Episode #51: Katy Eddington-Lesperance, PMP - Manager of Global Contingent Talent Operations - Netflix

🎧 New on Hiring University!

Episode #51 features Katy Eddington-Lesperance, PMP, Manager of Global Contingent Talent Operations at Netflix. Katy shares how her team supports Netflix’s creative “big bets” through innovative, people-first workforce strategies.

Some of the many topics we explore include

·      The benefits of Netflix’s in-house contingent talent model

·      How the company approaches AI adoption responsibly

·      Joint accountability in preventing candidate fraud

·      Ongoing efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion across the talent ecosystem

Katy also offers leadership insights on balance, adaptability, and staying connected to purpose.

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Transcript

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Jon Beck: Hey everybody. Thanks for joining us on today's show of Hiring University. Today we welcome Katie Edington, manager of Global contingent Talent Operations at Netflix to the show. Katie, welcome. 

Katy Eddington: Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. 

Jon Beck: You bet you've had some stops along the way at Aquin LinkedIn and have had a nice long run at Netflix.

But tell us how you got into this wacky business and a little bit about your role at Netflix. 

Katy Eddington: Of course, I think it's pretty common for people to just fall into the industry, which is exactly what happened with me. I worked in retail for a long time. I was as high as I could go at Nordstrom, and my next step was to be a buyer, but I wasn't interested in moving to Seattle.

Um, and [00:01:00] so I thought, you know what? I want to. See where my skills are transferable. So I went to a staffing agency and said, where can you place me? And they said, how about you work here? And so that's how I got my foot in the door of staffing. And so I worked there as a recruiter, then moved on to Aquent as an account director and partnered with some of our big tech companies out there like Salesforce and Google, Facebook, Twitter.

And had such a good time. And then moved on to LinkedIn where I was doing more of educating staffing firms, how to use LinkedIn, how to get the best talent, um, and be more of a strategic partner for them on their hiring strategy. Then I moved back to LA and ended up landing a great job here at Netflix.

And yeah, I've been in this role as our operations leader for about four and a half years, and really my job is to lead our PMO, so all of our STR [00:02:00] strategic programs or priorities across our global teams and any cross-functional partnering with finance, HR, compliance. Legal everything that's just a big priority for us.

That falls within my team. And then our operations I lead as well. So we have folks who are doing just our day to day and then also any escalations, knowledge management, workflow design, et cetera. So we kind of oversee that. All of the things. 

Jon Beck: It's, it's interesting the Nordstrom experience. I know a lot of people in our industry who come from Nordstrom.

Yeah. And translates because of the customer service aspect. 

Katy Eddington: Oh yeah. They're 

Jon Beck: maniacal about it. Enterprise renter, car, Nordstrom. Like it's, yeah. Really gonna be a good thing. Very, very cool. You mentioned projects in the PMO. Uh, I heard on one of your other, appearances that you talk about following the Netflix business bets.

Yeah. Which must be a dynamic, unique experience. Tell us about kind of the uniqueness of [00:03:00] the Netflix program and, and what makes you guys different. 'cause it, it definitely is. 

Katy Eddington: Yeah, I would say that we truthfully want to just make the business feel enabled to achieve what they are looking to do, and I think that's a common theme for most programs.

But because we're an internal program, we actually know what our big bets are. We know where the company's direction is going, and we have a seat at the table because we are in. Employees and we can truly partner with our cross-functional teams and org leaders to do their workforce planning and design.

We know how they're doing it on the full-time side, so we can do our best to clear any obstacles out of their way so they don't have to worry about the logistics. The contingent hiring, right? Like that can get really granular and like nitty gritty and, and we don't wanna do that. We wanna give them a white glove service so that they come to us, we take care of their contingent needs.

So they can keep accomplishing the goals that make Netflix innovative and [00:04:00] continue to push the needle forward. 

Jon Beck: I think it, it's, it's amazing that the company, a size of Netflix has maintained an internal program. Yeah. Nothing against MSPs because they obviously have a place, uh, with certain organizations, but you're never gonna know your business as well as.

You, you if you, if you're not living and owning and part of it. Yeah. And the fact that you guys have done that is pretty remarkable considering the, the pace of growth. Would there ever be a day where you guys would consider outsourcing it? Or is it in you're rooted in your DNAI 

Katy Eddington: would never say never.

I mean, the, the beauty of Netflix is we're constantly changing. We're always evolving. So there's, we have regular conversations of does this still make sense? What are the pros and cons of each and would we reevaluate that, Nick? We continue to say it does not make sense right now. If that would change five years from now, obviously it can't predict the future, but I don't.

See that happening because of how we work, we're pretty risk tolerant. And when you [00:05:00] start outsourcing things and with indemnification it, you know, MSPs tend to be a little bit more risk adverse, and so that is great. It makes sense for them, but we might wanna lean into things because of our pace, because of.

What little risk it might actually pose to us. And so you just can't really do that if it's outsourced. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Let's talk about some industry topics that are hot and um, in the press literally every day. The first one is obvious with ai. Which means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

There's been a lot of discussions around Netflix, use of AI to create content, but specific to contingent labor, are you leveraging any tools today? Do you have any strong opinions one way or the other about how suppliers use it? What's, what's the, the storyline, at Netflix? 

Katy Eddington: Yeah, it's a good question.

It comes up a lot, right? Because it's just the state of the world right now. Um, we, we use AI a lot internally [00:06:00] just to streamline our business practices, but when it comes to the contingent front, I don't see it replacing many of our positions, right, where I, I can see that happening in some other industries.

But for us, a lot of the roles we hire for, at least in the temp space. They are unique. They are kind of one of a kind types of positions, so they're not, we don't get the same roles over and over and over again that you could just automate and you know, give to a bot to do. Right. So when it comes to our hiring for contingent workers, I don't see that changing.

When it comes to our tooling though, I see a lot of opportunity there and we are having a lot of conversations around like. How do we implement AI to better qualify candidates upfront or to streamline, you know, an interview process, for example? We are not doing a ton of that today in our program, [00:07:00] but we are starting to have those conversations of what does that look like?

And then in regard to suppliers we, we know that some of our suppliers do use AI to help screen candidates and qualify them. We don't necessarily have a perspective on that today. I think we would never want to control, like how are they qualifying their candidates, right? Like ultimately if they come to us and they're fit, then they're fit.

So it's evolving. It, it, it's going to continue to evolve, I think. But we're pretty strict when it comes to how are we using AI and where does our data go? And we wanna be very, very clean and tight with it. 

Jon Beck: Yep. There's so much, angst and anxiety and fearmongering. And if you believe that the press has a way of instilling fear.

Uh, with us, so many of the headlines are reading about human replacement and in our industry, recruiter replacement. And, uh, we've looked at a bunch of the tools ourselves. They're all interesting. We're still very much of the human to human element. We use it for [00:08:00] efficiency gains and, and accuracy. I read, a post by somebody who referenced, uh, I think it's called jevons, JEVO N's Law.

If you look back in history, even back to like the production line of the Model T people, were worried about losing jobs, but we were gonna create more cars, which then created more jobs. Yeah. And if you look through history, you're able now to do more because you have a more efficient way to process more, which should mean more opportunity.

It'll be interesting to see where it all plays out. But, uh, the anxiety level is, I mean, even at SIA this year. So many people talk Yeah. About that. Um, that there's this existential threat which I don't see frankly. Um, I think, you know, it like, yeah. Adoption. It's about how you use it responsibly and, and to make your job that much better or efficient.

So 

Katy Eddington: yeah. Enable you to Yes. Do your job more effectively, make bigger impact. It. I, I relate to that a lot because we do look at those things in our program, like how can we automate or streamline, you know, processes, right? And I've had those conversations with my team [00:09:00] as well, where we're like, does that mean your job is going away?

I am like, no, because now you don't have to spend your time doing X, Y, z tactical thing now. Now I can leverage you to make more of an impact here and change this thing so that ultimately the business feels or even smoother and better able to support them. 

Jon Beck: The best example I've heard, and I think I've talked about it on another episode, but I, I'll say it again, and I, it's somebody I took it from somebody else.

If you were an engineer at NASA working to put humans on the moon and you had your little sly rule doing all your math and calculations and somebody put a calculator in front of you, you'd be like, oh my gosh. 

Katy Eddington: Right? 

Jon Beck: You do my work so much faster. You still know how to need to know how to do the math. Oh yeah.

But it's an efficiency tool and it doesn't lose your job. And in fact, now we can have more engineers crunching more data and and moving faster. So, part and parcel to the AI discussion is candidate fraud, which everybody is wrestling with. Uh, we've put some things in place to mitigate upfront. I know there's a lot of technology providers working on it.[00:10:00] 

How is Netflix addressing it? And, and it's, I guess it's a two part question. At the end of the day, who responsibility is it? To own when fraud does happen.

Katy Eddington: I think it's a co-responsibility, right? Because it's, it might be our interview process and what we want to see the supplier provide to us to ensure that it is the actual person they say that they are. So I think it's a co-responsibility. For us, we we're primarily doing video interviews. We always have been, and so already that helps, I think, mitigate some.

People who might be impersonating others. Ultimately when it comes to the onboarding, the suppliers, making sure that is the person who they say they are, right. When it comes to more, like technical positions. They do, you know, testing on video, they're talking through it live. We don't have, we, we have pretty extensive [00:11:00] interview processes, unlike I think some other programs like.

It's contingent. We're not gonna spend a lot of time on the interview process. We still do because we ultimately wanna make sure they, they are the best fit. We do background checks, you know, NDAs, all the things so that we get our butts covered in case something comes up. Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Yeah. They're pretty crafty though, I tell you.

We, um, yeah. In in two particular instances. 'cause we do video screening as well too, and we do reference checks and a whole series of things. And, and part of this too is like, is gut instinct, right? If something be right, it's probably not right. But in this case, we had two instances where they made, and so we did video interviews.

The client did video interviews. It was an Ms. P led account, and we ultimately found the candidates were fake. Uh, we send welcome packages. I read a handwritten note to every, uh, contractor placement, and they were delivered to the address they provided to us. And we, and two people called us and said, I just got a package from you.

I have no idea who this is. Nobody. 

Katy Eddington: Oh, wow. 

Jon Beck: Crazy. [00:12:00] So old school snail mail, FedEx, yeah. Was able to determine that there was a, after all that. 

Katy Eddington: Wow. 

Jon Beck: Crazy, crazy, crazy. I, I never in a million years would've predicted that. Um, and, and now it's one of the steps that we use. Like, tell us where you live and we're gonna send you something.

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Crazy. Uh, that's an 

Katy Eddington: interesting one. I'll have to take note of it. Yeah. 

Jon Beck: I, I, uh, yeah. It, it, it blew me away. And it's now part of our, you know, it's always been part of our process, but it's now part of our mitigation process. 

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Um. Netflix has always been really progressive and innovative promoting diversity and creative programs.

Um, I love the fact that you guys, I saw you onboarded a, uh, a deaf owned supplier. I think that's super cool. Yeah. Um, both my kids are fluent in, in American sign. In the face of, let's call it a challenging political climate that maybe isn't as supportive of those initiatives. What are you guys doing to stay the course and even go further to promote the conversation?

Katy Eddington: Yeah, I think it goes back to our [00:13:00] roots. Like our primary goal as a company is to entertain the world. And so if we're going to do that, we need our employees to be representative of our customers, right? And so. There's not just people who can hear perfectly, right? For that example, that watch our content or like view our content or engage with our games or whatever it might be like we need to be representative of the global population and where our customers live.

So as a core responsibility, we just want to include. You know, the proper demographics within our own company and, and I think that is. Trickling down into contingent as well, so for us, we have to partner well with the business and make sure that this is a priority. We can't just lump in, you know, a specific supplier and put them against our traditional staffing suppliers and say, okay, good luck.

Like they're never [00:14:00] gonna be successful like that. You have to have a program in place to ensure the business is aware that this is an initiative, this is a supplier that you have. How can we work together to make place and make space for these individuals because it is important that that representation is there.

So. It's a partnership and that that is able to happen again. I think because we're an internal program, we know what the business's priorities are, and so we're able to compliment that with who our suppliers are and then find new ones and build it into our strategy so it can support the business's strategy.

Jon Beck: I love the answer, especially the, that the, the, the content to the world. Which is inclusive of everybody trickling down into the program is awesome. Um, you don't always see that in contingent labor programs. Yeah. It's hard 

Katy Eddington: to do too, right? 

Jon Beck: Super hard. Super hard. Yes. 

Katy Eddington: Like in contingent managers want [00:15:00] someone yesterday or three weeks ago.

And so how do you take the time and be inclusive if you also have to factor in speed? I think there's an element of. Of proactiveness that you have to have. So I mean, managers know if, for us, if a content or a title is coming to them ahead of time, so how can we plan for that instead of doing it last minute, like maybe you would for a traditional hire.

Jon Beck: That fine balance of the transaction, which is very real to reminding ourselves of the human element of all this which those lines are, are often very far apart. So very cool. What's one thing in the industry that you think is broken and you wish you could fix if you had a magic wand?

Katy Eddington: Ooh. I think the thing that I often see is that recruiters are just in it for themselves and I don't, no, I know, right. Like, or like they don't have good, like [00:16:00] ma candidate like management. Yeah. I, I'm sure there are elements of that, but I think it is just a bad rep, right? Like we, we purposely partner with suppliers who they have good candidate management and worker management.

Like that is one of the things that we value them and score them our on during our scorecarding process. Nice. It's very, very rare that I encounter a supplier or a company or even a recruiter. Like I have tons of recruiting friends in the industry where they're like. Oh yeah. I don't care about my candidate.

Like, that has never happened. Like I, I only ever see people like trying to fight for their candidates and, you know, be their advocate at the same time. There's like, what does the business need? And you have to have that match and marry it. But I think I would, if I had a magic wand, I would try and get rid of that and remind everyone, like, we're trying to do our best and advocate for everyone and do right by the business.

But [00:17:00] 

Jon Beck: yeah, again, hard to do because the transactional nature of our business but certainly important and a differentiator. And it's what we do at the end of the day. So what's one thing that you think is working really well that you want see more of?

Katy Eddington: Ooh, one thing that's working really well in the industry or like for us? 

Jon Beck: Yeah. Either. Yeah. 

Katy Eddington: I think it is the flexibility to cater to the market and what's going on in the industry right now. So I feel like contingent the industry has a really good pulse on like the, the talent marketplace and the candidate marketplace.

What's going on like across the industry. Then our suppliers are able to feed into that very well. Like I see a lot of flexibility and adaptability from them. Even walking through CWS and engaging with suppliers on the exhibition floor, they're telling us like, Hey, this is going on. This is what we are doing to adapt to like the market [00:18:00] needs right now.

I think that is a unique thing because. They're able to actually adapt, right? Mm-hmm. To what is needed. And you can flex up or flex down, learn new skills, go find those skills, keep a pulse on those things. I don't know if on like the full-time side of things, if that's as prevalent, right? Mm-hmm.

Because you are more so focused on what does your business need. Yep. And you can get very tunnel vision into. This is just the state of our company and exactly what we need. And you don't so much look at like, what are the competitors doing? What's the best in class for them? Since we're interacting so much with so many external companies and providers and partners, you get more of that like market data that helps inform like your strategy long term and then ultimately how you can be more valuable.

Jon Beck: Uh, you have to be, I mean, the definition of a contingent worker, even the last five years. Is totally different, right? Yeah. I mean, it doesn't mean one thing now, so no definitely more [00:19:00] complex. Couple questions for you on the personal front, uh, to get to know you a little bit better. You recently welcomed a new addition to your family in the last year, is that right?

How has Almost two. Almost two. Okay. Uh, yeah. Lucky you enjoy it. That, that goes by that. How has motherhood influenced the way that you show up as a leader or an employee? 

Katy Eddington: It, I've changed a lot. I think. I, I've been very fortunate that Netflix is a very inclusive environment. But I think the way that I show up, I am, I have a lot more time management ability than I used to.

Um, in the past, I would let work very much bleed into the rest of my day because. It could, right? But now I'm very intentional with my time. And so if this isn't a priority for me or it can wait until next week, I'm going to do that. Because it, it has to, right? Like when I'm off work, I'm gonna go be with my family.

I wanna make sure that I [00:20:00] prioritize that. Um, and then when I'm at work, I wanna make sure that I get the most important and impactful things done as well. So that. There's, it's just better prioritization. Yeah. Honestly. 

Jon Beck: Yeah. Yeah. Prioritization organization and, and maybe more productive too. I hear that a lot.

So 

Katy Eddington: delegation. Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Right. There you go. There you go. I've invented the way back machine I put you in it to the point in time when you're first starting your career, what do you tell Katie, starting her career with all the things you've learned up until this point, what, what piece of advice do you give yourself?

Katy Eddington: Roll with the punches. Okay. I, I think a, a lot of, I used to be very much a control freak. Like I wanted to be in control of what was happening. How am I showing up? What's gonna come to me when you're in sales, I think, or on the recruiting side in the industry, like you have to like go do X, y, Z and hit certain numbers,

but there's an element of you just can't [00:21:00] control it, mm-hmm. In a business of people, we work in a business of helping others and. Business decisions and you can't control those things. So how do you adapt to it without letting it affect your personal, like self-esteem? 

Jon Beck: Yeah. 

Katy Eddington: Uh, I'm used to being a top performer and so I used to take those things personally.

Yes. And I think now looking back, I would give my advice, like it's not personal, it's business. Like roll with the punches and adapt to what the need is then yeah. Ultimately you'll be successful. 

Jon Beck: So good. My wife still to this day, I struggle with that regularly and she's like, snap out of it. You can't control everything.

Yeah. Let it flow. You've done all you can. That's great advice. 

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: You are a proud Long Beach State alum, are you not? 

Katy Eddington: I am. Yep. 

Jon Beck: Go be. Are you the 49 ERs or the sharks? Oh, 

Katy Eddington: 49 ERs. 

Jon Beck: Okay. New logo doesn't play. I, I, yes, I go beach. [00:22:00] 

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Thank you. I don't the shark thing. I don't get it. 

Katy Eddington: I understand the change.

Jon Beck: Yeah. 

Katy Eddington: But, you know, I was there as a 49. I'm from Long Beach, so I grew up knowing them as the 49 ERs. I did softball camps at Long Beach State. So to me it, it just, that's what it's, well, there's 

Jon Beck: decades of alums that 49 ERs you can't just on a whim. I, I thought that was bold. 

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Last question for you.

Favorite Netflix show and the last one that you binged? I guess it's a two-parter. 

Katy Eddington: Oh yeah. The last one I binged was Love Is Blind, the newest season. It's just, it's so the drama. I'm there for the drama, you know. My favorite is Mind Hunter. I love Mind Hunter. I, any, anytime we. Consider bringing back old shows or rebooting them.

I'm like, mind hunter, come on. We gotta get that season. 

Jon Beck: Interesting. I'll put it on my list. I've cer it certainly shows up, but I'll put it on my list. Good to know. 

Katy Eddington: Yeah. 

Jon Beck: Katie, this has been super fun. Thank you for sharing, uh, all your [00:23:00] insights and, uh, and a little bit about you. If, if people want to reach out to you, best way is LinkedIn.

Katy Eddington: Yeah, I would definitely say LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on there since I worked there. I actually do, you know, value using LinkedIn. Yes. And get up to date. So definitely 

Jon Beck: we could have, I could have asked you some questions about some of the new product lines. We'll save that for next time. Oh yeah. Longer session.

Thank you for, uh, so much for coming on the show. For our listeners as always be safe, work hard, and uh, we will see you next time on Hiring University. Thanks. Sounds 

Katy Eddington: great. Thank you. 

I.