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Netflix’s Chief Talent Officer has responded to claims made by a Wall Street Journal Report that it has been “walking back” its parental leave policy in recent years.
The streaming platform is famous for its progressive culture and in 2015 offered employees a full year of unlimited parental leave after their child’s birth.
But a recent Wall Street Journal report included comments from several current and former employees, who claimed it is trying to dial back the policy and cited the removal of “freedom and responsibility” wording from documentation about the company culture.
In a public statement, Netflix Chief Talent Officer Sergio Ezama suggested the claims are untrue. “We have not pulled back on our parental leave policy,” he said.
Netflix “walking back” parental leave policy, employees claim
According to the WSJ report released last Thursday, December 12, the generous parental leave policy has become a “central tension” at the company.
Introduced nearly a decade ago, it aligned with Netflix’s culture of “freedom and responsibility.” The famous cultural approach was first detailed in a 125-page PowerPoint presentation created in 2009, one of the most influential pieces of HR documentation ever produced, having been viewed over 5 million times.
The document included fundamental guidance such as a two-word vacation policy (‘Take vacation’) and a five-word expenses policy (‘Act in Netflix’s best interests’).
While the addition of the unlimited parental policy was welcomed by employees in 2015, the WSJ suggests that the number of employees using the scheme has threatened its long-term viability.
Since 2015 it has revised the guidance on parental leave multiple times. In October, it removed culture documents from its website, including a page that stated new parents “generally take 4-8 months” of leave. The new document doesn’t include guidance around a time frame and instead advises employees to talk to their manager.
The WSJ reported that the company’s internal benefits page continues to state that salaried employees can take parental leave within the first year after childbirth or adoption, but no length of time is specified.
It also included comments from employees, past and present, who accuse the company of “walking back” the policy.
“Netflix always had a different approach than other companies in that they said it’s important for employees to be with their babies… Now it feels like it’s more about the business needs,” one former production employee said. They added that ambiguous language in the documentation “can impact how long people feel comfortable taking.”
Another suggested that the advice to discuss leave with managers is not always effective, alleging to the WSJ that his manager said, “You’re not taking a year are you?” after informing them of his partner’s pregnancy. Netflix’s culture playbook encourages managers to practice “context not control.”
The former employee also claimed that he lost his role during a reorganization earlier in 2024 before he was due to return from his six-month paternity leave.
Netflix’s HR team in the firing line over ‘hard issues’
Other employees indicated that Netflix’s human resources team may have been contributing to confusion around the policy.
The WSJ said multiple employees claimed HR team members and line managers told them that six months’ parental leave is standard and that any further leave would require manager approval.
It cited a recording in which an HR manager apparently told an employee: “At Netflix we generally honor six months of maternity leave… Anything of that or above that…is really based on the discretion of the leader in the business. But generally it’s six months of maternity leave.”
A spokesperson for Netflix told the Journal that this statement was inaccurate and that parental leave is not set at six months.
A series of Netflix employees have complained in recent years about losing their roles during reorganizations following or during parental leave.
In a since-deleted LinkedIn post, one worker claimed earlier this year she was laid off the day before her return from a six-month maternity leave; while a marketing manager in Australia sued the company this year, alleging she was illegally made redundant while on maternity leave.
Netflix says it is not ‘targeting’ employees on parental leave
While Netflix has denied the accusations – Chief Talent Officer Sergio Ezama stated Netflix “has not pulled back” its parental leave policy – the WSJ suggested that the intensification of claims made by employees in recent years follows a tricky post-pandemic period for the company, during which cost-cutting measures (including layoffs) coincided with growing requests for (parental) leave.
“We are facing growing parental leave and paid time off pressure for mental breaks,” then-Chief Communications Officer Rachel Whetstone, wrote in an email to co-founder and then co-CEO Reed Hastings, describing them as “hard issues” to deal with.
Hastings had instructed business leaders that the cultural memo had changed to deal with “oversimplification” of the company’s policies. Some leaders had raised concerns over what they believed to be a significant number of layoffs involving employees on parental leave or recently returned from parental leave.
The executives were worried it could be seen as Netflix “targeting people on leave,” the WSJ report claimed.
The Netflix spokesman said employees were not targeted and a company analysis revealed only a very small percentage of staff affected by layoffs were those on parental leave.
They added that the company has consistently told employees to “take care of your child and yourself.”
“Employees have the freedom, flexibility, and responsibility to determine what is best for them and their family,” the spokesperson said.
