Zappos Case

Collaboration. Authenticity. Personalization. Innovation. Social connection. These are the five workforce engagement (WE)  2020 principles identified by Meister and Willyerd (2010) as critical to attracting, developing and retaining high-performing employees and building an execution capable organization. This week's discussion board posts captured lots of examples of how these principles are evident at Zappos, at least based on the videos we watched.

One of the most interesting aspects of this week's discussion were your questions to one another. A number of your questions suggested (or stated outright) partial disbelief that a company run this way can really be positioned for long-term sustainable growth. Here are some of the questions you posed:*

• Where do you draw the line between fun and work?
• Is mixing work and personal life good?
• Is Zappos' casual atmosphere only possible because they hire the best of the best?
• Can Zappos' form of collaboration (or culture) work for all companies?
• Does their personalized environment result in people not taking their job seriously?
• Does personalization really have a place in the job interview?

These are all great questions that circle back to Meister and Willyerd's (2010) definition of the 2020 workplace and their research findings. They also forecast many of the conversations we'll be having over the remainder of the semester.

It would be fun to ask Tony Hsieh these questions... but since we don't have him here with us, take a few minutes to watch the excerpt above from a Stanford Graduate School of Business Hsieh did a few years ago. You'll hear echos of Meister and Willyerd's (2010) WE 2020 principles, as well as some of the answers to your questions. Even better, next time you're in Vegas schedule a Zappos tour and ask these questions of any of the Zappos people you meet (as Hsieh suggests in this clip). And some of your questions won't be answered, at least not yet. We'll continue to talk about those as we examine the six HRM practices in the coming weeks.  :-)

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*Special thanks to Kalyn, Raini, Andrew B., Joel and Mitchell for asking critical questions, and to Kristen, Austin, and Jair for their responses!

Reference: Meister, J.C & Willyerd, K. (2010). The 2020 workplace: How innovative companies attract, develop and keep tomorrow's employees today. New York: HarperCollins.