Our Progress on Inclusion: 2021 Update

Written by Vernā Myers, VP of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix.

Our members come from many different countries and cultures and to entertain them we need a workplace and content that’s equally diverse. Last January, we dove deep into everything we’re doing on inclusion in the company by publishing Netflix’s first inclusion report. This is an update on our progress. 

Netflix grew from about 8,000 to 10,000 full-time employees globally in 2021. In the US — where we collect and report race and ethnicity data — we grew from 6,300 to 7,300 employees.*

Gender (Global): Women now make up 51.7% of our global workforce, up from 48.7% in 2020. This includes 6.9% growth of women directors and above, totaling 51.1%. 

Race/Ethnicity (US): Half of our US workforce (50.5%) is made up of people from one or more historically excluded ethnic and/or racial backgrounds, including Asian, Black, Hispanic or Latino/a/x, Middle Eastern or North African, Native American, and Pacific Islander.* That’s up from 46.8% in 2020.

• The number of US Black employees increased from 8.6% to 10.7% - and Black leadership (directors and above) increased from 10.9% to 13.3%.
• The number of US Hispanic or Latino/a/x employees increased slightly from 7.9% to 8.6%, and US Hispanic or Latino/a/x leadership (directors and above) grew from 4.3% to 4.4%.

Senior leadership: Of the 22 leaders in our senior leadership team, ten (45.0%) are women and five (22.7%) are US leaders from one or more historically excluded ethnic and/or racial backgrounds. 

You can see how this data compares to the 2020 calendar year in the footnotes below. We’ve also published our EEO-1 reports we submit to the US Department of Labor publicly here on our investor site. These reports look a bit different from the numbers above because they include people who don’t work for Netflix full-time, for example part-time or temporary employees on our TV and film productions, for which numbers fluctuate throughout the year.

While increasing representation is important, it’s only part of the work. So we continue to build an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. The strategy we laid out in our first inclusion report remains the same.

First, we’re increasing representation at the company long-term with a strategy led by our inclusion recruiting programs team. We’re expanding inclusive hiring trainings for recruiters and hiring managers, creating access for emerging talent by adding Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and more HBCUs to our pipeline programs, and finding new ways to diversify our executive and company networks.

Second, we’re improving our culture of inclusion and belonging. We grew to 16 employee resource groups, conducted our annual pay equity review and continued offering inclusive benefits, including gender-inclusive parental leave, transgender and non-binary care in our US health plans, and family-forming support for employees regardless of marital status, gender, or sexual orientation.

Last year, we held 90 virtual learning workshops on inclusion topics ranging from accessibility on service to understanding US Latino/a/x representation on-screen. These workshops help employees look at every decision with an “inclusion lens,” asking questions like, whose voice is missing? Who is being excluded? Are we portraying this authentically? Last year, at least 4,500 employees participated in a virtual learning workshop.

Photo above: IllumiNative’s Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee), Leah Salgado (Pascua Yaqui), and Heather Rae lead a virtual workshop on Native representation in front of and behind the camera for Netflix employees in December 2021.

Third, we’ve expanded the inclusion strategy team to sharpen our inclusion lens around the world, adding leaders in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, while expanding the team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

We have a lot more work to do, particularly in recruiting more Latino/a/x, Indigenous and other historically excluded talent in the U.S.. We’re also improving how we understand the representation of our workforce outside of the US reporting requirements – like additional gender identities, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, and in other countries. 

Transformational change won’t happen overnight. Progress takes consistent discipline, heart and practice. We’re committed to doing our part in inspiring change within our industries — so more people can feel seen, heard, and supported to contribute at their best.

Footnotes:

*Full-time streaming employees. 2021 numbers as of December 2021, and 2020 numbers as of December 2020.

*Categories based on US reporting requirements.