The Most Compelling and Exciting Place to Work?

This might brighten your day. Two days ago I wrote a blog post asking you how much money you'd quit your current job for. I wanted you to attempt to put a monetary figure on the value of your future with your current employer, at least as far as you saw things. It kind of gives you a handle on your employment situation. It might help you make an important career and life decision.

If you were interested in that, you might be interested in where I got the idea for the post. (By the way, this is an example of borrowing an external idea and building upon it, which I wrote about here). I stumbled across the story of how Zappos, the US online shoe store, create a certain culture at work and how they recruit the right sort of people for that culture. There's lots to learn from this.

"The Offer"

I'll cut straight to the part I was really interested in. Most Zappos employees have four weeks paid training at the start of their employment. About one week in, Zappos make an 'offer' (they call it "The Offer") to the new recruits to quit the company and be paid $1,000 + the first week's paid training. They're paying their new recruits to walk away. Of course this forces the employees to put a value on working with Zappos. It gets employees to ask themselves if they're right for Zappos, if Zappos is right for them, and how passionate they are about staying. Many new recruits in other organisations probably don't ask themselves this question. At least not to the point of actually making the decision. Most people just get on the bus, and stay on the bus, putting up with the journey until their hair falls out, or they pull it out. That's why I wrote my last post.

I also heard that less than 10% of new employees at Zappos actually take the money and quit. So they're attracting the right people too.

Watch the Video

This video on the Zappos site is definitely worth watching. It's 9 minutes, it might make you smile, it gives a great idea of the culture they're trying to create, it's clearly a culture that suits the US fine, but don't let that turn your nose up if you're from the UK or Australia (as most of my readers are). Think about an equivalent compelling work culture for your country (or better still, for you). Think about what sort of place you'd like to work at. It doesn't have to be boring, too stiff, too serious, grey walled offices any more, unless that's what you want. Those places are gradually dying out (some are even being wiped out by garage start-ups who change the whole industry). People are realising that good work can still be done in a different culture and environment after all (…well I just mentioned a 'garage'). And that different environments might attract like-minded people and will certainly make different people more productive.

So choose wisely!

If you want help with this sort of career decision, I break it all down for you in The Great Career Escape.

P.S. Just before 6 mins into the video they mention 'The Offer'. In fact, he increases it to $2,000

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