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Hiring Decisions at Zappos
With the company's emphasis on the Zappos Insiders group, a recruitment strategy that is likely to be a good fit would emphasize referrals from existing Zappos employees. A good-fit recruitment strategy would be structured to allow candidates for positions to spend time with members of the team that they are interested in joining. Zappos takes pride in being a company that is focused on the company culture and not on customer service, claiming that the customer service just happens when the company is successful at hiring people who are a good fit with the corporate culture. Essentially, what the company may be doing -- without being self-aware -- is creating a corporate culture that enables people who are a good fit to be happy at work and happy with the work they do each day. This is more or less an avowal of the old adage that happy employees make for happy customers.
Traditional job postings don't exist at Zappos. Instead of the transactional exchange that occurs between job seekers and job posters. Rather, Zappos' current recruitment strategy proceeds in a manner similar to joining a country club. The company emphasizes getting to know the people who want to work for Zappos through processes and events that are only vaguely associated with actual positions on teams -- and they are never, ever pegged to a job posting. The hazard of conducting recruitment in this way is that the employee pool tends to be homogeneous in the extreme. This may or may not...
The company defines Zappos Insiders as:
"…simply people who might want to work for Zappos someday . . . now, tomorrow or sometime down the road. It's like a special membership for people who want to stay in touch with us, learn more about our fun, zany culture, know what's happening at our company, get special insider perspectives and receive team-specific updates about the group you'd like to join" (McIlvaine, 2014).
At some point in the recruitment process, the approach turns from the passive candidate pool to the more active matching of candidates with positions that need to be filled. This is when the more conventional components of the recruitment process are put into play. Candidates from the online insider pool are interviewed by phone. Candidates who move on to second interviews are sent to behavioral interviews intended to learn what the candidates know about Zappos culture, how they might handle difficult situations, and what evidence can be observed that they are humble people who would be effective collaborators (Nisen, 2014). If the candidate was driven to…
References
Cutts, A. (2001) Hiring, motivating, and training "for success." Cutts Group Newsletter. Retrieved from http://www.cuttsgroup.com/articles/hire.htm
McIlvaine, R.A. (2014, June 16). Giving job postings the boot. Human Resource Executive Online. Retreived from http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534357229&http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534357229&
Nisen, M.(2014, November 22). Tony Hsieh's brilliant strategy for hiring kind people. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-zappos-hiring-strategy-2013-11?op=1
Patterson, M. (2000, Autumn). Overcoming the hiring crunch: Tests deliver informed choices. Employment Relations Today, 27(3), 77-88.
Richards, D. (2010, August 24). At Zappos, culture pays. Organizations & People. strategy+business. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-zappos-hiring-strategy-2013-11?op=1
Soloman, M. (2014, March 5). The hazards of hiring like Zappos: The use and abuse of "corporate culture fit." Forbes. Retreived from http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2014/03/05/do-you-really-want-to-hire-like-zappos-cultural-fit-and-its-very-dangerous-pitfalls/
Zappos History (Zappos, N.d.) Zappos Core Values (Zappos, N.d.) The Secretes to Zappos' Success (Palmer, 2010) Here's Why Amazon Bought Zappos (Parr, 2009) The first two sources are from the company's website and talk describe the founding and culture while the second two sources give independent accounts of the culture and why it is effective. Since this paper will focus on the strengths of the culture and why this might be an issue for
Zappos.com Teams and Employee Empowerment and Organizational adaptability and response to change, innovation Zappos: Team Empowerment The online shoe company Zappos is famous for its low prices -- and also for its commitment to hiring the best employees and creating an atmosphere in which they can thrive. Fast Company's case study of Zappos says that the organization promotes a 'happiness culture.' Zappos is committed to promoting the happiness of customers by promoting
Zappos is maybe not the best fit for me professional, just in terms of what I expect they need in terms of skills (engineering/technological, customer service, warehouse) but the company does have a good culture. It is important that you enjoy your work in life, and Zappos has recognized the value of this in employee retention. For example, they emphasize fun and close social bonds among their workers, and both
Zappos Manktelow (2014) defines the vision statement as stating the organization's purpose, from the context of human values, as opposed to things like bottom line measures. The vision statement should include the values that the company holds as integral to its operations. An exception would be if there is a separate values statement, but even with that the company's vision of the world should naturally incorporate its values. Vision statements combine with
Zappo's Case Zappo's founder and CEO Tony Hsieh is a visionary in online retailing and business models, as he sees the creativity, intuitive, intelligence and passion of his employees as being crucial to delivering exceptional customer experiences. While many other online retailers have come and gone out of business. Zappo's has been able to develop one of the most loyal and profitable customer bases online. Even during one of the most
However, the company needs to be cautious of putting too much power in the customers' hands. 5. Competitive Rivalry between Existing Players Direct competitors are currently not able to match Zappos capabilities, especially in terms of customer service. But this does not mean they should be dismissed as viable competitors. In fact all direct competitors should be watched very closely. SWOT Analysis Strengths Outstanding customer service Free overnight shipping Wide variety of products Happy, dedicated employees Weaknesses Cannot afford