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Show The Park Record A-22 Wed/Thurs/Fri, March 28-30, 2007 At Netflix, employees have freedom are used to controlling which songs they listen to and whore MediaNews Group Wire Service they get their news. Los Gatos, Calif. - When it Netflix's time off rules - or comes to vacation, Netflix has a lack thereof - are part of a simple policy: take as much as broad culture of employee autonyou'd like. Just make sure your omy instilled in the company work is done. when Hastings founded it a Employees at the online movie decade ago. The executives trust retailer often leave for three, staffers to make their own decifour, even five weeks at a time sions on everything - from and never clock in or out. whether to bring their dog to the Vacation limits and face-lime office to how much of their salary requirements, says Netflix Chief they want in cash and how much Executive Reed Hastings, are "a in stock options. Workers are relic of the industrial age." treated, as Chief Talent Officer "The worst thing is for a man- Patty McCord likes to say, as ager to come in and tell me: "Let's adults. give Susie a huge raise because "We want our employees to she's always in the office.' What have great freedom _ freedom to do I care? I want managers to be brilliant or freedom to make come to me and say: "Let's give a mistakes," Hastings said. really big raise to Sally because That might sound like execushe's getting a lot done' _ not tive blather, but to hear employbecause she's chained to her ees tell it, on the way to almost $1 desk." billion in sales last year, Netflix Across America, executives has made good on its promises to are searching for ways to keep workers. experienced Baby Boomers at "There's an inverse relationtheir companies and attract ship between how often a compayounger workers, many of whom ny talks about its values and how By RYAN BLITSTEIN Bunya nd of March 5t off N c w Spring & S u m m c r off Winter Includes: pree I eople, lJ)aNang, Juicy, people's Liberation ain *)\ 1 Mai store prices just in: much those values are actually reflected in the workplace," said Heather Mcllhany, a Netflix online marketing manager who took a three-week vacation to South Africa in November, just nine months after joining the company. "At Netflix ... the freedom is inherent in how we work/1 Mcllhany said. Though cultural change is hard to measure, some of America's largest businesses are experimenting with unconventional time off rules and benefits. New Brunswick, N.J., healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has an ever-expanding stable of worklife balance programs, including an extra week's paid vacation for new moms and dads, and for parents adopting. "Companies are trying to give people more responsibility, more freedom and more flexibility," said Carol Sladek, a principal at Lincolnshire, 111.. human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates. "If you have more control, your life feels better." To be sure, Netflix's time off policy is rare, and only applies to its 300-plus salaried workers, not the much larger hourly workforce. Experts said it's hard to imagine a bigger Fortune 500 company adopting the idea. As one Yahoo spokeswoman scoffed: "We're a grown-up company, with over 12,000 employees, and you have to have some semblance of process and procedure." But even in perk-heavy Silicon Valley, what's happening inside Netflix's Tuscan villa-style Los Gatos headquarters may be unprecedented. American workers get a median of 10 vacation days after one year on the job and 15 days after five years of work, according to Hewitt. One in three Americans doesn't use all their vacation, and barely one in 10 takes a break for two weeks straight, according to the non-profit research firm Families and,Work Institute. But at Netflix, it's estimated that most employees take off about 25 to 30 days per year, using the time to stay at home with the kids, travel to Cambodia, or visit relatives in India. It's "estimated" because Netflix docs not record vacation time, said McCord. "I've never terminated a salaried employee for being tardy or being absent," McCord said. "There have been issues when people didn't come to work - but the issue is the work, it's not the time off." Among half a dozen corporate HR experts nationwide, none could name a company with such a widespread and successful unlimited vacation policy. Microsoft tried with executives in the 1990's, but few managers used more than a few weeks. The roots of the Netflix culture grew partly from difficulties at Hastings* first startup, Pure Software (now part of IBM), where McCord served as director of HR. He made tens of millions at the company, but along the way. Pure lost its spark. "We had this great early culture, but after we went public we had a lot more normal rules," Hastings said. "You didn't need a bathroom pass to go to the bathroom, but it kind of felt like that sometimes." In 1998, Hastings lured McCord away from a four-day-aweek consulting gig to join Netflix, persuading her with a vision of "the company we always dreamed of." They've since created a billion-dollar corporation that retains the feel of a family business, where the CEO knows the majority of the 200 or so workers at headquarters by name, partly because he and McCord hold small group meetings with all recent hires. At one such gathering a few years ago, an employee argued that it didn't make sense for Netflix to track vacation days. "You're not measuring my daily hours, so why are you measuring the number of days I work?" he asked. Hastings and McCord agreed, but the company's attorneys took some convincing. As remarkable as the rules might sound, Netflix employees weren't surprised. "We don't think of it as a perk - it's just emblematic of the way we work here," said John Ciancutti, a director of engineering who is traveling .for several weeks in the Galapagos Islands with his mother this spring.. The company's workhard/play-oulside-the-office culture is one reason McCord believes Netflix avoided the postpublic offering exodus that plagues many technology companies. Five years after the IPO in 2002, six of its seven top executives are still with Netflix. The worker-oriented rules aid retention in the lower ranks, too; Ciancutti joined as a junior engineer in 1999. And the culture allows the company to hire independent, creative types like Director of Product Management Todd Yellin, who spent much of his first several months on the job traveling to Los Angeles to complete work on an independent film. Yet open-minded treatment of workers isn't without its challenges. Chief among the problems at similar programs, according to Sladek, is that managers are inconsistent. Some might grant their team two months vacation and two days working at home per week, while others choose two weeks and no telecommuting. 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. Employees schedule time off within the rhythm of their jobs: finance managers stick around in early January to close the year's books; Mcllhany front-loaded her work during the first week of November before she left for South Africa; Aroon Ramadoss, an engineering manager who spent five weeks in, Europe last summer, took little vacation in 2005. Still, few executives seem as ready as Hastings to buck conventional wisdom on how we work. "We're the nation that takes the least amount of time off in the world. We have more rules and regulations that tie people to a clock than a lot of other nations," Sladek said. "Netflix is where a lot of companies would like to be going. But in practice, they're still few and far between." hot designer fashion, totally amazing savings (cute couple.) a huge selection of the same misses' spring fashion now in dept. stores^for so much less at t.j.maxx. tops, skirts, active separates & much more! starts tomorrow. GBEEN BUlLDtNQ INTnATTVT Bufld Smart • Build G r t t n When you buy your dream home, it's about more than square footage, custom cabinets and granite counter tops. It's atout creating a healthy environment for your family. That's vHy you need a green home certified by the Utah Green Buildinc, initiative. Green homes feature superior indoor air quality and improved liability. 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