contributor in the success of the organisation and it is important
to develop a proper framework that can manage the pool of talent in an organisation. The
following report will evaluate the different aspects of HRM for Netflix and the company can be
benefitted by them.
MAIN BODY
Concept of HRM and purpose to Netflix
Hunan resource management can be defined as development of strategically based
approach that will assist in better management of people working in an organization and the
overall work culture that is prevalent in an organization. Such HRM strategies help the
businesses in maximising employee satisfaction and motivation thus enhancing their competitive
advantage in the market (Stone, Neely and Lengnick-Hall, 2018). For Netflix however, the
purpose of implementing HRM practices in the organisation has never been only about recruiting
the employees. It extends further to keeping them motivated and happier.
Recruitment and Selection: At Netflix, the HR managers believe that the employees that they
intend to hire are already experts in their own field and therefore rather than developing them
from the core, the Netflix company focuses them to build and utilise the skills.
Rewards: At Netflix, incentives are not just for good performance or target based but it extends
much farther towards the overall behaviour and dedication of the employees. This has also
helped Netflix in developing a workforce that is highly compliant and dedicated towards
achievement of organizational goals over individual goals.
Policies and rules: This is another very revolutionary idea of Netflix where they have strictly
reduced the unnecessary paperwork and time wastage in the compliance of the traditional
procedure of implementing swift decision making (Nankervis and et.al., 2016). Or instance,
taking leave is no longer a very detailed process for employees at Netflix and they can easily talk
their issues out with their leader or manager.
Therefore, for Netflix, the purpose behind implementation f HRM policies and procedures is
not mundane and the need for innovation and creativity shows out in the work culture that they
have developed as well.
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Key functions of HRM for achieving business objectives
The major functions of HR management often help in improve the employee management
thus increasing their overall performance and this ultimately leads to improved organisational
goal achievement. For Netflix as well, the critical functions of HRM are similar but they can be
applied in an innovative and integrated manner that directly helps in achievement of the
objectives set:
Higher performance: The employees that are contributing effectively in the growth of Netflix
collectively are retained and as soon as their skills become redundant, they are paid off with a
good amount. This helps in maintaining extremely dedicated and skilled personnel at Netflix that
is highly performance driven.
Reduced bureaucratic structure: Rather than developing a system based formal structure, the
focus at Netflix is not on whether the rules were followed or not but more in the innovation or
complexity that was used to address the different scenario (Stewart and Brown, 2019). This helps
in focusing the energy and resources on the achievement of the business objectives. T he policies
at Netflix are also very barely formed i.e. “Act in best interest of company” is the only governing
policy and this has helped the company in retaining the loyal workforce.
Training and development: It is instrumental to regularly train the employees in order to
develop their current skills and prepare a more talented work base. Netflix also engages in this
activity by collecting performance reviews and feedbacks in an informal review manner and
these are then used to develop a proper mechanism for growth rather than the traditional
medium. When the employees are motivated, the objectives are being able to be achieved in a
much more effective manner.
Concept of workforce planning
The workforce planning is an activity in which the organisations try to align the requirements of
the changing trends with the internal resources that are present particularly the human resource.
Under workforce planning, the HR managers hire and recruit the workforce that helps in meeting
the desired objectives and then training the employees further in accordance with their job roles
and duties. This is a key strategic plan for the success of organisations where they work on both
the quality as well as the quantity of employees that are being hired and try to collect and
maintain a skilled workforce (Mishra, Lama and Pal, 2016). For Netflix as well the activity of
engaging in workforce planning is an extremely critical task and they it through a variety of
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mechanisms that are related to employee retention, hiring etc. where skills and performance is
given highest value.
The strategy of workforce planning can be implemented through a series of steps that are:
Plan and attract: Netflix must identify the exact requirements regarding the skills for the
designation regarding which employee is to be recruited. Then after identification, only the
candidates who are meeting the criteria’s set up should be attracted i.e. recruited.
Engage: At Netflix, employee engagement and participation in the accomplishment of business
objectives is the critical task in workforce planning where the chances at success increase when
they find that organisational objectives are placed above the individual objectives (Hang, 2017).
Build: This helps in developing the skills and working on the individuals so that they can
perfume their job roles and the tasks assigned to them in effective manner at Netflix.
Retain: Proper work culture, innovative ideas and adequate rewards for greater performances are
key to employee retention in any organisation and Netflix can adopt this as well.
Collectively workforce planning can help Netflix in maintaining a pool of extremely
talented individuals.
Recruitment and selection approaches
Recruitment involves the activities that are related to attracting or searching the relevant
candidates for the organisation that will help them in achieving the goals while selection is
screening the candidates thus attracted and then choosing the best or the highly suitable person
for the organisation.
The methods of recruitment are different from that of selection, i.e. in order to recruit; Netflix
can adopt internal and external methods of recruitment. Internal recruitment is the method
through which the company or Netflix in the current scenario can fulfil the requirement of
candidate by selecting an employee that is already working for the company in the form of
promotion, transfer or change in job role. This method ensures loyalty and commitment along
with increased motivation thus improving the overall performance. External recruitment on the
other hand deals with the process of selecting form a pool of candidates that are external to the
organisation (Kayl and et.al., 2017). The methods of external recruitment involve giving
advertisements, engaging with the recruitment agencies, conducting walk in interviews, going for
college placements etc. that will help in finding the relevant personnel for the organisation.
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Selection on the other hand involves use of different ability tests that measure the skills
and knowledge of the candidate, conducting proper formal and informal interviews and then
selecting the best candidate amongst everyone
Collectively, this helps in addressing the problem of talent acquisition at Netflix in an
appropriate manner.
Critical evaluation of recruitment and selection approaches
The technical jobs are an extremely dominated are by the kind of jobs that are posted at the
official Netflix site and the two different job descriptions are:
Cloud and Platform engineers: This basically involves cloud computing and engineering
practices to develop software’s for better governance and maintain the entire systems in a better
manner that assist in solving the frequent problems that might otherwise arise at Netflix. The
procedure is simple i.e. apply online, then after one or two mobile interviews, a face to face
interview takes place (Cascio and Boudreau, 2016). This helps in measuring up the person and
they only hire “fully formed adults” who are aware and take their responsibilities seriously which
is a critical task, this methodology helps in identifying them. However, it can often lead to
miscalculation, where lack of using any tests or other selection skills can lead to employee giving
a false sense of sobriety and then turingn out to be redundant.
Database administrators: The platform m of Netflix is vey vast and with a million users
connected on it all through the world, the job of data administrators is a critical one. In order to
advertise for this job, its requirement is placed only on the official website of the company and
this might not be accessible to a part of population which is not tech savvy. It is also possible that
lack of any advertisements on any other sites might lead to lack of knowledge that there is a job
requirement at Netflix. However, this can also help in reducing the number of unqualified
candidates who are not present or aware enough of the requirements that surround them and
therefore Netflix is able to save costs of unnecessary screening and testing processes.
CONCLUSION
The research done above clearly signifies the importance that Netflix has for the kind of
work culture and HR planning that they promote and implement where it was concluded that the
company values skills above everything else. Also, rather than going by strict rules, the company
gives higher preference to the performance and achievement of organisational goals over
individuals goals.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cascio, W.F. and Boudreau, J.W., 2016. The search for global competence: From international
HR to talent management. Journal of World Business. 51(1). pp.103-114.
Hang, V.B., 2017. Ineffective HR management at Nam Long Investment Corporation-NLIC.
Kayl, I.I. and et.al., 2017. Effective HR Management as the Most Important Condition of
Successful Business Administration. In Integration and Clustering for Sustainable Economic
Growth (pp. 23-30). Springer, Cham.
Mishra, S.N., Lama, D.R. and Pal, Y., 2016. Human Resource Predictive Analytics (HRPA) for
HR management in organizations. International Journal of Scientific & Technology
Research. 5(5). pp.33-35.
Nankervis, A.R., and et.al., 2016. Human resource management: strategy and practice. Cengage
AU.
Stewart, G.L. and Brown, K.G., 2019. Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Stone, C.B., Neely, A.R. and Lengnick-Hall, M.L., 2018. Human resource management in the
digital age: Big data, HR analytics and artificial intelligence. In Management and
technological challenges in the digital age (pp. 13-42). CRC Press.
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