Happiness a path to profits hsieh tony

8th at 12:30 PM at the patio outside the lunchroom. Please respond to me ASAP if you’d like to participate in shaving your head or if you’d like to be a volunteer.

Thanks!

Our employees know that our number one priority at Zappos is our company culture.

While all of the things I just mentioned have come about organically (most of them I don’t even know about until they’ve already happened), a few of the things we do are more purposeful and planned.

For example, we have all of our employees walk through a central reception area to get in and out of the building even though there are more convenient doors located closer to the parking lot. The previous tenants had used all the doors in our building for exiting, but we decided to mark all of them for use as emergency exits only. We made this decision when we moved into our building as part of our goal to build more of a community by increasing the chances of serendipitous employee interactions.

In most companies, logging in to the computer systems requires a login and password. At Zappos, an additional step is required: a photo of a randomly selected employee is displayed, and the user is given a multiple-choice test to name that employee.

Afterward, the profile and bio of that employee are shown, so that everyone can learn more about each other. Although there is no penalty for giving the wrong answer, we do keep a record of everyone’s score.

Internally, we refer to this as “The Face Game.”

We also try to measure the strength of our culture through regular employee surveys by asking employees whether they agree or disagree with statements such as: I believe that the company has a higher purpose beyond just profits.

My role at Zappos has a real purpose— it is more than just a job.

I feel that I am in control of my career path and that I am progressing in my personal and professional development at Zappos.

I consider my co-workers to be like my family and friends.

I am very happy in my job.

We’re always on the lookout for ways to improve our company culture, no matter how unconventional or counterintuitive the approach may be. For example, a research study showed that “letting workers swear at will in the workplace can benefit employees and employers.” The article went on to cite that “employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing is used as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress.” We forwarded the article to our managers.

Over time, as we focused more and more on our culture, we ultimately came to the realization that a company’s culture and a company’s brand are really just two sides of the same coin. The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company’s culture. This realization eventually led me to write the following blog post: Your Culture Is Your Brand Building a brand today is very different from building a brand 50 years ago. It used to be that a few people got together in a room, decided what the brand positioning was going to be, and then spent a lot of money buying advertising telling people what their brand was. And if you were able to spend enough money, then you were able to build your brand.

It’s a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more