Question

1.Identify the main research problem.

2.Analyze the main underlying causes of the existing problem.

3.Establish the cause-and-effect relations between the various aspects.

4.Formulate the best solutions to address the problem.

CASE 1: ZAPPOS FACES COMPETITIVE CHALLENGES

Zappos Faces Competitive Challenges

Zappos, based in Las Vegas, is an online retailer with the initial goal of trying to be the best website for buying shoes by 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. The company’s goal is to provide the best service online, not just in shoes but in any product category. Zappos believes that the speed with which a customer receives an online purchase plays a critical role in how that customer thinks about shopping online again in the future, so the company is focusing on making sure the items get delivered to its customers as quickly as possible.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has shaped the company’s customer-service-focused culture, brand, and business strategy around 10 core values:

•           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 is free. They are also encouraged to use their imaginations to meet customer needs.

Zappos has received many awards for its workplace culture and practices, including being frequently recognized in Fortune magazine’s annual rankings of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. The job of human resources at Zappos is more than just a rule enforcer. HR’s job is to protect the culture and to educate employees. HR focuses on interactions with managers and employees to understand what they need from HR (HR is even invited to attend work teams’ happy hours). Zappos’s employment practices help perpetuate its company culture. Only about 1 out of 100 applicants passes a hiring process that is equally weighted on job skills and on the potential to work in Zappos’s culture. Some managers at Zappos believe that if you want to get a job the most important value to demonstrate is “be humble” including a focus on “we” instead of “I.” Job candidates are interviewed for cultural fit and a willingness to change and learn. For example, they observe whether job candidates talk at lunch with others or just the person they think is making the hiring decision. 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 bonus for good performance. Call center employees can use an online scheduling tool that allows them to set their own hours, and they can earn more pay if they work during hours with greater customer demand. Most of the over 1,500 employees at Zappos are hourly. Every new hire undergoes four weeks of training, during which the company culture must be committed to memory, and spends two weeks dealing with customers by working the telephones. 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. Zappos provides free breakfast, lunch, snacks, coffee, tea, and vending machine snacks. Work is characterized by constant change; a loud, open office environment; and team interactions. Employees at Zappos move around. For example, call center employees can bid for different shifts every month.

To reinforce the importance of the 10 core values, Zappos’s performance management system asks managers to evaluate how well employees’ behaviors demonstrate the core values such as being humble or expressing their personalities. To evaluate task performance, managers are asked to regularly provide employees with status reports on such things as how much time they spend on the telephone with customers. The status reports and evaluations of the core values are informational or used to identify training needs. Zappos also believes in helping others understand what inspired the company culture. The company created the Zappos.com library, which provides a collection of books about creating a passion for customer service, products, and local communities. These books can be found in the front lobby of Zappos offices and are widely read and discussed by company employees.

Corporate culture is more than a set of values, and it is maintained by a complex web of human interactions. At Zappos, the liberal use of social media including blogs and Twitter facilitates the network that links employees with one another and with the company’s customers. Zappos takes the pulse of the organization monthly, measuring the health of the culture with a happiness survey. Employees respond to such unlikely questions as whether they believe that the company has a higher purpose than profits, whether their Page 63own role has meaning, whether they feel in control of their career path, whether they consider their coworkers to be like family and friends, and whether they are happy in their jobs. Results from the survey are broken down by department, and opportunities for development are identified and acted upon. For example, when it was clear from the survey that one department had veered off course and felt isolated from the rest of the organization, a program was instituted that enabled individuals in the group to learn more about how integral their work was. To keep the company vibrant, CEO Tony Hsieh spent $350 million to develop a neighborhood in downtown Las Vegas, which is the home of Zappos.com’s new headquarters. Hsieh wants to provide employees with a great place to work as well as to live and socialize.

Recently, Zappos adopted a management philosophy, holocracy, which gives employees the freedom and responsibility to decide how to get their work done and eliminated people managers. Hsieh’s intent was to allow employees to act more like entrepreneurs and help stimulate new ideas, bring their full selves to work, and have a purpose beyond making money, all of which he believes will benefit the business. Employees work in teams or “circles” rather than as individuals, and team membership can change. However, employees are finding the new management system confusing and requiring them to spend more time in meetings. Also, they wonder how they will earn raises and advance their careers without management jobs. In all, 210 employees found the new philosophy so dissatisfying that they took three months of severance pay and left the company. Zappos is changing its recruitment process to ensure that its new hires are comfortable with holocracy’s self-management style.

Despite this setback, other companies are trying to learn from Zappos’s practices. Zappos Insights is a department within Zappos created to share the Zappos culture with other companies. Zappos Insights provides programs about building a culture (3-Day Culture Camp), its WOW service philosophy (School of WOW), the power of a coaching-based culture (Coaching Event), how the HR function protects the culture and how its programs support it (People Academy), and custom programs. The cost to attend these programs ranges from $2,000 to $6,000 for each attendee.

QUESTIONS

1.         Zappos seems to be well-positioned to have a competitive advantage over other online retailers. What challenges discussed in Chapter 1 pose the biggest threat to Zappos’s ability to maintain and enhance its competitive position? How can HRM practices help Zappos meet these challenges?

2.         Do you think that employees of Zappos have high levels of engagement? Why?

3.         Which of Zappos’s 10 core values do you believe that HR practices can influence the most? The least? Why? For each of the core values, identify the HR practices that are related to it. Explain how the HR practices you identified are related to the core values.

4.         How might the change to the holocracy management style undermine Zappos’s core values and cause employees to have lower levels of engagement?

Answer 1

Answers

1.There is no doubt about the position of the organization and its facilities compared to other competitors.

Besides advantages,there are some serious threats to the organization.A company's profits will be decided based on the man power,working hours and productivity.In addition to that Cost cutting technique is also an added advantage.According to the given information it is clearly seen that the organization is not taking care about cost reduction techniques such as

*Providing $2000 to new joiness of the organization to go out during training.This is definitely not a good act.Since this is their training period,this will be the best time for them to learn and adapt to new culture.So company has to provide best time for them to break the chain.And also giving reward to their fellow employees is an appreceable thing but here there is a chance of misusing it.Since it involves in awarding cash bonus,there is a chance to pre plan and share the amount afterwards.So,we can replace it with one more thing.A simple pat on the back should be introduced by HR team.Pat on the back means giving an appreciation and applauding infront of everyone.This makes the employee feel more responsible and serious about his work in upcoming days.

HR management practices are pillars to any organization.Starting from the recruitment procedure to providing facilities to the organization,HR team has planned very well.But,there are several time wasting procedures inside organization like providing free bees to employees in addition to their income.It is not mandatory to provide free sservices for life time.In order to strengthen culture they must organise regular training sessions on new technologies.

2.Answer

Definitely all the employees in the organization has high levels of engagement.Whatever the services that are been provided by the company are being used very well.If we see the usage of library with different volumes,all the employees are using it for the communication with customers and services.And also the usage of social network also enhances in company's growth and itb reduces time waste and increase in productivity.

Their involvement and dedication made their CEO to spend $350 million to develop a neighborhood.Unless he feels that his employess are not engaged,he wont go for these kind of things.And also we can see only 210 employees felt new rules are dissatisfying.So majority of persons are convinced.

3.Answer

All the core values influence the most

First core value is Deliver WOW through service.

Here HR policies will have an indirect impact.Since there is a possibility to use their skills using imaginations,a HR can conduct regular trainings or providing necessary environment to strengthen their skills for more effectiveness.

Embrace and drive change

Here an employee should be encouraged if comes up with new ideas and strategies.If his opinion is shared then it will be the mangement that should modify and implement his idea if it is really necessary.

Create fun and little weirdness

Laugh is permitted but not fun.If there is too much of fun,there will be too much of loss to every aspect.As long as an employee is working inside the organizatioj he should feel happy and comfortable.So,one should share happy moments while working.It enhances the growth of himself and organization also.

Little weirdness is imposed in order to check the condition of the employee.An employee should be ready to face good and bad and embarassing moments while he is working.The mental condition will be developed and he comes to know when these conditions arise.He gains experience and will handle well from next time.

Be adventurous,Creative and open minded

One has to do adventures in order to bring out their real strength out.This gives the idea about their decision making skills and confidence.This helps them in handling large team sizes with challenging tasks.

Creativity is linked to adventure.One will create adventures if they start with complete confidence.Open minded persons are more successful than others because there is no need to step back or compromise if they look for any resources.They can simply say that they are not satisfied with the resorces and facilities and they need more.So,this kind of persons are successful compared to others.

Pursue growth and learning

It is the responsibility of the management to provide a platform to employee for learning.Regular training sessions emphasizes growth and skills.Since learning is a never ending process,every one will definitely makes use of it and helps in developing company's growth.

Build open,Honest relationships with communication.

This is a bit similar to open minded.Here the communication plays a vital role.Honest relationships are the only ones that lasts forever.There will be no betrayals and cheating in future.

The transparency will be more that helps each others in future.Misunderstandings will not come in between.

Build a positive team and family spirit

This is the most important thing.If there are any falls in the work,the positive mind of the employess makes the problem more easier so that they can fight and find a solution.If there is more positivity on team,things will definitely become positive.One should feel like their family.Because,if one of our family members are in trouble,we stand for them.In the same way.the same formula applies here too.

Do more with less

All the resources and facilities should be equally distributed and used accordingly.

Wastage should be recycled and used for further production.Technology should be used more with less time for more production.Do more work within less time.

For example,rather than training every employee it is better to train them at a time.Because of this,time and money can be saved and proper output can be achieved.

Be passionate and determined

One has to feel responsible and committed to their work.They should respect their timelines and tasks.

They should be a role model for others.Workaholics are the ones who are more involve in completion of work within time.Feel the work as passion and achieve your target.

Be humble

This quality is important.Faithful and humble in their work makes your fellow employees and higher management impress more.They start respecting you and believes you more than others.

4.Answer

Well there is a fall back in employee number ater introducing holocracy management.All the mindsets are not similar in any organization.Majority of people likes for individual recognition rather than team recognition.Here the policy is in such a way that it gives more scope to meetings and team but not individuals.And also more people are involved in meetings.This made them to step back from engagement in activities.

Every one cannot become an enterpreneur.So,organization has to give them a choice to decide whether they are interested or not.

There will be impact for core values too.It takes time for the employees to come out from the mind set they got habituated since many years.So organization should give freedom about their choices and interests.

It is the generation that decides a company's future.So,new genaration ideas should be encouraged besides respecting old too.

Oraganization would have relieve some points so that it helps their culture.