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EARNINGS AND YEARNINGS)

Paid to Smil e

Zappos.com employees work hard to crea ite a

happy organization. PT's case study illustrates what happens w hen
people bring their values to work. By Carlin Flora
F

11

58 Psychology Today September/October 2009

T THE LAS VEGAS

headquarters of Zappos.com, an online

retail company best known for its array
of shoes and its free shipping, employees
can get goal-settingtips from the on-site
life coach, Dr. Vik. (He's a chiropractor
by trade.) In front of the human resources
department, anyone who stops by is welcome to have his or her picture taken
wearing a "mullet" wig-the '80s hairstyle that recruiting manager Christa
Foley says represents her group's motto:
"Business in the front, party in the back."
On a typical day, Jamie Naughton,
whose title is "Cruise Ship Captain," is
planningevents for employees. More than
50 percent of the 774 people in the headquarters (another 721 work in a Kentucky
warehouse) are on the company-wide
Twitter feed,which enables them to meet
up easily after work and get to know
coworkers in other departments. Those on
break can head to the company library,
which houses hundreds of self-help and
positive psychology books, including
CEO TonyHsieh's favorite, TheHappiness
Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt. Up next
semester: a free course on the science of
happiness, to complement the dozens of
business classes offered each year.
Cultivatinghappiness is Hsieh's ultimatebusiness goal. Back when he started
and sold a tech firm in the '90s, he formed
a theory: If you create a work culture that
fosters well-being, good practices and
(eventually) good profits will naturally
flow out of the operation. "In the first
company, we made the right hires in
terms of skill sets and experience, but we
didn't look for a culture fit. I remember
dreading going to the office," he says,
Illustration by DAN PAGE

One of Zapnos's ten core

values is 'Create fun and

a little weirdness."

because thatvital sense ofashared purpose

among employees was missing. When
Hsieh was put in charge of the fledgling
Zappos in 1999, he vowed to organize the
business around ten "core values"-by
which every single employee would be
hired and fired. Those values include "Create Fun and a Little Weirdness" "Pursue
Growth and Learning," and "Be Humble.'
Almost ten years later,Zappos is raking
in $1billion worth ofannual gross sales (as
of 2008) and employees widely reportthat
theirwork is excitingand challenging. "We
know our employees are happy based on
our very low turnover rate and high
employee satisfaction scores on surveys,"
says Rebecca Ratner, director of human
resources, "and we know they're productive, but it's our belief, more than a statistically proven fact, that those two are
correlated. We really buy into the idea that
the better we treat each other,the better
we'll all be able to treat our customers.'
This formula proved irresistible:
Amazon is ponying up nearly $900 million to acquire Zappos.
After r6sum6s have been vetted in the
standard way, prospective employees
undergo a "culture interview" to help suss
out whether they'd fit into the slightly
wacky, drama-club atmosphere. To test
for the value "Build a Positive Team and
Family Spirit," the interviewer might ask:
"Do you ever socialize with people outside
the office?" (It sounds like a trick question,
so cautious prospects have to be reassured
that it's OK to sayyes.) The recruiter may
also ask: "How lucky are you in life, on a
scale of 1to 10?" The exact number answer
isn't important, says Foley, but how the
interviewee talks about her answer is,
since research shows that people who
consider themselves lucky are openminded-a Zappos core value.
Augusta Scott, a senior representative
on the customer loyalty team, recalls that

in her culture interview two years ago,

she was asked to draw a pig. "I was quite
surprised. I made him rainbow-colored. I
still have him up on my cubicle wall." Scott
says Zappos is by far the best company
she's worked for, because it allows her to
express her individuality.
Now that the word is out about what
kind of person appeals to Zappos, a few
savvy interviewees may talk their way
through the culture interview. But a values mismatch is easilyrevealed duringthe
company's four-week training session,
where even new managers must learn how
to work the customer service phones. "It's
a pretty good screening metric for determining how humble someone is," Foley
says. One highly specialized techie was
paid to go back to San Francisco after he
showed up late to training and claimed it
was somethinghejust "had to getthrough."
Zappos's programming team really
needed his expertise, but "if you start to
compromise on culture," says Hsieh, "it
will all start to go downhill."

But doesn't such a process yield a cultlike band of clones? Employees share
values but they don't share styles and
personalities. Aquiet employee is encouraged to connect with customers in his own
low-keyway, while loudmouths are free to
be as chatty as they wish-as long as they
are going above and beyond to make sure
the client will come back. Scott recalls
when a soldier based in Iraq reported that
he'd been mistakenly sent an Xbox. Scott
made acustomer-friendly (ifnot necessarily profitable in the short-term) call: She
let the soldier keep the console and sent
games and sundries for his battalion.
"We're not just motivated. We're
inspired" Scott says. "We jump on calls we don't want customers to be on hold."
That empowering sense of fulfilling a
higher purpose ather work has spilled into
Scott's after-hours life. "It's built my selfconfidence. And I notice I hold doors open
for strangers, I smile at them, I try to help
them with anything I can. I'm just a much
happier person."

CULTUre CLaSH
ZAPPOS

TYP ICAL COMPANY

STANDARD INTERVIEW QUESTION

What are your strengths

and weaknesses?

How weird are you?

HIRING BONUS
New hires are offered $2,000 to
refuse the job and go away. Those

Actual hiring bonus, which makes

it hard to say "no" to a place where
one may not belong.
(Or these days, no bonus.)

who stay (about 96%) are more

committed and engaged thereafter.
ATMOSPHERE
Themed conference rooms including
"Zen," "beach," and "superheroes."

Fluorescent lights, white walls.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Phone reps are trusted to connect with

customers however they see fit.

Phone reps follow scripts, fill out

call logs, and adhere to time limits.
MISSION

CEO Hsieh wants employees to move

from having a job to "having a vocation."

Make money, get employees

to work harder.
September/October 2009 Psychology Today 59

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TITLE: Paid to Smile

SOURCE: Psychol Today 42 no5 S/O 2009
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