Harvard Business Review on
Innovation and HR
The Jan-Feb 2014 issue of the Harvard Business Review's spotlight on talent and performance has an interesting article by Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, entitled: "
How Netflix reinvented HR".
One of the "Lessons" identified is found on slide #70 of the Slideshare presentation:
YOU DON'T NEED POLICIES FOR EVERYTHING
For instance, there is no policy or tracking of vacation time. They also did away with formal performance evaluations. Instead managers are responsible for these issues on an organic or informal basis. In my experience, most people are not particularly happy with their company's performance evaluation system, and this is an intriguing solution.
One issue I find a bit disturbing, however, is how "giving an excellent severance package" is suggested as a relatively simple solution to problems encountered. The basic argument is that Netflix only wants top performers, so if someone is not a top performer, or the job shifts and their skills are no longer a match--no problem: give them an excellent severance package. True, companies often keep poor performers too long and as portrayed in "Shattered Glass", it can be hard to let go of popular employees even when necessary. But constantly hiring and firing in search of the "A+" players can be disruptive, and it's not always done rationally even, I suspect, in a company like Netflix. Nonetheless, this article furthers the dialogue on innovating and transforming HR practices and it is worth checking out.
To access the full article, one must either have an HBR subscription or buy the pdf, but the executive summary and the slide presentation with the company culture highlights are available at the link above.
