Q&A with Jamie Naughton, Cruise Ship Captain at Zappos.com
Q: What’s the secret to getting on Fortune‘s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” list?
A: I don’t know if there’s a secret but I do know what they look for. Two thirds of the score is based solely off of what your employees say about you. So if you don’t have a great work environment you are pretty much dead in the water from the get-go. The other third is based off of the details on your work environment and programs that the company submits.
The best advice I can give a company entering the process for the first time or trying to make the list is to give them as much information as possible. If you know you have a great work environment and don’t make the list don’t give up! Zappos tried unsuccessfully for several years. It was at that time that we decided to overwhelm them with information. We wanted them to really know our culture.
Q: How would you describe your company culture?
A: Our culture is best defined by our 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.
At Zappos, these values represent who we are as people as well as how we run our business.
Q: How does the Zappos work experience differ from the “typical” corporate work environment?
A: Just about everything about Zappos differs from a “typical” corporate work environment. When you walk into our building every inch is infused with personality. Every employee works in cubicles, including our CEO and CFO.
I guess what sets us apart from the norm is our take on building a family environment. To us this means really knowing the people you work with. All employees are encouraged to socialize with other employees outside of work — even with your own manager. In fact, managers are required to spend 10% to 20% of their time outside the office spending time with their employees.
We are also known for having fun — a lot of fun. To us, having fun at work — even when doing non-work related things on company time — is encouraged. We think it makes for a creative and open-minded work environment.
Q: Your company is well-known for its retention success. Do you have any advice for other employers for retaining talent?
Outside of a great culture, I think there are two important things to retention. These are to hire the right people and to have great leadership. I don’t think it’s a new concept that employees don’t leave their companies. They tend to leave their boss.
Focusing on your leadership team is a great way to start. If your management doesn’t embrace the company vision and/or culture then they probably shouldn’t be managers. People deserve to be respected and trusted. Many businesses manage through fear. We manage through trust. We trust our employees to do the right thing and to use their best judgment. They rarely let us down.
It all starts with hiring the right people. At Zappos, every employee goes through a culture interview before being hired. No one gets hired who hasn’t passed this portion of the interview. We also pay every new hire to quit. This helps to get everyone committed from the beginning.
Q: How has Zappos integrated its company brand with the company’s culture?
We believe that your company’s culture and your company’s brand are really two sides of the same coin. In essence, your culture dictates your brand. With the Internet, it’s hard to hide who you really are. You can create marketing campaigns to sell your customers on how cool, innovative, and customer service-focused you are. But in the end, if your employees don’t live up to that image then your customers will find out and will probably tell dozens of others about it — and maybe even blog about it.
At Zappos, we want to be known for having the best service. In order to ensure great service to our customers, we had to start with providing great service to our employees and only hiring people that are passionate about customer service. To us, customer service is the whole company — not just one department.
We also infuse our culture into everything we do from our website to our blogs and even our marketing campaigns.
Jamie Naughton is Cruise Ship Captain at Zappos.com. She oversees the Cruise Ship Operations department which is a segment of HR at Zappos and is responsible for many of the company’s culture extras. The department handles the events, programs, incentives, community involvement, and employee communications. It also handles some of the awards processes, such as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For application.
Jamie will be a keynote speaker at the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium in Nashville, September 30-October 1, where she will discuss how Zappos.com relies on flat-out fun to build a committed workforce.