On episode 50 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together once again to discuss Netflix’s 2021 inclusion report, facial recognition software in interviewing, and the scam psychic that’s terrorizing JLee’s neighborhood!

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights:

2:20 – Do you know where the DMV area is? That’s where JLee says she is from when asked.

3:00. – Jlee has a scam psychic in her neighborhood and everyone is activating their Ring doorbell to find out who it is. Discussion of psychics naturally follows.

6:30 – KD asks Tim how frustrated he gets when people in his inner circle don’t share his passion for his favorite streaming shows/movies. The gang agrees there should be codes where you can force someone to watch a show a limited number of times per year.

10:00 – Netflix released their first-ever inclusion report in mid-January. KD addresses it as a masterstroke in communication and controlling the narrative in HR comms. They announced that women make up half of their workforce, even in leadership and executive roles.

12:00 – JLee thinks Netflix is doing good work in the DEI space. She cites a webinar they hosted about being black in HR and how it felt authentic and not too sales-y.

14:30 – Tim says that demographic data are very important in controlling the narrative they want to spin.

18:20 – Tim poses the question “do we know that Netflix is good for women”? He doesn’t think they are a tech company so the numbers could be low for the entertainment/media industry.

21:00 – KD brings up how they led with their best numbers when discussing their numbers on race and ethnicity that came later in the report.  He allows notes that the data they did provide in charts is hard to follow compared with the numerical data in tabs that companies like Google provided.

26:00 – KD asks JLee how she feels about the accuracy of facial recognition. She gets annoyed when her phone doesn’t recognize her face in the morning sometimes.

27:30 – Hirevue just discontinued facial recognition as a sorting feature in video interviewing. They felt that this feature could help give a better pool of candidates than without, but it started to raise some issues, namely the world crushing people for features like this without apology.

31:00 – Tim thinks the technology worked too well and that scared away many companies. There were just some concerns that the facial recognition software would raise some physical-attribute-related issues. KD wonders aloud how well the tech actually worked, and a discussion of whether facial tics and frowns was a knockout feature or note ensues.

34:00 – Did you love the button at the bottom of old iPhone models? Tim misses his button on his newer iPhone.