The Power of WOW. The Employees of Zappos.com

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      It turned out that Zappos and I shared a lot of core values, once I learned what those were. I got hired. I stuck around. I moved up the ladder to become head of HR, and, more than twelve years later, I’m still here. The job wasn’t so temporary after all!

      You see, I quickly discovered that Zappos’ HR department is like no other HR department I’d ever encountered. It’s fun and a little bit weird, just like me. And it’s built on actually putting the “human” in human resources.

      When you hire people who are aligned with your values and the company’s values, things just click—for the employee and for the company.

      So how do we figure out who to hire?

      First off, take our time. After all, if our employees are our greatest resource, it only makes sense that we would put some serious effort into finding the right humans for our company. The minute our recruiters start talking to candidates, from the first phone call or email through several rounds xxof interviews, they bring up the Core Values and ask behavioral-based questions to see if the candidates understand and align with those values. We dig right in to great customer service, and talk about understanding change, and being humble, and taking chances, taking risks, and being ready to learn. Our hiring process is not just about the résumés. It’s about finding out who these candidates are as human beings.

      When we get to a final decision phase, the candidates spend the day—sometimes multiple days—on site, getting to know the whole company. They’re given tours of the campus so they can see our values in action. They join us for lunches and afterwork happy hours, just so we can see how they interact with other employees.

      Once they’re hired, we put them through an extensive new-hire training (NHT) and onboarding process. We’re not talking one or two days. Our onboarding is four weeks! Four weeks in which our new Zapponians get a deep dive into our history, our core values, and who we are as a company. And that onboarding is really an extension of the hiring process. If we decide at the end of those four weeks that they’re just not a good fit with one or more of our core values, we let candidates know we’re going to let them go; and if they themselves don’t feel that they’re a good fit for Zappos, we want them to be comfortable walking away as well. We truly want our potential employees to ask themselves, “Is this really what I want? Did I sign up for the right thing? Is working at Zappos really going to make me happy?” And we want them to ask these questions before they’re entrenched, before they wind up working for six or eight or ten months or a year in a place they really don’t like, only to quit and put us back at square one with refilling the position.

      How do we get our new recruits to put up with all of that?

      We give them an offer to quit at the end of training and if they choose to take that offer, they receive a month’s pay. Is that a costly process? Yes and no. A small percentage of new hires does elect to quit. And we’ve found that it’s actually cost effective, because we’re not just hiring people. We’re hiring the right people. People who have a service-first mindset. People who want to be here because we fit them, too, and who, in most cases, are going to stick around for the long haul—the way I did—and hopefully make our company better for the hard work we all put in early on.

       Christa Foley

      Head of Brand Vision, Head of Talent Acquisition, and Head of External Culture Training

      I was late to the party with Game of Thrones, but I love it.

      Over the years we’ve developed a long list of questions around each of our core values, and they help us determine whether someone is going to align with our core values and fit our culture, or not. I mean, someone who’s very rigid, who can’t adapt to change, who wants to live by the standard old corporate rules—they’re definitely not going to fit in here, right? It’s important to catch those sorts of red flags early on. And we’ve found that a lot can be gained by asking sort of off-the-wall questions, like “How lucky do you feel you are?” or “If every time you walked into a room a theme song played, what would that be, and why?” These quirky questions can lead to some serious conversations and shine a light on somebody’s values.

      We also decided a long time ago that culture fit always trumps a technical fit when hiring. Just because someone is great at their particular job at this particular moment doesn’t mean they’re going to be a good fit down the line when systems change, or practices change, or the marketplace changes, or we move to a new location, or whatever it is they might have to adapt to. If “Embracing and Driving Change” isn’t something they value, they wouldn’t enjoy working at Zappos—and they wouldn’t be very successful here.

      Mostly, though, we want to make sure our new hires understand what we mean by customer service. That a “customer” is any person they come in contact with, including coworkers. Just because a person can interface with a computer doesn’t mean they’re on board with “Delivering WOW Through Service” to their fellow human beings in the office, or elsewhere. It’s important that we see who they are, as an authentic person, to know if their core values align with ours.

       Maritza Lewis

      Engage Team

       My parents have five daughters, but they decided to name their restaurant after me. I guess I’m the favorite. :P

      “Culture” is not about conforming here. We value diversity. We value individuality and personal growth. It’s the reason I’ve stayed and taken on different roles here over the last twelve or thirteen years—just like Hollie and so many people who’ve stuck around—because Zappos values me as a whole person and wants me to flourish.

      We don’t expect everyone to be the same. Not at all! But the most important thing about building a workforce and hiring the right people is figuring out: How are these people going to work together, and work together extremely well, to deliver СКАЧАТЬ