Zappos, based in Las Vegas, is an online retailer. Its initial goal has been to
ID: 423876 • Letter: Z
Question
Zappos, based in Las Vegas, is an online retailer. Its initial goal has been to be the best Web site for buying shoes, offering a wide variety of brands, styles, colors, sizes, and widths. The zappos.com brand has grown to offer shoes, handbags, eyewear, watches, and accessories for online purchase. Zappos’s vision is that in the future online sales will account for 30 percent of all retail sales in the U.S., and Zappos will be the company with the best service and selection. As a result, Zappos believes it can become the online service leader, drawing customers and expanding into selling other products. Zappos believes that the speed at which a customer receives an online purchase plays a critical role in how that customer thinks about shopping online again in the future, so it is focusing on making sure the items get delivered to customers as quickly as possible.
Zappos CEO Tony Heish has shaped the company’s culture, brand, and business strategy around 10 core values.
They are:
Deliver WOW through Service
Embrace and Drive Change
Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
Pursue Growth and Learning
Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
Do More with Less
Be Passionate and Determined
Be Humble
Deliver WOW through Service means that call center employees need to provide excellent customer service.
Call center employees encourage callers to order more than one size or color because shipping and return shipping are free. They are also encouraged to use their imaginations to meet customer needs. Zappos’s employment practices help to perpetuate its company culture. For example, the HR team uses unusual interview questions, such as “How weird are you?” and “What’s your theme song?” to find employees who are creative and have strong individuality. Zappos provides free lunch in the cafeteria (cold cuts) and a full-time life coach (employees have to sit on a red velvet throne to complain). Managers are encouraged to spend time with employees outside of the office, and any employee can reward another employee a $50 dollar bonus for good performance. Most employees at Zappos are hourly. All new hires complete four weeks of training, including two weeks working the phones. New recruits are offered $2,000 to leave the company during training to weed out individuals who will not be happy working at the company.
Due to a downturn in sales, Zappos was forced to cut costs, including laying off 124 employees. Heish handled the downsizing in a positive way. Laid-off employees with less than two years of service were paid through the end of the year. Everyone received six months of paid health coverage. Zappos also allowed laid-off employees to keep their 40 percent employee discount through Christmas.
What challenges is Zappos facing that may derail its attempt to be the best online retailer? How can training and development help Zappos meet these challenges? Do you think that employees at Zappos have high levels of engagement? Why? Which of Zappos’s 10 core values do you believe training and development can influnce the most? The least? Why?
Source: Based on Web site for Zappos, www.zappos.com; J. O’Brien, “Zappos Knows How to Kick It,” Fortune (February 2,
2009): 55–66.
Explanation / Answer
1. What challenges is Zappos facing that may derail its attempt to be the best online retailer?
Sol: The major challenges Zappos is facing due to reduced sale, it has to lay off several employees. The lay off practices crates negative cascading effect on the other fellow employees and they either get demotivated at workplace or simply quit the job.
2. How can training and development help Zappos meet these challenges?
Sol: By training and development, Zappos can keep its current employees motivated and engaged to the work, and they will think less about any uncertainty in the future regarding their jobs. The training will help in imparting positivity among the employees which will later get visible in the form of good performance.
3. Do you think that employees at Zappos have high levels of engagement? Why?
Sol: Yes, the employees have high level of engagement at Zappos, because of the different engagement initiatives taken by the management. Few examples like managers hanging out with their subordinates and full-time lunch coach are good examples for showing the high engagement levels.
4. Which of Zappos’s 10 core values do you believe training and development can influence the most? The least? Why?
Sol: Among the 10 core values, I believe “Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit” can be influenced most by training and development. This is because positivity as workplace is very sensitive matter and with job uncertainty it even becomes more important to train the employees to keep high moral and positive attitude in all the circumstances.
As far as the least effect of training and development in concerned, “Do More with Less” is little difficult to impart in the employees as its long term process and needed more than training programs to achieve it.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.