“Elvis,” which includes a life-sized sculpture of the King of Rock and Roll swinging his hips as he stands at a microphone, along with enlarged depictions of 45-rpm Elvis records hanging on the wallsPlay and fun have served Zappos well. Undoubtedly, fun holds the rich and highly collaborative Zappos culture together. But let’s face it, if Zappos were dedicated only to fun, the company would not be thriving today. The genius of Zappos leaders is the way they blend the fun into the work. The visionary leadership at Zappos understands that work made fun gets done. Moreover, work made fun creates energized, happy, and cohesive teams.
Although I’m saving most of the specific payoffs Zappos enjoys from creating a culture of play and family connectedness until Chapter 11, generally speaking the overarching benefits for Zappos are very consistent with the positive correlations researchers have found. For example, management professor Dr. David Abramis of Cal State Long Beach, among others, has shown that high levels of workplace fun are consistently associated with increased creativity and productivity. Employees who find playful enjoyment in their workplace have more positive relationships with their peers, make better decisions, are tardy or absent less often, and use fewer sick days than employees who aren’t having fun. In essence, fun is serious business at Zappos, and in turn, that fun produces serious business results. This chapter is all about how Zappos nurtures a positive and engaging work environment, while the next chapter focuses on how Zappos wins from that nurturance.
Fun at work is not something that can be left to chance or an optional initiative that disappears when things get difficult. Leaders at Zappos have never wavered in their support for a playful culture. The benefits of that approach are supported by research from Hewitt and Associates that shows it pays to invest in a positive work culture, especially during times of business uncertainty. Ted Marusarz, the leader of global engagement and culture at Hewitt, notes, “The extra effort companies put forth in difficult times makes a difference in how successful they are at boosting morale and retaining top talent in a strong economy.”
While a Zappos core value expressly mentions fun (“create fun and a little weirdness”), Robert Richman, Zappos Insights product manager, notes that fun is viewed more broadly in the context of joy or employee happiness. According to Robert, “What we’re doing is creating short-, medium-, and long-term sources of joy for our employees. Cupcake day, for example, is definitely a short-term comfort. A medium-term source of pleasure might be something like a manager taking a team on a half-day hike. And long-term happiness or purposefulness comes from investing in staff education, helping people achieve their life goals, and feeling the pride of progress with the company.” Let’s use Robert’s structure to examine short-, medium-, and long-term fun and employee engagement at Zappos with an eye to how these approaches might be deployed in your business.
From the moment you arrive at the Zappos Fulfillment Centers or Zappos Headquarters, you realize that you are “not in Kansas anymore.” Whether it is the Superhero wall murals and decorations in Kentucky or the pinball machine in the Zappos Headquarters lobby, it’s easy to notice that Zappos is different. In fact, one immediately recognizable aspect of playfulness bursts through in the rich and ever-changing visual nature of Zappos buildings. Conference rooms, for example, are not classic boring boardrooms but carry themes like the following:
“Elvis,” which includes a life-sized sculpture of the King of Rock and Roll swinging his hips as he stands at a microphone, along with enlarged depictions of 45-rpm Elvis records hanging on the walls
“Betty White,” complete with a ledge holding a “cherry pie,” a picture of her late husband, Allen Ludden, and a corner bookshelf with a plaque that reads, “Betty White is my Home Girl”
“Up,” based on the movie of the same name, with colorful balloons painted on the walls, a mailbox with the names “Carl” and “Ellie,” a scout merit badge sash complete with badges, and tennis balls on the bottom of the table and chair legs
“James Bond,” with one wall painted in the British Union Jack flag, pictures of various actors playing Bond, and shadow boxes holding martini glasses and a shaker
Since many staff members spend considerable amounts of time in conference rooms, their daily lives (short-term pleasure, if you will) are affected by the nature of the conference room environment. As a result, Zappos teams are given the money and authority to take control and infuse play and a little weirdness into their surroundings. This casual approach to appointing an office might not be for everyone, but it reflects the Zappos willingness to ask, “Why can’t we have fun with this? Why can’t we build joy into the way a conference room is designed?” The leaders at Zappos appreciate that every aspect of work is an opportunity to deliver happiness to staff members and that happy staff members, in turn, make happy customers. Steve Hill, vice president of merchandising, suggests, “People make choices about fun and meaningful elements in their environments when they are home. We are a family here, so all of us need to be involved in those choices here as well.”
The degree of personalization and playfulness of the meeting spaces at Zappos is carried through to employee cubicles at far greater levels than what you will see in most cubicle cultures. The majority of these cubicles are adorned with toys, games, and constantly changing and playful decorations. While this enriched environment is a source of spontaneous pleasure for Zapponians (for example, one conference room table also functions as a Ping-Pong table, allowing for a blend of play and work), a photographic display of conference room/cubicle color and diversity at Zappos presented at OfficeSnapshots.com (a blog created to show the office space design of primarily Web 2.0 and technology companies) drew the following range of reactions from observers:
“Whoa! I bet the fire marshal loves that place!”
“How can anyone work there? It looks like a trash heap.”
“I love it! It’s better than a place with no personality. Once again I am struck by the jealousy bug.”
And the following reaction from a Zapponian:
“I love working amongst so many displays of individualism. The office is exactly what you make it, and it gives those of us who have not done so on previous jobs a chance to get to know ourselves through the atmosphere we create in order to work. Some folks go the distance with decorating while others are more Spartan. Either way, it’s you/yours.”
For an opportunity to take a peek at some of the Zappos conference rooms, go to zappified.com/meet or point the QR reader on your mobile device at the code given here.
Much of the freedom Zappos staff members are given to take control of their work environment, decorate their areas playfully, and continually change their setting adds up to a vibrant, dynamic, and innovative workplace. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, captures the wisdom behind the Zappos communal design when he suggests, “The office used to be imagined as a place where employees punch clocks and bosses roam the halls like high-school principals, looking for miscreants. But when employees sit chained to their desks, quietly and industriously going about their business, an office is not functioning as it should. That’s because innovation—the heart of the knowledge economy—is fundamentally social. Ideas arise as much out of casual conversations as they do out of formal meetings. More precisely, as one study after another has demonstrated, the best ideas in any workplace arise out of casual contacts among different groups within the same company.”
Not only does the Zappos leadership facilitate this casual contact through design and through encouraging personalized workspaces, but many Zappos interdepartmental challenges bring people together in pursuit of team-building goals. Jennifer Van Orman, Zappos software engineer, gives a sense of the friendly interdepartmental contact by sharing, “The big thing in my department is Nerf gun wars. I don’t know how the ritual began, but on the day you start in Software Engineering, you’re handed a Nerf gun. The other day we did a little attack on Finance. We were tactical as we descended upon their building, bombarding them with Nerf rounds. Don’t you think that’s a great way to engage a department you don’t often have contact with? It’s our way of saying, ‘Hey, we are Software Engineering; long time no see.’ In that situation, other departments not only remember you, but plot ways to get back at you, or should I say, get to know you better.”
Mark Madej, Zappos software engineer, adds, “We had a meeting to plan this attack. We mapped out the whole finance area; I bought 16 packs of 35 Nerf darts, and we brought strobe lights. Our basic plan was to go over to Finance at a time that would be least disruptive to its workflow, turn off the overhead lights, turn on the strobes, and launch our assault through the back door. Our blog team videotaped our planning meeting and our preparation. I gave a motivational speech, in keeping with the one delivered by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart. The entire event was amazingly fun, and we are ready for their counterattack.” When leaders share control of the physical work environment and encourage work groups to playfully band together (attending, of course, to how and when the work must get done), companies benefit. These organizations affect individual employee enjoyment, foster team collaboration, and break down organizational silos. One can imagine the solidarity forged among Mark’s teammates as they listened to his Braveheart-style speech. Additionally, it is easy to see the culture-building benefits of two seldom-interacting business units engaging each other (with or without Nerf guns).
To step inside an epic Nerf battle at Zappos, visit zappified.com/nerf or point your mobile device here.
Often the greatest benefit of play at work is that it lets people actually get to know one another. If, like Zappos, you seek to form personal connections with your customers, and if you believe that effective customer service is a team sport, you have to find ways for staff members to form personal relationships with one another in order to create a customer service team. An example of how Zappos facilitates personal connections between staff members is the “face game.” In essence, the game begins each time an employee logs into the Zappos intranet. Upon login, before an employee can get to work, he is presented with a picture of a random fellow Zapponian. The individual is then provided with four employee names and a “don’t know” option. After the employee chooses a name, the screen indicates whether that choice was correct, and then the full bio of the actual individual is shown. (For an opportunity to experience the face game, go to zappified.com/face. No QR code is provided because the game has interactive functions that may not be supported on your mobile device.)
Noel Cusimano, a buyer for Zappos.com’s sister site, 6pm.com, which focuses on discounts, shares how the biographical information in the face game has additional value: “People can click on you and see your journey in the company. It gives them something to relate to or to talk to you about. You can also select things like, ‘I’d love to have people job shadow me’ or ‘I’m really interested in this topic,’ so that you can search for people in the company with interests similar to yours. That idea came from our speaker of the house, who wished for a database where she could tag people and could pull up everyone, for example, who loves doing face paintings or who is an artist.”
The face game has been taken to yet another level thanks to a final project completed by participants in a Zappos culture class. That class developed the “you got faced” project in support of the Zappos value of building a positive team and family spirit. According to Rachael Brown, Zappos Pipeline manager, “You got faced encourages Zapponians to send an e-mail to someone whose face popped up on their screens but whom they didn’t know well enough to name correctly. The class suggested the e-mail carry the subject line ‘you got faced’ and that the e-mail include an invitation for lunch or to do something to get to know one another. That culture class came up with the you got faced campaign, splashed it everywhere, and marketed it throughout the company. That’s an example of how we are always looking for opportunities to build the Zappos family connection.”
This type of enthusiasm for knowing one another fosters an environment in which people are consistently greeted, doors are held open for peers, and staff members call one another by name. Roz Searcy, Zappos Kan Du team facilitator, suggests, “It really is different here compared to anywhere else I have worked. In some places, people might occasionally talk to individuals outside their work groups, but here it is rare if they don’t. It’s common for me to sit at the front desk and be greeted by name by everyone—all day! Of course that makes me love my days at work.”
Zapponians experience that fully engaged and interactive work setting by design. In fact, much of the short-term play at Zappos is there to set a tone for daily task alignment. At the Fulfillment Center, for example, Dan Campbell, photo supervisor, notes, “We take a few minutes at the start of our shift to just have some fun and also to bring business messages to life. One of the most popular activities in the morning warm-up in our department came from a team member as a modification of the TV show Minute to Win It. That’s a game where participants have a minute to complete some type of challenge. Our activities have proven to be fantastic, and we’ve made these challenges a regular weekly feature. One challenge, for example, has a team member place three Oreos on another team member’s forehead. The person with the cookies on their forehead has to get the cookies into their mouth and eat them within 60 seconds. We take volunteers because some team members enjoy watching more than participating, but everyone gets involved, even if it is only through cheering.” Dan’s comment addresses the misconception that everyone at Zappos is extroverted and loud. Tony Hsieh acknowledges that he would not be a fit at Zappos if extroversion were a selection criterion. Diversity in the ways in which people engage and support a playful yet weird culture is welcomed. Leaders like Dan are aware of the importance of that diversity, and they structure playful activities accordingly.
Daily fun events at Zappos turn out to be not only quick, as is the case with the modified Minute to Win It activity, but also inexpensive. Cody Britton, Zappos STAT advocate, notes, “We have Zappos Idol karaoke going on in our break room on a regular basis. For Mardi Gras one year, each department was given a big cardboard box and $25 and was asked to make a float. We were given some time off work to have fun with one another and make our masterpiece. We borrowed German beer girl outfits from our training department, which puts on our yearly Oktoberfest parade, and one of our team members bought a dollar’s worth of leopard fabric and made a vest. We completely reenacted Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and our float proudly came in well under budget at $1.26. I love this company. I really appreciate that fun is not complicated and that it is immediate and always present.”
The spontaneity and immediacy of fun at Zappos is further exemplified by Shawna Macias, Customer Loyalty Team member, who comments, “In training, we did our parades. We’d dress up and go through the call center making a bunch of noise. We’d have happy hours where we actually enjoyed being with coworkers outside of work. We recently had a cupcake contest for National Junk Food Day. The person I sit next to and I entered and made sushi-looking cupcakes.” Shawna adds, “There is always something quick and fun happening here. We did a CLT horror prom where we all dressed up in the worst prom dresses we could find, and we captured those fun memories in photos from the event. We had a tailgate party at work, with various teams decorating their areas and conducting a floorwide potluck. We went from station to station to grab food. Leadership inspires a lot of fun here to keep the spirits up. You never get bored. Often it feels like I’m going in for eight hours of work/fun.”
Shawna’s conclusion that Zappos is a place where staff members “never get bored” fits well with a leadership rationale for workplace fun. Zappos leadership understands that boredom is at the heart of decreased workplace productivity. William Balzer, Patricia Smith, and Jennifer Burnfield, writing in the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, suggest, “The consequences of boredom for businesses and organizations include higher employment costs, … performance problems, … and reduced organizational effectiveness. … Boredom at work may also have consequences for society as a whole including lost productivity, reduced quality of life, and reduced consumer safety.” These authors also note that boredom is rampant in work environments where employees are “unhappy” and where company policies restrict breaks and social interaction. The leaders at Zappos are continually stirring up the workplace to keep it lively. In addition, they encourage every employee to take responsibility for a dynamic culture of fun. Are you creating days that your people would describe as “never boring” or “eight hours of work/fun”?
“Old school” managers are probably balking at the Zappos focus on short-term, daily fun. Some might even say, “I am a manager, not an activity director. Staff members can worry about fun on their own time.” Increasingly, scientists, inspirational leaders, and staff members agree: in order for people to create and produce, they must be given space and opportunities to recreate, reenergize, and find enjoyment in the very setting where they spend the largest percentage of their waking hours.
Much of the fun at Zappos occurs in celebration of mid-range accomplishments. Chad Boehne, process manager at the Zappos Fulfillment Centers exemplifies this by noting, “Our team set a performance goal, and since I manage the team, I asked them what they would want to have happen if we reached the goal. So, I have to dress up like a garden gnome on Monday.” According to Chad, his garden gnome payoff reflects a reward for positive team effort that created a 20 percent increase in total unit count. He explains how the garden gnome incentive came to be: “I’m not the tallest guy in the world and I’ve got a beard, so one of our team members suggested that if they reached the goal, I should dress up like a garden gnome. Why not? Will I be embarrassed? Probably. Will it make my team laugh, put a smile on their faces, and provide them with the reward of their choice? Absolutely. So why wouldn’t I do it? Now the entire management team knows I’m going to be wearing this garden gnome outfit, so I will have to go around to every department in Zappos and make my presence known. I can guarantee you that our photographer will be following me. Rewarding people with a $20 gas card or in some monetary way honestly isn’t as motivating to my team as reaching a goal and having me dress silly. So I’m all about unconventional team-driven incentives.” Chad’s use of the word silly is a wise one, as “silly” derives from the Old English word saelig, which means to be happy and blessed. Creating silly fun for achieving goals delivers happiness to Zapponians and is a blessing to any business. How are you engaging your staff to produce silly, social, and powerful incentives?
Much medium-term joy at Zappos comes from peer awards and recognition. One example of intermittent recognition is the COW award, which is provided to select CLT members. COW stands for Cultivators of Wow, and it is bestowed on CLT staff members who have been chosen by their peers as being the ultimate embodiment of the Zappos culture. Pamela Griggs, a three-time COW winner, notes, “Being a COW is a really big deal. We have a lot of people nominate coworkers who have wowed them. For example, a recipient like Jenn Pike wows us all regularly through bubbles. She is constantly filling the air with bubbles by means of a bubble gun or just waving a bubble wand. She is spreading joy daily. We COWs are proud of our award, and we enjoy mooing. An awards group delivers a certificate, a pin, and a bundt cake. When the winner is off of customer calls, the group surrounds that person and yells, “Hey everybody in CLT, we want to let you know that Crystal is a COW!”
Although the opportunity to be a COW is limited to CLT members, other similar awards are open to everyone at Zappos. One such example is the Master of WOW parking award. Mark Madej, Zappos software engineer, explains, “You can nominate anyone for the Master of WOW if they’ve wowed you. The VIP parking is a nice perk, as is the free car wash, but the e-mail blast announcing the winner includes your picture and a significant description of what you did to earn the award. That alone is an honor!” Master of WOW awards have been given for everything from small acts that wowed a peer, such as checking in on a fellow Zapponian when the person was out sick, up to large-scale initiatives to help a fellow Zapponian achieve a time-sensitive goal. According to Aaron Magness, senior director, Brand Marketing & Business Development, “Zappos is an environment of recognition. That means we have every Zapponian involved in saying thank you … you did a great thing today. One of our not-so-secret success tools is that all of us at Zappos are a source of positive reinforcement and acknowledgment.”
It may be common to develop an award that celebrates individuals within a team or that typically solicits recommendations about teammates, but it is particularly unusual to create playful recognitions like the Happy Hooter award. That award, which of course is a stuffed owl, was intentionally created to transcend team boundaries. According to Rafael Mojica, senior user experience architect, “The technology happiness team was the first to bestow the Happy Hooter, and from there each recipient selects the next recipient. The only stipulation on the award is that the person to whom you give it has to be from a different department. I was fortunate to get it, and in order to pass it on, I had to write and say, ‘I bestow this award because …,’ and then the award is officially presented by the happiness team.” Rafael notes, “These fun awards make a difference and keep morale high. We are always on the lookout for peers who are extraordinary at delivering happiness or living our values and finding small but significant ways to intermittently recognize one another.”
It’s been said that what you track, you become. Some organizations have found ways to track gossip and complaining—yielding ample harvests of both. At Zappos, leadership has developed ways to maximally track positive recognition and expand it beyond the supervisor-to-employee level. In essence, the leadership has created mechanisms by which staff members across the organization can playfully catch one another in acts that fully demonstrate the culture and reflect peer-directed kindness.
The concept of peer recognition is given a monetary twist through the Zappos employee bonus program. Each month, all Zappos employees are given the opportunity to select a peer to receive a $50 bonus in recognition for the employee’s outstanding contribution to Zappos. Zapponians fully embrace this peer recognition opportunity. In fact, in 2010, more than 2,800 bonuses were given, for a total amount of $140,100. Bryce Murry, Zappos software engineer, notes, “When you select someone for the employee bonus, you have to say why you chose them. Even bigger than the money is the leadership’s announcement of the winners. The peer selection and public recognition is every bit as powerful as the money.”
I can imagine some leaders saying, “What a nightmare to police such a program against abuse. Won’t this result in friends giving friends the $50 each month?” Bryce’s response to that is simply, “One of our values is to do more with less. Therefore, I don’t give out the bonus unless it’s earned. This is money we don’t have to spend. The money is there for situations where people should be acknowledged. For example, the programming and development that our team does can affect other front-end programmers. Sometimes those programmers work weekends or come in early to get things done in order to make our jobs easier. As a result, I’ve given bonuses to front-end guys because I’m asking a lot of them, they’re not on my team, and they have their own projects to work on. I’m disrupting what they’re doing.” Leaders in companies that lack a value-based culture and a foundation of trust in their employees often create complex policies that restrict 99 percent of the workforce because of the abuses of 1 percent. Zappos is light on policy and long on trust and accountability. Rather than not allowing employees to reward one another monetarily because there will be abuses, the leaders at Zappos believe in treating employees well, encouraging them to be good stewards of company resources, and asking them to do the right thing for the company and their peers. Abuses can be handled if and when they arise.
Pam Cinko, Zappos Insights logistical ninja, indicates the value of allowing staff members to tangibly reward their peers by sharing, “I used to be in charge of ordering and stocking the Zappos library and all the books you see in the lobby. Those books were kept in lockers far away from where the books were actually needed. I would regularly take this huge book cart and maneuver it through narrow hallways. One day, I noticed a more convenient storage option, so I approached Dave Myers, the facilities manager, and said, ‘Hey, Dave, is it possible for us to move these lockers to the other side of the building and put them in this hallway near the lobby instead?’ Without hesitation, he said, ‘No, we’re planning something else for that hallway.’ I accepted that my idea wouldn’t work and didn’t think about it until a week later, when Dave’s team and some of the Kan Du team members walked into our lounge and said, ‘We just wanted to tell you we moved all your book lockers to the hallway where you wanted them.’ My jaw dropped; I couldn’t believe it. One, it wasn’t just Dave who came in to tell us, it was his team; and two, the people who executed it did so as a surprise for me.” Pam notes that she later asked Dave how this large-scale move was conducted without her being aware of it, and she was told, “‘We used the emergency exit doors and did it in the back so that you wouldn’t see us.’ Talk about a wow! He made me think it couldn’t be done, and—boom—it happened. Dave told me that Bill, a member of Dave’s team, did the bulk of the work, so I gave Bill a $50 bonus. Hauling those heavy lockers to the other side of the building was such a Zappos thing, such an act of kindness; it felt terrific to offer a small token of gratitude to an individual who demonstrated what is great about my company.” Pam was gratified by being entrusted with the ability to recognize the greatness happening around her. In turn, Bill was rewarded for the type of effort that builds coworker morale, goes well beyond job requirements, and makes the workplace more enjoyable.
Wow and caring are celebrated at Zappos, whether they are delivered to customers or to members of the internal Zappos family. Recognition comes from leaders, managers, and peers alike. The more that wow and caring are seen and acknowledged, the more joy will be experienced by all stakeholders.
As implied in prior chapters, much of the sustained enthusiasm that comes from working at Zappos is the result of the leadership’s fastidious commitment to core values. At Zappos, leaders understand that people don’t keep coming back to the same place of employment simply to receive a paycheck. Employees need to be passionately connected to a higher purpose and to feel a sense of belonging. In addition, employees need to know that they are growing and developing through opportunities and training.
Rachael Brown, Pipeline manager for the company, notes, “Managers at Zappos understand that we are not just responsible for the success of our departments, but we have to consider what’s best for all of the Zappos family. For example, I often think about how an opportunity in another department might bring happiness to a team member of mine, and I encourage them to seek out that type of opportunity.” Merchandising assistant David Hinden contributes, “I think the leadership understands that if you do what is best for your people, your company will prosper. I have always felt that the leadership has my interest at heart and has encouraged me to grow in the direction of my passions, as opposed to trying to have me fit into a preset expectation for my career.”
In essence, by directing staff members to seek opportunities that are consistent with their existing interests, Zappos capitalizes on the positive psychology concept of “flow” championed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Chicago. By “flow,” Mihály is referring to a state of being completely involved in an activity for its own sake, with people being so positively emotionally engaged that they learn and perform seamlessly. Zappos leaders realize that a great deal of pleasure comes simply from being allowed to follow one’s passion and not necessarily being forced to move from a desired position or in the direction of management.
According to Rachael Brown, “We are trying to give our colleagues the skills to be whatever they want to be at Zappos. Everyone is responsible for being a culture leader and for being passionate, but no one has to go into an area like management if it is not where she finds purpose.” All too often, individuals feel pressured to leave positions that they enjoy in order to “advance” in a company. Sometimes leaders inadvertently push people into positions for which those individuals have less interest, passion, or talent. Ultimately, leaders must take the time to understand the unique values and interests of their people and help them find the career and calling that suits them.
Even the day-to-day work policies at Zappos reflect an attention to individual needs. Like other companies, Zappos requires employee attendance and has a point system whereby a pattern of tardiness or taking leave without preapproval can ultimately be grounds for dismissal. But unlike the supervisors at some businesses, the Zappos leaders deeply appreciate the importance of helping staff members address personal circumstances and develop in areas of interest that fall outside of work. As a result, these leaders have the discretion to go above and beyond to accommodate employees as those staff members attend to critical personal needs and/or pursue personal fulfillment and passion. Rather than placing limits on employees based on the strict adherence to language in an employee handbook, leaders at Zappos look for ways to treat each employee’s circumstances with discretion and respect.
According to Rebecca Henry Ratner, HR director at Zappos, “Fair and equal are not the same thing to us. A hard policy of a specified amount of time is something we try to stay away from, since that treats everyone equally but really isn’t fair. Should a great employee with long tenure get no more consideration than a new employee who is not yet performing strongly? Instead, we like to consider these requests on a case-by-case basis and do what’s fair for that particular employee at that particular time. That said, we do have some general guidelines, like an up-to-six-week personal leave policy, but it’s just that, a guideline, and if that’s not the fair thing for an employee, exceptions can certainly be made.” Because Zappos leadership focuses on fairness, employees reciprocate with loyalty to their leaders and to Zappos. Specifically, Zappos managers are looking for reasonable accommodations that balance the needs of the employee and the needs of the company, even if that takes the form of staff members being given a leave of absence from Zappos. Often such departures are only temporary, as was the case for Jesse Cabaniss, CLT lead, and Alicia “AJ” Jackson, CLT member.
Jesse shares, “I had an opportunity to go on tour with my band, and I was blown away by the support of leadership in not only allowing me to take time away, but encouraging me to do so. Before I left, they threw a huge party in my honor, and every single person was wearing rock shirts with drums on them. We even had pizza and games. I’m not one to get emotional, but I got a little teary-eyed. I couldn’t have imagined that so many people, at various levels of the organization, would go to so much trouble and send secret e-mails among themselves to get everything planned and organized. We’re family here, but it’s the amount of genuine caring that is astounding. I have friends that I have known for 10 years that don’t treat me as well.”
The situation that required AJ to take a leave from work was far less pleasant and occurred very early in her employment. AJ notes, “I left a horrible job in a very different industry where I didn’t really matter to my employer. So I came to Zappos looking for happiness and sanity. Right after my first 90 days at Zappos, I got a message at work saying that my biological father, whom I had not seen since I was very little, was looking for me. As it turned out, he had brain cancer, was dying, and had a last wish to see me after all these years. I was at my desk crying, and people immediately reached out. My lead, Jim, was at a meeting, and three people went to bring him to me. Jim pulled me into a room, and I told him the story. Without hesitation, he said, ‘Just go.’ To which I said, ‘I have to talk to Scheduling. I have to see if I can get this approved.’ He calmly reiterated, ‘Just go; I’ll take care of everything. Log out of your phone. Turn off your computer. Go home.’ That took a second to process. I had never been treated with that level of compassion before in my work history.”
AJ’s reference to compassion offers a key lesson for creating employee engagement. In order for employees to feel “passionate” about your business, they must first feel that you are “compassionate” toward them.
Sometimes the compassion provided at Zappos actually results in staff members realizing that their life purposes fall outside of Zappos. Augusta Scott, Zappos coach, emphasizes, “Leaders at Zappos really do want staff members to be happy, even if that means leaving Zappos permanently. If your passion is somewhere other than at Zappos, we’d rather you be doing what you really want to do than be here and feel like you’re stuck in a job.” Augusta’s predecessor, Dr. Vik, notes, “It was tough for me to leave Zappos, but it was time to take my coaching message out to other audiences. What I appreciate most is how well I have been supported by my friends at Zappos through my transition and how it feels like home when I come back to visit.”
Whether it is encouraging staff members to grow in the direction of their interests, supporting their other ambitions, or helping them move to the employment opportunities that best suit them, Zappos understands the value of creating and fostering purposeful and pleasurable work. In the end, Zappos tactically maximizes fun to inspire, enliven, and meld its workforce. Leaders demonstrate that business relationships do not need to be different from family relationships. People in both types of social units can and do stay together in pursuit of a common goal, especially when they are encouraged to laugh, recreate, and go beyond superficial tasks.
Any company can develop a unified and dynamic workforce. Doing so starts with an understanding that employees who play together stay together, and they also work hard together! But, as evidenced by Zappos, that understanding must extend to compassionate, encouraging, and playful actions that fuel short-, medium-, and long-term fun and enjoyment.
Chapter 10 Ideas to Run With
Individuals who have fun on the job tend to be more creative and productive.
Workplace fun can be conceptualized as short-, medium-, and long-term employee pleasure.
People who are having an enjoyable time on the job tend to have more positive relationships with their peers, make better decisions, are tardy or absent less often, and use fewer sick days.
Innovation emerges from casual contact between diverse work groups.
Brief bursts of workplace fun can be an inexpensive, energizing force that increases team alignment, solidarity, and productivity.
Social motivation is a powerful performance incentive. Allowing team members to choose rewards that may include acts of leadership silliness often produces impressive results.
Opportunities exist for creating recognition programs in which staff members acknowledge wow moments delivered to one another.
Play and fun can be infused into, and are often most needed for, routine tasks such as evacuation drills.
Employees find workplace happiness when they are allowed to do what they enjoy, even if that means they do not choose management positions but instead function as culture leaders.
Long-term enjoyment comes from helping staff members grow in the direction of their passions.