Netflix Treats Workers “Like Adults”. Employment Essay Example
The article Netflix Treats Workers “Like adults” discusses the different principles Netflix, an American media-services provider, integrates into its culture as a systematical pattern of methods used to increase the productivity of the whole firm. The five different concepts act as an outline to aid executives with techniques to help ensure the whole unit is constantly motivated and continuously flourishing. Regardless of their differences, they are all rooted from the same motive; money.
Progressing through the article, it could be undoubtedly noted that the main goal of Netflix is to increase productivity. Due to that, Netflix relies on five principles that are introduced in the article that encompass their culture and drive. These principles include hiring and rewarding “adults”, maintaining honesty on performance evaluations, creating great teams, forming a great culture, and for HR managers to think of themselves as business people. These 5 principles, as rewarding and effective as they sound, are interconnected through one base. The base is built solely by the value of money and the motivation it provides to the employees, without taking into consideration their mental health and wellbeing.
The firm’s statement that Netflix explicitly hires “adults” as a way for the firm to ensure that only experienced, responsible, and resilient employees are hired lacks essential proof to its effectiveness. With time, it has been continuously proven that age plays no role in maturing a person, as external factors immensely influence that (The Marks of Maturity., 2012). To tackle that challenge with the introduction of monetary incentives will not provide a long-term efficient solution to fill the gap between productivity and failure, regardless of age. This is because research conducted over time proves that one is driven by monetary incentives until another need from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs emerges (Gitman, et as., 2018).
Moreover, telling the truth about evaluations to improve the efficiency of an employee is a great way to help stimulate productivity and to deliver factual feedback that will help the employee work harder.
However, it could also be considered a threat to an employee’s productivity rate if honest evaluations were only being carried out to offer the employee a dignified path to an exit, as mentioned in the article. Simultaneously, for Netflix to consider their employees a short-term investment and openly embrace the concept of substituting them whenever monetary incentives do not fulfill all their needs, will only destroy and eliminate good culture and any sense of belonging between the workers. This in return requires HR professionals to invest immense time and money into hiring and training new employees to the workforce, only to carry out the cycle once again. As a result, forming a strong bond between the executives and the employees which will yield higher productivity, can never be attained (Gross & Gross, 2016).
Undoubtedly, Netflix has risen to be one of the most successful streaming television providers, putting immense firms out of business. This does indicate that performance in such an organization must be high and effective to their targeted audience. Yet, one can only wonder, what would have been Netflix’s level of success and flourishment if money was not the only biggest motive to an employee’s productivity rate.
