At Netflix, “postmortem” meetings explain why someone was fired

Netflix CEO Reed
Hastings.
Hector Vivas/Latin
Content/Getty Images

• The workplace culture of “radical transparency” at Netflix can be perturbing for some
  employees, as The Wall Street Journal published
  in a lengthy report on October 25.
• One workplace practice at Netflix is to conduct “postmortem”
  meetings and emails, which explain why an employee was fired.
• “Being part of Netflix is like being part of an Olympic team.
  Getting cut, when it happens, is very disappointing but there is
  no shame at all,” the company told the Journal in a
  statement. 

After Sean Carey got fired from his role as a vice
president at Netflix, he attended his own postmortem.

That’s
Netflix slang for a meeting or email that details why you
were fired, as The Wall Street Journal published

in a lengthy report on October 25. WSJ reporters Shalini
Ramachandran and Joe Flint interviewed more than 70 current and
former employees for the piece on Netflix’s culture of “radical
transparency,” and how it’s fared as the company has expanded.

At Carey’s postmortem, Netflix’s chief content
officer Ted Sarandos explained to 40 to 50 people on the content
team why he was fired. Sarandos said Carey, while he
played an important role in building the website’s streaming
library, lacked the creativity needed at Netflix as the content
behemoth transitioned to original content. 

Attending one’s own postmortem isn’t typical. 

Postmortems can also take the form of an email that may be viewed
by dozens or hundreds of employees, the Journal reported. Some
employees said they found the practice “awkward and theatrical.”
However, Jibran Kutik, a former Netflix product
designer, told the Journal that the postmortems were
“generally useful.” 

Carey agreed. “It was certainly awkward for some, but was also
consistent with the culture — there is sometimes a cost to
transparency,” Carey told the Journal. “In the end, I felt it was
beneficial.”

Several other highly-successful companies have come under fire
for similarly public termination practices.
At Nike, an entire division was laid off via PowerPoint, as
some former employees alleged to The New York Times
in April. 

Others have taken a similar approach to Netflix when it comes to
being transparent about an employee’s flaws and failures. Some
Amazon employees can appeal their firings to keep their jobs or
get a new one with a different manager, Bloomberg Businessweek
reported
in June. Around 30% actually succeed. 

As for Netflix, the Journal reported that the entertainment
juggernaut prides itself on its unique corporate culture, which
rewards blunt feedback, and links that to its global dominance of
137 million subscribers. 

And if you’re fired, that’s nothing to be ashamed of,
Netflix said. Perhaps you just didn’t cut it.

“Being part of Netflix is like being part of an Olympic team,”
the company said in a written statement. “Getting cut, when it
happens, is very disappointing but there is no shame at all. Our
former employees get a generous severance and they generally get
snapped up by another company.”

Read the entire article from The Wall Street Journal
here.