Zappos has replaced employee salaries with badge compensation. Build open and honest relationships through information sharing. Be passionate and determined

Online shoe store Zappos, which has grown from a bedroom office to a multi-billion dollar corporation in 10 years, is considered the #1 corporate culture business in the world. Western executives and managers, when they want to describe a business style grounded in the power of corporate culture, often use expressions like "Zappos-like" or "Zappos-style."

Indeed, I've read quite a few books on building teamwork within a company, and they all use Zappos as an example and role model. And the books are full of examples of special rules, laws and customs of the corporate atmosphere of the shoe giant, which are really surprising. Here, in my opinion, are the 10 most interesting of them:

1. When applying for a job, the applicant is not required to tell about his achievements at the previous place of work. On the contrary, he is asked to tell about his own mistakes, to tell stories from his life. The interview is more like a meeting in the “lonely hearts club” - in a small hall, decorated in a solemn style, music sounds, there are tables with drinks and treats. HR managers and job seekers move freely and communicate in buffet mode.

2. Upon hiring, all employees are required to complete a four-month training course. Job seekers learn the history of Zappos, go hiking and traveling together. Each employee of the company, from the janitor to the CEO, must work in the call center "on the phone" for two weeks in order to better understand the company's customers.

3. On the first day of training, the company offers all job seekers $2,000 if they immediately quit working at Zappos. Statistically, only a few do.

4. The company diligently maintains and develops an unusual atmosphere in the office. Each employee can arrange his work place the way he wants. Some arrange real minimalism on the tables, others put a bed in the office and sleep on it in moments of fatigue - no one limits the creativity of employees, on the contrary, the company pays for repairs. Walking robots can be found in the Zappos office, offering popcorn, a golf course, and more. Here is one of the photos of the company's office.

5. Anyone can visit the Zappos office located in Las Vegas - for this you need to sign up for a tour on the site. Even if only one person signs up for the tour, they will still send a special bus directly to the plane (this happened once). In the office, you can take pictures and touch anything, you can communicate with all employees and enter all rooms. You can even look to the CEO of the company, Tony Shay. All office visitors become Zappos employees for a few hours and can feel at home.

6. When entering internal network Zappos asks employees for more than just a username and password. A photo of any employee of the company, randomly selected from the database, also appears on the screen - you need to enter his name. Of course, in case of an error, the employee will still get into the network, but the company maintains its own rating of employee knowledge.

7. All employees of the company can express their vision of corporate culture, talk about their life at Zappos, share stories. All stories are included in a special Zappos Culture Book. This book can be obtained absolutely free of charge by anyone - the company will send it to you by mail. To receive the book, write an email to [email protected] Yes, you read that right - this is the mailing address of CEO Tony Shay's company. By the way, I wrote him a letter and talked to Tony's assistant, Stefan. Stefan said that he represents a small group of “mail ninjas” Tony, because Shay receives more than 2,000 letters a day, and he himself can no longer cope. Of course, my copy of the book has already been sent to me.

8. The company offers its suppliers and partners a special web service with which you can track absolutely all financial and logistical indicators of the company. Suppliers see sales data, warehouse occupancy, average shoe delivery times, and more. This complete openness creates an atmosphere of incredible trust - it's not for nothing that dozens of global brands are in line to conclude contracts with Zappos.

9. On the table of each employee of the company there is a set of postcards that are proposed to be sent to buyers of shoes. Zappos employees wish ordinary customers a pleasant journey, they are interested in the quality of shoes and ask about possible problems.

10. Call center employees are trained to provide maximum information on any issue and be as helpful as possible, regardless of whether the issue concerns shoes or Zappos itself. One day, Tony Shay called customer service as a joke. own company, in a slightly drunken voice, told the operator his address and asked where he could order pizza nearby. Five minutes later he had several addresses and phone numbers of pizzerias.

Indeed, Zappos is a company with an amazing corporate culture, and its features are not limited to the list above - there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such “chips”. No wonder that in November 2009, Zappos was bought by Amazon for $1.2 billion. Experts say that the computer giant was interested not so much in an online shoe store as in the opportunity to join the corporate culture No. 1 in the world.

The history of the American company Zappos is an example of rapid and impressive commercial success. Zappos is an online shoe store that has become famous and entered business school textbooks as an example of the right, high-quality and successful corporate culture. Zappos CEO Tony Shay described the company's experience in building long-term customer relationships in Delivering Happiness, and the book became an instant business bestseller. With permission from SmartReading, we are publishing a summary of this book.

smartreading – new project co-founder of one of the leading Russian publishing houses of business literature "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" Mikhail Ivanov and his partners. SmartReading inpublishes the so-called summaries - texts that summarize the key ideas of the bestsellers of the non-fiction genre. Thus, people who, for some reason, cannot quickly read the full versions of books, can get acquainted with their main ideas and theses.SmartReading uses a subscription business model in its work.

Zappos is a company with a corporate culture

Zappos is famous American company, which sells shoes on the Internet. In just a few years, Zappos was able to become the leader of its market, and the corporate culture of the company played a decisive role in this - a philosophy that all employees followed: from CEO to a technical support specialist.

In the process of growth, the company regularly encountered difficulties: it did not have enough investments for active development, partners and suppliers let down the quality of goods and services. Sometimes these difficulties threatened the company with complete ruin. All that Zappos could oppose to them was the friendship of employees, their faith in a common goal, their willingness to help each other. At a time when the company had no money to pay its bills, many were forgoing their salaries, which helped Zappos survive and paid off handsomely.

All this is corporate culture.

Zappos is a company obsessed with customer service.

Zappos represents a new type of company. This online store is not trying to sell customers as many pairs of shoes as possible. Zappos builds long-term relationships. First friendship, then money, and never vice versa.

In order to make friends with customers, Zappos has introduced many "tricks" that other online stores literally laughed at.

• In the US, the company provides free shipping both ways. The buyer can change the shoes for free if they do not like or do not fit. Moreover, the purchase can be returned within 365 days. The company has a 24-hour and free call center.

• The company's warehouse operates around the clock. This gives one extra day in the speed of delivery of shoes.

• The company does not have template phrases for call center operators. The longest conversation with a customer lasted six hours.

• If the shoe type or size required is not in stock, the operator must direct the customer to a competitor's website.

From the point of view of ordinary business, all this is lost profits. From Zappos' point of view, it's symbols friendship to clients. And customers choose Zappos.

Another highlight of the company is the extremely pleasant customer service. Employees answering the phone will be happy to answer any question of the client, even the most difficult or strange.

One day, after a sales conference in Santa Monica, we were all tipsy and tried to order pizza, but everywhere food delivery had already ended - it was almost one in the morning. Someone jokingly offered to order a pizza from Zappos, and one of our company took the call, dialing Zappos and explaining to the operator that she was staying at the hotel and dying from the desire to eat pepperoni pizza. In two minutes, we had five nearby places that were still open and where pizza could be found at that time.

Every employee has a pack of postcards on his desk, and a special program on his computer from time to time gives out randomly selected customer addresses. A Zappos employee writes on a postcard a few questions about the quality of service, a wish for successful wearing of shoes, or just a friendly message, and then sends it to the address. One can imagine the pleasure of a client who suddenly finds in mailbox a postcard from a shoe store, written by a living person!

Here are ten ways to achieve good customer service:

1. Make customer service a priority for the entire company.
2. Let the exclamation "wow!" will become part of the employees' daily lexcon.
3. Help those who serve customers and trust them.
4. Understand that there is nothing wrong with firing an employee who insults your customers.
5. Don't force operators to sell more.
6. Create a toll-free customer support number.
7. Treat every call as an investment in brand building.
8. Cases of excellent service should be celebrated throughout the company.
9. Hire someone who is passionate about customer service.
10. Deliver great service to everyone: customers, employees, and suppliers.

Upon hiring, all employees undergo a four-month training. Before it starts, everyone is invited to receive two thousand dollars in cash if they stop studying now and leave. Less than one percent agrees to this

Zappos is openness, corporate culture and "chips"

The company is open to the whole world - employees maintain public blogs, Zappos CEO Tony Shay tweets daily, and anyone can get on a tour of the office, you just need to sign up in advance. All sightseers are met on a special bus.

Each of the tours is unique, because you never know who will be in the office and what else the employees have come up with over the weekend to surprise the sightseers. If you were to visit us today, you would see popcorn and coffee machines disguised as robots in the lobby. Walking through various departments, you might stumble upon fruit-bearing bushes (“do you want a berry?”), discover a homemade bowling alley that programmers have made, meet employees dressed in pirate costumes or singing karaoke, notice a recreation room, a zoo with pets. animals or get to the buffet table. You could be in the parade because one of the departments decided that on this day it's time to celebrate Oktoberfest. Or try on a crown and take a photo as a souvenir, and your photo will be next to the pictures of Serena Williams and Gladys Knight. Or you could visit us during the annual Bald Day, when volunteers agree to be shaved bald by their colleagues.

The company's office is literally overflowing with "chips" that cannot be found in an ordinary office.

• All employees of the company use one entrance to the building - this allows you to make communication between employees closer.

• Upon entering internal system Zappos employees are required to enter not only a username and password - they are shown a randomly selected photo of one of the employees, and the user is prompted to select the correct last name from the list. After that, you can see the resume and biography of the person. Thus, employees of the company know more about each other.

• Upon hiring, all employees undergo a four-month training. Before it starts, everyone is invited to receive two thousand dollars in cash if they stop studying now and leave. Less than one percent agrees to this.

• Each employee, from the manager and programmer to the head of the department, undergoes a mandatory practice in the call center.

• Each employee can equip his workplace as he wants - the company will even allocate the funds necessary for this. Some employees install bunk beds at work and can literally live in the office.

In addition, Zappos has taken an unprecedented step - it has created a special system with which each of its hundreds of partners can track all financial and logistical transactions. All the company's suppliers know at any time how many pairs of their shoes have been sold and how many are still in stock. At a time when Zappos' competitors are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into advertising for shoe suppliers, hiding all information from them, Zappos opened up its data and found a line of potential partners - completely free. Openness and honesty always win.

Zappos is a company with core values

Getting a job at Zappos is not easy, even though the company's salaries do not exceed industry averages. It's just that everyone wants to be part of the team, they want to plunge into the corporate spirit of Zappos, to share key values.

Ten Core Values ​​of Zappos

1. To evoke a "wow" feeling with our service.
2. Accept and encourage change.
3. Create a fun and unique atmosphere.
4. Love adventure, think creatively and unconventionally.
5. Welcome growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships through information sharing.
7. Create a positive team spirit and family environment.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.

The corporate culture of Zappos was not invented immediately and did not come from outside - it was created by the employees themselves. Zappos has been proving to the whole world for several years that only a company with a strong corporate culture will succeed, which means that every employee will succeed.

Startup Zappos.com appeared on the Internet in 1999 during the dot-com bubble, when hundreds of Internet companies went bankrupt, liquidated or sold. To many, the idea of ​​creating such a company also seemed dubious. But how did the founders of Zappos, with all the specificity of the product offered - initially Zappos.com was conceived as an online shoe store - manage to succeed and grow into a multi-billion dollar corporation in 10 years? It turned out that it was not only about the outstanding quality of customer service, but also about employees who sincerely believe in their work. It is the corporate culture that makes Zappos the flagship of e-commerce.

Recruitment

The most careful attention is paid to the selection of employees. At the very beginning, Zappos co-founders Tony Shay and Fred Mosler personally interviewed each candidate. This was how they protected the established company culture and ensured that only the “right” people were hired. In addition to skills and abilities, candidates were considered in terms of personal contact. That is, such an opportunity was considered: I would like to sit with job seekers in a bar and have a drink, if no business connected them. So the leaders created not just working relationships, but also an atmosphere of friendship.

However, the face-to-face interview approach cannot be scaled when the number of employees approaches a hundred. But with the help of the personal participation of the main persons of the company in hiring the first employees and close communication with them, the leaders managed to create for themselves " personnel reserve”, that is, to prepare a number of employees who can select staff no worse than the CEO himself.

Selection methods have not changed much since Shay and Mossler personally interviewed. If a person is not suitable in terms of the culture of the company, he will not get a job, regardless of his abilities and talents. Only those who embrace and complement the Zappos vibe can qualify for employment.

All the values ​​Zappos needs are reflected in the questions asked of the candidate during the interview. For example, the company values ​​fun and eccentricity. One of the questions is: “How wonderful are you? Rate your own eccentricity on a ten-point scale. In fact, the assessment that a person gives himself in answering this question does not matter much. Zappos looks at the candidate's reactions and attitudes to such topics and questions. In addition, when applying for a job, the applicant is not required to talk about his achievements at the previous place of work. On the contrary, he is asked to tell about his own mistakes, to tell stories from his life.

A number of unusual methods are used to select the “right people”. For example, interviews are most often held in a small room with music playing and tables with drinks and treats. HR managers and job seekers move freely and communicate in buffet mode. If the candidate arrives from another region, Zappos sends a car to the airport for him. Communication with the driver of this car - important factor. If the driver says that the person he brought to the office was rude and impolite, that candidate will not get a job at Zappos.

After the interviews, each Zappos employee candidate goes through a four-week training. In addition to the traditional study of the company's strategy, its culture and philosophy of customer service, candidates spend two weeks in the call center so that they can understand the company's customers. As part of the training, Zappos is offering candidates $4,000 to immediately leave Zappos. Tony Shay introduced this method because it allows you to find people who do not come to Zappos for wages, but in order to contribute to the company, realize their potential and enjoy it all. According to statistics, 2-3% of candidates take $4,000 and leave, the rest stay.

Values

The above values ​​are formed into 10 definitions:

1. Provide "wow" with your service.
2. Accept and implement changes.
3. Create fun and little oddities.
4. Be entrepreneurial, creative and open.
5. Conduct growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships in communication.
7. Create a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be enthusiastic and firm in intentions.
10. Be humble.

But about them, Tony Shay says: “The content of values ​​is of secondary importance. The main thing is their fundamental presence. The point is not in their direct content, but in the fact that all employees are “on the same wavelength”. Tony Shay determined what was important to him and made his own values ​​the values ​​of the company. Therefore, at Zappos, personal acquaintance and personal relationships between managers and subordinates are of particular importance. Such an attitude made it possible to improve the quality of internal corporate communication, the level of trust, and improve relations. For example, when entering the Zappos internal network, employees are asked not only for a username and password. A photo of any employee of the company, randomly selected from the database, also appears on the screen - you need to enter his name. Of course, in case of an error, the employee will still get into the network, but the company maintains its own rating of employee knowledge.

The company also diligently maintains and develops an unusual atmosphere in the office. No one restricts employees, someone can put a bed in the office and sleep on it in moments of fatigue, someone installs golf courses. Everything is designed to keep employees satisfied and happy. To help employees become even happier over and over again, management introduced elements of advancement into the career development program. Instead of giving big incentives to deserving employees every 18 months, management introduced incremental promotions every six months.

call center

Using the phone to build long-term relationships with customers and employees is Zappos' favorite technique. Firstly, the phone makes it possible to completely control the consumer's attention for 5-10 minutes. As a result, service information can begin to spread by word of mouth. Secondly, the work in the call center, the cornerstone of Zappos, is built in such a way that operators personally reveal themselves during each conversation, they are free to do what they consider necessary to achieve mutual satisfaction of the client and the company.

Most call centers measure staff performance based on average call duration, the number of calls an employee receives daily. Call time is not measured at Zappos (the longest call to a Zappos call center lasted 10 hours). The emphasis in the company is on high quality service, not metrics. Most companies also supply operators with standard commercial offers and force them to sell as much as possible to generate additional revenue. But Zappos does not have standard texts, because the level of trust in employees allows them to use their own arguments when communicating with this or that buyer.

It is believed that the operator does not need to redirect the question to higher authorities, since the operator can solve almost any situation on his own. This approach allows you to maintain flexibility in the company. Tony Shay says: “If all decisions are made by the top management, as the company grows, it becomes a bureaucratic machine. Do not let human resources and lawyers make decisions related to the activities and development of the company. So, at Zappos, decisions are made by those who are at the forefront, that is, people who directly communicate with customers. In addition, being able to act individually rather than be guided by a particular policy actually has a positive effect on job satisfaction for operators.

Thus, happiness is at the heart of everything Zappos does. The work of the marketing department is reduced to zero, because customers will remain happy if they are served by happy employees. Zappos CEO Tony Shay studies the science of happiness himself, and identifies 4 key attributes of this state:

Control. If leaders don't want to lose control of the situation, why hire people whose competencies the CEO doesn't trust? Therefore, management at Zappos is built in such a way that decisions are made not by managers, but by sellers and operators who communicate directly with the client.

Progress. It is necessary to see and be aware of your forward movement. At Zappos, the traditional pay review is broken down into blocks of three months, to achieve which employees must achieve certain competencies, and each employee controls the pace of their professional, career, financial and personal growth.

Connection. The most important thing is interpersonal communication in the company. This is evidenced by a thorough screening of those who came only for the sake of money.

Meaning. People always want to be part of something bigger than work. That's why Zappos employees take pride in being part of an outstanding company culture.

LITERATURE:

Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Art of Great Company Culture http://blog.kissmetrics.com/zappos-art-of-culture/ .

Joseph Michelli.The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow.

Tony Hsieh. Delivering Happiness. A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.

Natalia Yakovleva

Zappos - Delivering Happiness is a book that I recommend to anyone who is concerned with improving the quality of their customer service. Written by humble boyfriend Tony Shay, 39, who at 25 sold his first startup, LinkExchange, to Microsoft for $265 million, and at 35, sold his #1 online shoe store, Zappos, for $1.20. billion Amazon.

The unique and already almost canonized Zappos company is distinguished not by the scale of the business, but by the unique corporate culture of the company, which has been one of the most desirable employers in America for several years. Here are 15 amazing things about Zappos that are either not in the book or mentioned in passing, which were recently written about by a visitor to the company.

1

Mythology and symbolism. Americans, like no one else, are able to turn every event in their history into an entertainment. Zappos also released the Delivering Happiness book as a comic book, which helps simplify complex material to understand and remember, as well as more mythologize the fate of the company and its top managers, in fact, making them superheroes. The penchant for symbolism also manifests itself in another way. The company has a ritual - each new employee cut off the tie. At the entrance there is a board with hundreds of cut ties and their names. former owners. Workplace Tony Shea, who is no longer a full-time employee after being sold to Amazon, is carefully preserved by employees - this is part of the history, part of the brand. Until recently, Tony worked with everyone together in open space. Modesty is one of his main and favorite values.

2

Self-discipline instead of control. A lot of employees with tattoos and unusual hairstyles. But we must pay tribute - the internal maturity of employees does not allow them to cross the boundaries of decency. As long as you can dress however you like. Alcohol is not prohibited, but I did not come across drunk employees. I saw a huge bar with all possible alcoholic drinks in Tony Shay's new project and asked - "How often does it change?" It turned out to be very rare: people drink, but do not get drunk. The dining room at Zappos is very small for a company of six hundred people, but for some reason there are no queues: apparently, because there is no lunch break (eat when you want to eat), and no one around sharpens flies using lunch as a legitimate way to score work and gossip. Very large selection of food, very tasty, everything is free. In fact, by the absence of external frameworks, the company checks the internal content of employees “for lice”.

3

Psychologist, fun manager and concierge instead of a salary increase. At Zappos, not only do they opt for non-monetary motivation instead of banal salary increases, but they also do it in such a way that this non-material motivation developed employees, allowed them to work more and more efficiently (and at the same time, be happier). Gorgeous Augusta is a life coach at Zappos: it’s something like a full-time psychologist for employees (all anonymously) and a mentor-mentor all rolled into one. On the walls in the company everywhere there are thank-you notes about it (writing ideas and thanks on the walls is part of the company's culture). She's been working with Shay for a bunch of years. A kind of corporate mother. Talks, moves and looks like a rapper - good rhythm works magnetically during presentations and conversations. There are also fun-managers in the staff - their task is to organize permanent corporate parties(more on them below). In addition, an internal concierge service has been organized - it solves all issues: from placing a child in a school to finding a repair specialist or an apartment for rent. Zappos understands that every employee has occasional problems that distract from work and make them nervous. So why shouldn't the company take care of these concerns at the system level, leaving their solution to professionals, and the employee will work more efficiently in gratitude?

4

Work is like home. All workplaces are designed by employees themselves - at their discretion. The company even allocates a separate budget for this. The point is for the employee to stop separating home and work and not seek to “break free” at any opportunity. It is noteworthy that this is not abused: it is clear that all employees are very mature in their intellectual and emotional development. I didn’t see Playboy calendars on the walls or printouts of demotivators. By the way, I have never seen dirty dishes on the tables here - it is considered normal here to clean up after a colleague, if suddenly someone littered and forgot to put things in order. “It doesn’t concern me” is definitely not a rule in the company. It's all about everyone here. I really liked the mechanics of involving employees not only in the corporate culture, but also in environment and responsibility for it: each employee is given $50 every month, which he can spend as he likes, but not for himself: give it to another colleague, donate to charitable foundation(that's where most of the money goes), etc.

5

Fee only for success. Ordinary Zappos employees were sincerely surprised by the Russian tradition of thirteenth salaries or bonuses for successfully completed projects. In their understanding, salaries are paid for successfully completed projects, and if they are not completed, welcome to the labor market. Only top managers are included in the bonus system. In addition, Shay paid everyone a generous bonus when they sold Zappos to Amazon - everyone still remembers this and is still grateful.

6

Hire people smarter than you. Everyone knows this rule. But how many companies have you seen where the intellectual potential would be concentrated at the bottom? That's the way it is at Zappos - people in the ranks are really the coolest specialists. In general, there is a very interesting atmosphere inside - people see that you are an external person, a newcomer, everyone greets you, tries to show something interesting or suggest something (starting with a cook in the canteen or a specialist in a call center and ending with Deputy Shei). And this is not blah blah blah, but a kind of mutually beneficial deal: I will share valuable information with you, and later you will repay me the same. All the people I met at various levels of the ‎Zappos hierarchy were distinguished by this awesome positive. No forced smiles. Only a lively sense of humor and natural behavior. Everyone is very well kept, responding to uncomfortable questions. Everyone understands perfectly well how all these free meals, freedom of expression and other benefits lead to profit.

7

Get to work - only through Skype and the assessment center. It is impossible to get into ‎Zappos without going through the assessment system of this company, even if you are a friend of Tony Shay and you have been approved by the manager according to your professional indicators. Here it is believed that the culture of a person and his ability to work in a team is more important. First, a couple of remote interviews are conducted. One - through the taketheinterview.com system (this is a video interview service similar to Skype, only with the ability to record and store) - compares values, the other - determines the level of professional knowledge. During a Skype interview, you are asked the most unexpected questions ("If a movie was made about you, which Hollywood star would you play?"). This is how reaction, creativity, openness are tested. Then the person is invited to a personal interview, which takes almost a day. All assessment by HR is absolutely subjective - there is no system: only a head on the shoulders, a sense of humor and mentorship between HR specialists. During a personal visit, surprises continue - the taxi driver that will be sent to you by the company will be an HR specialist, and he will test you much faster than it happens in a formal setting. All incoming applications from candidates are stored in the JobVite HR-CRM system - the company remembers you whenever you contact them and regardless of the requested position. The company itself is practically not looking for personnel - it has an independent incoming flow of resumes at the level of 60 thousand people a year. After the first month, the employee is offered $2,000 as compensation. A month later - $ 3 thousand. At the same time, they have low turnover and an impressive average tenure in the company.

8

If you want to work at Zappos, be ready to move. The company's move to Las Vegas was once driven not only by the cheap rent of local space and the cost of ordinary employees, but also by the fact that this is the best market for customer-oriented service personnel in the States (it is curious that the company has 20% more employees than it should - this is done with a view to further growth). At the same time, higher positions are closed by people from other cities who have to move.

9

Parties are part of the job. After the interview, the applicant must visit a club with colleagues or attend a party - and only then make a decision on admission. The company does not just need professionals - Zappos needs professionals who are pleasant and comfortable together in order to have the notorious synergistic effect at the end. Even after joining the company, parties continue on a regular basis - they allow newcomers to better integrate into the team, and other colleagues to look at each other in a new way, relax, talk about new topics and discover new ideas. In an informal setting, under the influence of alcohol, closed people with cockroaches in their heads quickly inject - at Zappos they often meet with candidates who mimic the company's values, and such mechanics allow them to be brought to light.

"No" - quantitative KPI, "yes" - qualitative. The evaluation of ‎Zappos call center employees does not depend on quantitative indicators (the number of processed calls, etc.), but largely depends on the PEC rating (Personal Emotional Connection) - whether the employee was able to establish contact with the client or not. If a dog barking in the background was heard during the call - and he did not ask the breed, if the laughter of children was heard - and he did not ask the age and names, if the client buys wedding shoes, and the employee did not ask how long they have been together, and where and when there will be a wedding if a teenager buys basketball shoes and was not asked for the name of his favorite team, and also if he plays for the school team - all this is epic fail. An employee should not sell goods - it is better for him to establish personal contact and not sell anything this time than to sell without causing a wow effect in the client at the same time.

11

Mayer instead of Branson. Recently, everyone has been following the sparring between Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!) and Richard Branson (owner of Virgin) - the first canceled remote work, which is considered the norm in high technology, and the second predicted her imminent bankruptcy and staff flight (although so far the opposite is true - old employees return, and the company's shares rise). Zappos does not believe in remote work - if you are talking about values ​​and people, then these people should meet and communicate live. If a person does not want to communicate with colleagues, this is a wake-up call. This means that it can destroy culture, there will be no synergy from it, sooner or later it will fail.

12

Are you ready to work in best conditions labor but at lower wages? A surefire way to fail a ‎Zappos interview is to say you just want to make more money. In itself, this is normal, but if you do not have a passionate desire for something more, write wasted. Conformists are not needed here. The company even has a stress test - at the end of the conversation you are warned that they will make an offer only if you agree to earn less than in the same place. At Zappos, I met a lot of people who came here for less money, but the working conditions and development prospects made them happier than the salary at the moment.

13

Expansion of corporate culture: from the company to the area. Now Tony Shay has opened two cafes in Las Vegas near the headquarters - The beat coffeehouse and Eat (only breakfasts and lunches). In the first one, everything is very simple - coffee, wooden furniture, handmade style, old rock on vinyl - the cafe was created for startups and is very popular with them. Tony and his friends regularly come here, consult and give advice to aspiring entrepreneurs for free. There is also a gallery in the cafe. contemporary art Emergency Art - to support young artists. Today, Tony Shay is completely absorbed in his new project - Downtown project - a creative quarter in Las Vegas for aspiring entrepreneurs and technology startups (and the new headquarters of Zappos, of course). He is investing $300 million: $200 million in infrastructure (offices, co-working spaces, housing for new residents, a hotel), $50 million in local startups, and another $50 million in developing the area's art. The main idea is to get synergy from the ecosystem. If you bring together a lot of creative people, they will work and hang out together in one place. This will give them access to best ideas, the best personnel will be better motivated. In order not to break away from business, in the same project, Tony Shay provided for himself an apartment: he works and lives in it.

14

Live and learn. Immediately after Zappos, I went to Portland to talk with Josh Reich, CEO of the very famous financial startup Simple.com. I didn't know this - but when we met, it turned out that Josh considers himself a student of Tony Shay. From the very beginning, Josh decided that if he wanted to build not a successful startup for sale, but a long-term scalable business, he needed to seriously attend to corporate culture. After two failed attempts to hunt down Zappos employees, Tony Shay called him and said bluntly, “You can't do this. You better come to me, live and see how we work, ask any questions - and soon your own people will be no worse!

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Is Zappos culture possible here? The main question that I discussed with Tony Shay and Jen Lynn (co-author of his book and CEO of his company Delivering Happiness) is how possible it is to recreate the Zappos culture in Russia (in fact, in Ukraine too)? We have a very similar culture at Life, but it is difficult to scale. My main antithesis was that employees in Russia need not only “happiness” and all sorts of benefits, but also stress, restrictions and pressure. There is a saying: in order to appreciate something, you must first lose it. Jenn's fate, by the way, confirms this 100% - before each take-off in her career, she had a lot of stress or loss. In my opinion, an employee who does not have to fight for survival loses his tone, focus, and motivation to develop. I believe that the Zappos experience only works in the case of mature people - who have a lot of experience behind them, they have seen and lost a lot, they are all right with self-control. As a result, we came to the following intermediate conclusion: in the States, this approach looks more organic, but there is also a very high level entrepreneurial culture by itself (education is paid and is given by sweat and blood, vacation is short, dismiss bad employee possible in three days, not like ours). It is harmful for our dependent mentality to give so many freedoms at once. People with a low level of self-control, self-responsibility, passive, not energized for their work and results, will simply gorge themselves on this freedom and they will feel sick like babies who do not yet have a sense of proportion.

Online shoe retailer Zappos, acquired by Amazon in 2009, has decided to change its standard payroll system to a badge-based system.

In 2013, Zappos began to move towards an alternative management system - holacracy. This method implies the decentralization of management in such a way that each employee can influence the life of the company. Instead of positions, roles appeared in Zappos.

In March 2015, the CEO of the online store, Tony Shay, decided that the company was changing too slowly and offered compensation to employees who were not ready to switch to new scheme work.

By May, 210 of the approximately 1,500 employees (14%) had accepted compensation and left the company. Zappos has completely switched to holacracy. However, another problem remained to be solved - how much to pay to employees who do not have their usual positions.

Then the founder of the company, Brian Robertson, developed a system of badges for compensation. All Zappos employees received badges that reflect their roles and skills. When performing new tasks or a new role appears, the employee receives a new badge. It, in turn, means an increase in wages. The system is reminiscent of the badge chase in computer game writes Business Insider.

The online store continues to hire employees for standard positions. However, after the employee passes the probation period, training, gains work experience in the company, he will also have to choose roles. For example, a call center employee can earn new badges by increasing the quota or expanding the range of their duties.

Zappos also uses badges that are not related to promotion salary. For example, badges for teaching yoga, or reading a book.

A list of all badges is available on the company's internal website. Any employee can apply for a badge they are interested in, however, some of them are hierarchical: you cannot get one badge without earning the previous one.

Representatives of the company are not yet ready to share the results of the implemented system. However, they note that employees like this motivational scheme - it adds both transparency in salary formation and a game element to work.

Zappos is constantly experimenting with the company's internal culture. For example, a company has invented a tool called Bidding.

Most of the employees of the online store work on phones for customer service. When the company comes new employee, he takes a four-week paid training, immersing himself in the company's strategy, its culture and the rules for communicating with customers. And a week later, Zappos launches the same bidding: each employee is told that if he decides to quit on the same day, he will be paid for a week of work, plus a thousand dollars on top.