2022 Inclusion Report Update

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Inclusion is a collective effort. To make Netflix more inclusive for every employee, we all have to jump in, work together and develop our “inclusion lens.” And that’s hard because conversations about equity and diversity can be uncomfortable. Many of us are still afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing — and that discomfort is true even for someone like me who’s been working in inclusion almost my entire career. But as folks who take the time to engage have learned, it’s how you build your inclusion competence — moving from awareness to action to impact more quickly. 

As we outlined in our first inclusion report — Sowing the Seeds — increasing representation is an important start. But it’s only part of the journey because if people don’t also feel included and valued within an organization, they will ultimately leave. Overall, we’ve made great headway in the last few years across Netflix, and if I were grading our company I’d give us a “P” for progress and a “G” for growth — not higher as there is always more work to do. 

Gender (Global)¹: Across gender identities, women make up 49.6% of our workforce and have the highest representation at Netflix, down from 51.7% in 2021. Women leadership (Directors and above) remained steady at 51.4% (vs. 51.2% in 2021). Men and additional gender identities² remained flat at 45% and 1.3% respectively, compared to 2021.

Race/Ethnicity (US)³: Over half of our US workforce (52.9%) 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 Islander⁴. This is a slight increase from 52.3% in 2021.

• The number of US employees who identify as Asian account for 27% of our workforce, an increase from 25.8% in 2021— and 18.4% of our leadership (directors and above), a decrease from 18.6% in 2021. 

• The number of US Black employees accounts for 10.7% of our workforce, a decrease from 11.7% in 2021 — and 12.9% of our leadership (Directors and above), a decrease from 13.6% in 2021.

• The number of US Hispanic or Latino/a/e/x employees account for 11.3% of our workforce, relatively flat from last year (11.2%) — and 7.3% of our leadership (Directors and above), an increase from 6.8% in 2021. 

Senior Leadership: Of the 23 leaders in our senior leadership team in 2022, 43.5% (10) are women, and 34.8% (8) self-identify as belonging to one or more historically excluded ethnic and/or racial backgrounds. 

Getting Better Globally: In the past year, we built and deepened our inclusion work, creating local programs in multiple languages including French, Italian, German and Spanish and adding staff around the world — including leaders in India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico and Brazil.

• More than 600 of our global leaders have participated in small group workshops on Leading Inclusively. These workshops ensure that many more of our colleagues are aware of the inclusive behaviors necessary to create and maintain an environment where all people can operate at their highest levels. 

• We now have 18 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) with 84 chapters all around the world — including our newest additions in Manila, Berlin, Mumbai, Madrid and Sydney. ERGs support and enrich our communities, allies and the company as a whole.

While some regions and countries are in the earlier stage of their inclusion journey, we see this phase of our work as moving beyond awareness to action, where our leaders are deliberate and consistent in creating an inclusive environment for their teams and equitable opportunities for employees to grow. 

Improving Our Culture of Inclusion and Belonging: In 2022, we redeveloped resources for our recruiting teams, embedding inclusive hiring practices into everything we do. We are also working with our HR colleagues to further embed an inclusion and equity lens into all our systems and practices, including compensation, onboarding, feedback, growth and development. 

We continue to offer inclusive benefits such as gender-inclusive parental leave and family-forming support for employees regardless of marital status, gender or sexual orientation. We also made enhancements in areas of transgender care, mental health and neurodiversity, as well as backup caregiving in various offices around the world. 

In the US we expanded the number of Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) represented in our Pathways Bootcamp. The past year's cohort is the most diverse in the program's history and we redeveloped the curriculum to better position students for Netflix internships and new graduate opportunities. 

Our supplier diversity program has also grown. In 2022 we spent ~$700M with underrepresented suppliers, representing a 9% year-over-year increase. Many of our teams took concrete steps to remove systemic barriers, build a diverse network of suppliers and create a positive impact in their respective functions.  And we continue to expand our investment in Black banks and other Black-led financial institutions to scale with 2% of our cash and short-term investment holdings ($106M committed as of December 31, 2022).

Better Representation in Front of and Behind the Camera: Two years ago Netflix partnered with Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to examine several inclusion metrics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+, disability) in our US-commissioned films and series. We recently published the new findings, looking at Netflix US films and series from 2020-2021, showing notable improvements year-over-year for women and people from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.

Following the release of the initial study, we established the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity to invest $100 million over five years into creating more pathways for talent from underrepresented communities across the world. In just two years, we’ve invested $29 million in more than 100 programs, partnering with over 80 organizations in more than 35 countries. 

We strive to entertain the world — and to do so, we need to be as innovative and collaborative as possible — two of the proven outcomes of a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. Of course, we still have a lot more to do on this journey. The goal is for everyone to continue to grow and take individual responsibility for fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.  

In 2021 we made changes to our data collection methods to allow employees to share multiple self-identities for gender identity and race (e.g., Black and Asian compared to only “Two or More Races”). Using this method, we are counting multiracial employees or employees with more than one gender identity as a member of each of the categories they identify with, meaning some employees are represented in more than one category. Under this methodology, the total representation may add up to more than 100%. 

The reason we made this shift in our methodology is to better represent our employees' lived experiences.  While we made this shift in our data collection in 2021, we reported our 2021 data for the last inclusion update using the previous data collection methodology that counted multiracial employees all under one "Two or More Races" category. 

For this year's update, we are reporting 2022 data in accordance with the new multi-select data collection method and in order for us to be able to share our progress in an accurate and meaningful way, we are comparing 2022 data to the 2021 data that employed the same methods. Previously published results will differ due to these changes in data collection methods and we will make notes as such in the previously published updates.

_{² Netflix acknowledges and honors that gender is non-binary, so employees can self-identify from categories outside of man or woman.}

_{³ In the US — where we collect and report race and ethnicity data — we had approximately 7,000 employees. Previously published results will differ due to changes in data collection methods that allow employees to share multiple self-identities (e.g., Black and Asian compared to only “multi-race”), with this change percentages can add up to more than 100%.}

_{⁴ The Race & Ethnicity self-identification categories that Netflix uses are largely informed by US federal reporting requirements.}