May 21
May 21
We’ve all heard of rigorous 5-leg interviews and 3 month probation periods for ensuring you’re recruiting the right people, but how about this for a novel approach: Zappos, the online shoe retailer, has a novel approach to staff retention - It pays people to quit.
After a four week induction period on full pay, the fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.”
Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later.
It’s a small practice with big implications: Companies don’t engage emotionally with their customers—people do. If you want to create a memorable company, you have to fill your company with memorable people. How are you making sure that you’re filling your organization with the right people? And how much are you willing to pay to find out?
What are you doing to make sure your new starters are for real?