Being one of the largest streaming apps internationally, Netflix has had to put vigorous efforts I being inclusive and diverse. A study commissioned by Netflix and conducted by Dr Stacy L. Smith, the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative director, concluded that the organization is inclusive and diverse. Further, in a series of reports and blogs published by the organization, the diversity projects and initiatives are thoroughly discussed to assure its customers that they are well-represented in all the shows, series, movies, and documentaries it offers.
A report written by Vernā Myers, the Vice President of Inclusive Strategies at Netflix, details her personal view of inclusiveness and how they have been reflected in the company. Myers begins by sharing a deeply personal story that happened when she was eight years old. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. horrified her whole family, and her father even broke into tears. Myers recalls how sad that period was, as it seemed like the dream King had would not be fulfilled. Her community was equally shook and in despair (Myers, 2021). However, it was this sadness that pushed Myers to purpose to live King's dream. At that moment, she decided to fight for inclusiveness and equity, even though at her young age, she could not have predicted the avenues she would use to do so.
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As luck would have it, Myers was able to become the activist she had vowed to be, and her outstanding work intertwined with Netflix in 2018. Myers notes that Netflix has so much more power than other companies with the same net-worth because it determines the kind of stories people watch in their free time and how they are told (Myers, 2021). Since it has millions of users worldwide, Myers understood that she could help the company make good use of its influence, not that it was not, but in a manner that re-shapes the stories of various minority communities in America and the rest of the world.
In her endeavor to create a more inclusive environment at Netflix, Myers began by asking employees what their take was about the current diversity efforts of the company. In doing so, Myers and her team wanted to get the full story from the small section of individuals who knew Netflix from the inside (Myers, 2021). Unlike the audience, Netflix employers have insider knowledge of the criteria used to determine which shows are included and dismissed. Myers also made sure to emphasize that although she was essentially working for the company, her findings from the interaction with employees would remain confidential and would not in any way affect their employment.
While Myers began to work with Netflix in 2018, the company had added inclusion as a cultural value in 2017. However, from the interaction with employees, Myers and her team discovered that although great effort had been made to promote inclusion and diversity, Netflix still had a long way to go. The best part was that the company was serious about achieving the highest possible level of inclusion, so it took those findings as a call to action. Thus, in the two years that Myers has been working in the inclusion department, she and her team have been sowing seeds of diversity in all other departments., which explains the title of this first report by Netflix about their inclusive strategies, "Sowing Seeds: Inclusion Takes Root at Netflix." Myers notes that in making small changes in the organization's running, the inclusion department hoped that they would take root and materialize into bigger changes (Myers, 2021). Further, Myers and the inclusion department ensured that every strategy they adopted was not geared towards a short term goal but a long-term achievement. In doing so, they hoped to achieve the ripple effect, which means that one element puts into effect another until every aspect is saturated with inclusiveness.
Myers also explores the meaning of diversity to the company and the relevance of inclusiveness in their mission and vision. Although Netflix has a definitive culture geared toward freedom and responsibility, Myers notes that it is not enough unless diversity is key. Myers and her team found that diversity promotes innovation. It encourages people's creativity and their ability to solve problems. Diversity enhances the sharing of ideas between people with different backgrounds and hence a varied understanding of their world. It encourages people to think together while each individual brings something unique to the discussion. It allows for the anticipation of how various people across the world will perceive certain things. Myers found that diversity has saved Netflix very many scandals. Before a show or documentary is scheduled to be viewed on Netflix, it goes through thorough scrutiny to ensure no controversial aspect would blow back on the company (Myers, 2021). When the groups scrutinizing these shows are comprised of individuals from different nations, religions, sexual affiliations, and races, there can see more controversial factors as opposed to a less diverse group.
The inclusion department implores every employee to think about everything in the organization through an inclusive lens. In doing so, they question what voice is missing in a particular show or which minority group is not appropriately represented. They are also encouraged to read wide and interact with more diverse people to understand the authenticity of their voices. A major problem that the filming industry faces is not even the lack of representation of minority groups but their misrepresentation (Smith et al, 2021). By not including members of the minority group represented in the show, the creators risk using stereotypes instead of authentically portraying these characters. Netflix provides solutions for that problem by ensuring that for every show that contains characters from varied communities, actual members of that community are included in the making of the show. For instance, at the time of publishing the report, Netflix was working on a show about a gay man with cerebral palsy (Gonzalez-Sobrino et al., 2018). The show's making requires that first, the main character be indeed a person with the aforementioned qualities. Further, a significant percentage of the crew and story-writing committees included gay people and some who had cerebral palsy. It may feel easier to get a person to act out certain qualities instead of getting a person who is actually living the life, but the Netflix inclusion department prefers the latter. However, this policy did not begin in 2017 when Netflix added inclusion as one of its cultural values. Countless shows exhibit inclusiveness even early in the past decade. For example, Breaking Bad, a series that began in 2008, had a major role for a character with cerebral palsy. Instead of getting someone to pretend and act out the part of Walter White Jr, the series gave the role to RJ Mitte, who has cerebral palsy. There are many examples of this kind of inclusion at play, and employees and users have applauded it over the years.
Since 2013, Netflix has periodically published a record of the inclusivity rate in their workforce. Women have been considered the weaker gender in previous centuries, but the 21st Century has transformed society's view on women. This modern and equitable perspective clearly reflects Netflix's values since 47.1% of its workforce worldwide is women. This equal representation of women also extends to the leadership level; from the director level going upward, 47.8% of the employees are women. In addition, the senior leadership encompasses 47.6% of women, and 43.7% of the vice presidents in all the departments are women (Myers, 2021). Further, nearly half of the company's workforce includes generally underrepresented groups of minorities such as Asian, Black, Latinx or Hispanic, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander backgrounds. These minority groups constitute 46.4% of the workforce and 42% of the leadership. Further, in America, the number of African American employees increased by 8% from 2018 to 2021 and by 9% in the director and above leadership levels.
Despite the improvements in representation as the year goes by, Netflix maintains that it is still not where it wants to be in terms of inclusion and diversity. There is still more to be done in terms of diversifying the workforce and the show produced. Most importantly, Netflix aims to include the public in its inclusive strategies. It offers avenues for clients to like or dislike the shows on the app. Further, using the various social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, Netflix listens to what the users have to say and then incorporate relevant changes in their strategies (Gonzalez-Sobrino et al., 2018). Myers clarifies in the report that the primary goal of Netflix is to ensure that every user is fully represented and that this representation helps people understand other people better. The Netflix inclusion department aims to use the shows and documentaries it airs to reduce racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism (Myers, 2021). It uses the art of filmmaking to make known the suffering of people across the world. A good use of this strategy is the documentary 13th which discusses the high incarceration rate in America and the vast population of black and brown men in prisons.
The report also highlights Netflix's strategies in increasing representation both on and off-screen. The first strategy is to hire more inclusively by ensuring the recruiting process is fair. The inclusion department had trained over two hundred recruiters at the time the report was published. The role of these recruiters is to interact with candidates to get to know them better, this being one of the adopted non-traditional hiring strategies (Myers, 2021). Traditionally, potential employees are assessed based on their resumes and a series of interviews that mostly gauges their professionalism. However, with the program the recruiters have gone through, potential employees are assessed using a range of factors such as their public relation and understanding of the role they are applying for. Recruiters are also trained to spot bias in the hiring procedure and speak out against it.
Netflix aims to increase representation by creating access for emerging talent. Netflix recognizes that systemic factors hinder some minority groups from venturing into the entertainment and tech industry. Although some companies prefer to excuse their underrepresentation by claiming that there are no available people in the minority groups to hire, Netflix takes the initiative of creating better opportunities for such people. This dedication is seen through the partnership with HBCU Norfolk University to create a technical boot camp where members of marginalized groups can learn about various opportunities and pursue them (Gonzalez-Sobrino et al., 2018). In this strategy, the inclusive department works with the mantra that opening doors for other people invites them to open doors for others, and the cycle continues for the betterment of society.
Netflix also tries to build diverse networks within the organization. It is only natural for people to hire people similar to them because it eases communication and understanding. Netflix encourages its staff to learn how to communicate and interact with different people so that they will not be inclined to hire only those who share their values. The inclusion department helps managers break from the cycle of preferring similarity over diversity by connecting them to various networks (Gonzalez-Sobrino et al., 2018). Netflix partners up with organizations like Ghetto Film School and /dev/color to help widen these networks and expose the current staff to the benefits of diversity.
Netflix also aims to make its employees feel included in the workplace by creating various spaces that enhance belonging. These Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are the equivalent of clubs in schools. They allow people with similar challenges to interact and come up with solutions for them (Smith et al., 2021). Netflix has a total of 15 ERGs that serve black people, people with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ+ members and many more. These groups allow Netflix employees to celebrate similar cultures like Diwali for Muslims or pride month for LGBTQ+ with their fellow workmates. The inclusion department also ensures that these groups do not create a divide between the various communities by encouraging collective activities that include people from the multiple ERGs.
As a Netflix user, I agree with the report's stance that the organization is inclusive and diverse. I always feel represented by the shows and documentaries aired, and I learn more about other communities through them. I find Netflix very informative about the cultures and lives of people who I would otherwise have never heard of. It helps reduced ignorant stereotypes and celebrates inclusion by differences. The provided percentages on the levels of diversity in the leadership and general workforce also prove the point. The diversity in Netflix speaks a lot about the organization. It shows that it is long-term oriented; that is, it does not seek to serve only a particular group of people for a specific period. It embraces the globalization and unification of different people regardless of their race or religion. In a manner, Netflix reflects the kind of society activists preach of and realizes King's dream in all possible ways.
References
Gonzalez-Sobrino, B., González-Lesser, E., & Hughey, M. W. (2018). On-Demand Diversity?
The Meanings of Racial Diversity in Netflix Productions. In Challenging the Status Quo (pp. 321-344). Brill.
Myers, V. (2021) Sowing Seeds: Inclusion Takes Root at Netflix: Our First Report. Netflix.
Smith, S. L., Pieper, K., Choueiti, M., Yao, K., Case, A., Hernandez, K., & Moore, Z. (2021).
Inclusion in Netflix Original US Scripted Series & Films. Indicator , 46 , 50-6.
