Zappos, The Art of a Great Company Culture

Zappos

I am always love to read things about zappos. Tony Hsieh, CEO of the company who got a job to work at Oracle when he graduated from college then quit after five months and start his LinkExchange. Zappos is always one of the business model that companies and competitors want to follow.

It’s Not about Shoes

“Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.”

-Tony Hsieh

I never bought any pair of shoes from zappos but if based on what I have read and heard, if you ask anyone in town that ever experience to deal with zappos, chances are their feedbacks are positive. Zappos has been doing a great job in building customer relationship including delivering flowers to customer who’s parent is just pass away, or talking to a customer over the phone for more than 8 hours etc and etc.

Zappos successfully building a good customer based with their best customer services and also make it becomes one of the best company to work for.

Zappos

Fire Those that Don’t Fit the Culture – No Matter How Talented

Hsieh says:

“We’ve actually passed on a lot of smart, talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line but if they’re not good for our culture then we won’t hire them for that reason alone.

“The reverse is true too. Even if a person is great at their job, even if they’re a superstar at their job if they’re bad for our culture we’ll fire them for that reason alone. And performance reviews are 50% based on whether you’re living and inspiring the Zappos culture in others.”

Clearly, values and culture are really important to Zappos. A great culture is so essential that they’ll fire the best person if they aren’t aligned with it.

Pay New Employees to Quit
This is one thing that I always mentioned to my buddies. Zappos got a very interesting process in hiring new people. Every single employee needs to go through a four-week training process learning the company cultures, strategies and stuff and at the same time, also provide the company the opportunities to see if the candidates are also suit for the company as well. At the end of the four-week training. Zappos offers $4000 to the new employee to quit. Simply get the check and walk out the door. The reason why they do that is because they don’t want people just come and work for the paycheck. Hsieh said the percentage of people who take the check and left after the training is 2-3%. Whoever left and becomes the real employee of the company works more passionate and engaged because they realize that is the place they like to work and contribute for.

Having a company set up is not easy but making a company success is even harder. It takes times, strategy and the most important thing, your passion and how to make your people motivate to work and grow with the company.

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About Jan
I love to chill and I love to sing. I enjoy every single moment in my life with my lovely family.