Reference no: EM133577590

Assignment

You will place yourself in the role of an HR professional at Netflix, asked to prepare the chief human resources officer (CHRO), Sharon Slade, for a possible severance negotiation involving a departing executive, Alice Jones. Your task is to create analysis and negotiation coaching recommendations for executive leadership (in either paper or presentation format), which the CHRO can read to prepare for the negotiation. You will review three resources listed below that provide background information about the Netflix organizational culture, performance expectations, and its unique approach to defined policies and procedures. (Relative to other companies, it has very few policies and procedures.)

These resources are:

I. Library Article: How Netflix Reinvented HR
II. Article: The Woman Behind the Netflix Culture Doc
III. Website: Netflix Culture - Seeking Excellence

You will also review profiles and case study background information for the CHRO, Sharon Slade, as well as the executive, Alice Jones, who may be terminated. These profiles, the case study background information and the three resources about Netflix provide the content of the case study necessary to complete the final project. (Note: While this case study is based on a real company, the people and the scenario presented are fictional.)

Profile and Case Study Background Information: Sharon Slade-Chief Human Resources Officer at Netflix

Profile: Sharon Slade

Sharon Slade is the chief human resources officer (CHRO) at Netflix. She has been in her role at Netflix for three years, having been recruited from General Electric, where she worked as the vice president of human resources. Sharon rose in through the ranks in human resources at GE, and was instrumental in helping design, implement and manage the GE performance and development process, which used what was called a vitality curve. In summary, the vitality curve was a modified bell curve, using a 20-70-10 percentage. All professional employees were force-ranked by their individual performance against set goals and objectives each year. The top 20 percent of the workforce was identified as the best performers and were rewarded very well for their outstanding performance. The 70 percent majority was deemed as performing their job adequately; the employees ranked in the bottom 10 percent were identified as low producers and were terminated at the end of each year. The program soon gained the nickname as the "rank and yank" performance process.1

Sharon accepted the CHRO job with Netflix as she saw its organizational values as fairly well aligned with her personal values and work ethic, several of which are as follows:

1) You accomplish amazing amounts of important work.
2) You learn rapidly and eagerly.
3) You say what you think even if it is controversial.
4) You make tough decisions without agonizing over them.
5) You care intensely about Netflix's success.
6) You are known for candor and directness.
7) Adequate performance is not good enough; adequate performance gets you a generous severance package.
8) Netflix is like a pro sports team. We hire, develop, and cut team members smartly, so we have stars in every position.

Case Study Background Information

Employees describe Sharon as a fair but firm-a "tough cookie"-who can hold her own in almost any setting. Employees fully understand she expects everyone on the Netflix team to give 110% of their talent and effort to achieve their goals and objectives, and she has little tolerance for those who fail to deliver on their objectives while citing excuses for why they failed. Sharon expects employees to proactively see where they are failing in their performance and develop an action plan to get themselves back on track and stay on track.

Sharon has asked you to assist her in developing recommendations for a discussion with Alice Jones, a managing director at Netflix. Last year Alice's department was reorganized to refocus on growth, as the competition for on-demand entertainment increased significantly. The Netflix operations vice president expects Netflix to be number one in all on-demand entertainment categories, and reorganized its operations to aggressively attain this goal. Sharon acknowledges that Alice was a very good performer at Netflix for several years, but also knows her performance is faltering in this new aggressive growth model.

Profile and Case Study Background Information: Alice Jones-Operations Director at Netflix

Profile: Alice Jones

Alice Jones is an operations director at Netflix, a role that she has held for the past two years. Alice started at Netflix 10 years ago and did very well in all her previous roles. As a result, she was a rising star at Netflix. Last year Netflix was facing significant challenges in the highly competitive on-demand entertainment industry. Her department was reorganized and a new executive was brought in over her to lead the newly formed division.

Case Study Background Information

Alice was upset that she was not selected for the new role as executive to lead the newly reorganized division, since she felt she had "earned her stripes" at Netflix and deserved to be promoted into this new role. Alice initially resented her new boss, Jane Smith, who was an external hire from a Fortune 500 company, has a track record as a transformational leader in her previous firm, and has experience in driving major change.

Alice has to admit, however, that her new boss brings a lot of passion to the job, where she is driving significant change in the new division. Alice sees how the changes have improved the division's performance numbers. Jane Smith has begun having detailed discussions with Alice regarding her low performance numbers. She recognizes that Alice performed well for 10 years at Netflix, and that she is talented and completely devoted to the company. Because of this, Jane went out on a limb and placed Alice on a performance improvement plan (PIP), a practice at odds with the Netflix culture.

Alice feels Jane recognizes her value to the company. Alice is concerned that Jane has placed her on a performance improvement plan (PIP), but understands that she has three months to turn her performance around or she will likely be terminated. Alice feels like the PIP is justified and her working relationship with Jane has become constructive. She is appreciative of the opportunity to improve her performance and keep her job.

Sharon Slade has set up an appointment with Alice in two weeks about her future at Netflix. Alice is only one month into her PIP but has been working hard on meeting its goals. She is nervous about the meeting with Sharon because she knows Sharon was not in favor of the PIP since this approach runs counter to the Netflix culture.

Specifically, your analysis and negotiation coaching recommendations for executive leadership must address the following critical elements:

A. Summary: The purpose of this section is to prepare the chief human resources officer for entering the arena of this particular negotiation. Be sure to:

1. Summarize the negotiation fact pattern the chief human resources officer (CHRO) would need in advance of the negotiation.

2. Describe the types of power the CHRO has and how they are important to this particular negotiation.

3. Describe appropriate alternatives that the CHRO would want to consider in the event that an agreement is not reached. In other words, what is the CHRO's BATNA? Does s/he have more than one?

B. Cultural Analysis Overview

1. What inferences can you draw about the company's organizational culture based on how it reacts to an employee leaving? Support your reasoning with specific examples.

2. Describe what cultural assumptions drive the organization's policy decisions. Support your response with examples.

3. Explain how you would use these assumptions to engage in a severance negotiation that would result in the most beneficial outcome for the company. Support your explanation with effective examples.

C. PIOC Analysis Overview

1. Formulate appropriate phrasing for the CHRO's opening remarks that separate the people from the problems. Your phrasing must be based on principled negotiation practices.

2. Identify case-specific negotiating positions and rephrase them as interests. For example, you could use a table to illustrate each position and the appropriate rephrased interest (one row per position-interest).

3. Recommend options that can appropriately address the parties' integrative interests. Feel free to consider potential creative options that may not be as common.

4. Identify objective criteria that can be used to measure distributive elements of the negotiation. Explain the reasoning for your choices.

D. Communication Strategies

1. Identify examples of effective overt communication that could be used in this negotiation. Explain the reasoning for your choices. For example, when hearing a proposal from the executive that would be risky from a human resources perspective, how would you respond? Why?

2. Identify situations where tacit communication is important to this negotiation. Provide examples of how you might use such communication in upcoming meetings. For example, if you are making an offer to the executive, what non-verbal cues can you provide to let him/her know the offer is final and you would not be open to negotiating further?

3. Contrast the benefits and risks of using overt and tacit communication methods with respect to this negotiation. For example, might one particular method be more appropriate than the other? Why?

E. Negotiation Tactics and Strategies

1. Summarize potential negotiating gambits that could advance a distributive negotiating agenda in this situation. For example, what might you say to persuade the other party to stop asking for concessions?

2. Recommend which specific gambits would be most appropriate for advancing your agenda in this negotiation. Explain your reasoning.

3. What tactics would you advise the negotiator to avoid in this case? Explain your reasoning.