Workplace Occupancy Study – Netflix

Netflix is the world’s leading provider of streaming media and is growing at a tremendous pace ever since 1997. Increasing customers, global expansion and a transformation in core business into a ‘Hollywood’ organisation that produces original content are only a few of the strategic challenges Netflix is facing at the moment. Besides that, Netflix has a very progressive company culture and leadership style.   

According to an article by Michelle Conlin in Bloomberg Business Week in 2007:“Netflix may be the ultimate company for work flexibility. The movie distribution company famously has no vacation policy. That doesn’t mean that employees don’t get vacation time. They can have as many vacation days as they feel they need. However, there is another side to this coin. Netflix is ultra-demanding of its employees. The company pays their people lavishly, gives them unlimited vacations, and lets them structure their own compensation packages. In return, über-performance is expected. (…)”.

Purpose

These circumstances and forecasts are ingredients for Netflix’ global real estate and workplace strategy as they are occupied with the task to accommodate growth, attract and retain talented international oriented, highly IT educated knowledge workers. A complex task in a very turbulent environment. This task can be broken down into more operational workplace related questions to check and balance your workplace strategy. How efficient and effective are my current offices used? Is there any space for growth and if yes; how much and where exactly?

Since November 2017, Measuremen’s Workplace Maturity Model© and the solutions underneath helps the Workplace team of Netflix in EMEA to answer these questions and to strike the right balance between workplace efficiency and workplace satisfaction. In order to find the answers, Measuremen has been asked to execute a Workplace Occupancy Study in their new office at the Stadhouderskade in Amsterdam.

Outcomes

The outcome of this study shows that even though the organisation is growing, there is still some space for improvement with an average occupancy rate of 36.2% including passive occupancy (also known as ‘in use, but unoccupied’) of 16.8%. The busiest days of the week are Tuesday and Thursday and Friday can be considered as the calmest day at the office, just like most organisations in Western Europe. From a workplace occupancy perspective, it can be concluded that flexible working in one of the most flexible organisations doesn’t necessarily lead to significant changes in occupancy rates.

The way the workplaces are used shows interesting facts it’s mainly computer work (41,3%) or ‘in use, but unoccupied’ (46,4%). The last percentage shows that most staff is often in short meetings, leaving their stuff that their desk -if not working at their laptop.

The meeting rooms, in all types and sizes, are frequently used with an overall occupancy rate of about 30%. The most popular meeting room types are the regular ones and the tables in the restaurant. Meeting facilities at Netflix show an average utilisation rate of 37,5%.

This case study shows only a fraction of the extensive Workplace Occupancy Study that has been executed in the fall of 2017. Please let us know if you want to learn more about our Workplace Maturity Model©, Workplace Occupancy Study or if you want to get in touch with the Workplace team of Netflix EMEA.