Analysis of Human Resources Management at Zappos: Training and Development

Zappos is an online shoe retailer with a focus on fast delivery, great quality and providing the customers with the best possible value. Zappos focuses on customer service, but this also means that they care a lot about their own employees. Their hiring assessment isn’t based on the educational background, but whether are you a good fit for the company. Their culture is the most important thing, and they strive at making their employees feel like home as well as surrounded by family. It’s not about working in an environment that just fun or relaxing, it’s about the company that listens closely to their employee’s wishes and concerns. Before they’ve reached the level of offering to consult to other companies, Zappos had to evolve internally. Their employee development and training became one of their core values which they have pursued throughout the years. ZapposU became a concept which goal was to ensure the development of employee’s soft skills and leader attributes. Only little did they know that their people will be thrilled with the idea, soon more classes followed.

As the company grew, they’ve decided to pursue the education of their employees by adding more classes. It’s not only individuals, but even teams can also apply for team-building training. This whole idea was in motion because Zappos wanted to create this value internally. How come? Zappos didn’t want to use people from the outside to come in and train their employees for their own company, instead, they’ve put in a lot of hard work and made an incredible program. The reason they went for such an idea is a belief that no one knows their employees better than they do. The courses must be compatible with the company’s culture in order to be carried out. Even though the ratings of people attending have gone down, Zappos still believes that there’s still room for development and learning. Even though there are some mandatory training classes, the company wants their employees to see it as a new experience of learning and not just another thing you have to do.

The company offers an online portal that an employee can excess any time he/she likes to find the information about the content or the training. Zappos firmly believes that if you (as a company) devote yourself to your employees, their feelings, education, and well-being, not only you will thrive, but your employees will be there to catch you when you fall. When I was researching about Zappos, I found it quite different from other company cultures I’ve seen. They all have the same idea, to put your employees first, but rarely do they implement the strategy well. One of the things that caught my attention is the fact that they do not hire based on your educational background. It’s amazing that you can start at the bottom and end up in a high position due to the training and development program in the company. Not only do their employees have a sense of belonging, but they also know that there’s a bright future waiting for them if they work hard for it and show that they are worth it. This is a huge motivation not only to people who haven’t finished some higher degree of education but also to students who don’t want to work in the field of their education line. Being one of those people, I can see why someone would be enthusiastic about this kind of workplace. Zappos even has meetings with managers of certain departments to see with what the employees are coping and how to make it better.

The thing that is making them one of the top-rated companies to work for is a sense of belonging, what I’ve mentioned before. Let me elaborate; people who work for companies that listen, exceed in everything. By everything, I mean working relationship, productivity, and workload. 2018 is the year where workers require six working hours to do the job well, where pets make them feel comfortable at work, and where people around you are one of the reasons why you want to stay at your current position. In my opinion, Zappos recognized the values that are not only appreciated, but considered important, and implemented them in their working culture. Their employees can work at the desk that’s entirely their own making, have breaks where they play video games, and where you’re hired since your co-workers want to drink beer with you after work.

The company recognized how beneficial these training can be, that’s why they’ve created a plan to ease up other’s lives. Zappos made four different programs where they help other companies, departments, people to exceed in their field of work and have a happy workforce. They believe that the key is inside the company, and you just have to find a way to lock yourself out, so they’ve decided to help.

They are offering a three-day culture camp where companies learn how to shape their companies and create your own culture when owning one. It’s not only important to create values, but you also have to bring those values into everyday life in your company in order to create your culture. A perfect candidate means a perfect fit; they cover the topics of hiring and training a new candidate. Customer service is one of the most important things in Zappos company, it may not be the case of others, but they will certainly learn how to recognize what is. Employees are the gems of the company, managers must recognize the potential benefits, threats, brilliant ideas, and the fact that your people have to be your number one. Zappos also creates value by bringing others (participants) to dinners, fun meetings, events.

Sometimes businesses need a reminder of what needs to be valued or looked for inside your company. Zappos offers their keynote speakers for such events in order to help other companies find their own culture, value, and philosophy by sharing their own. Another great thing is that the companies will get experienced speakers and presentation topics that can be customized by your preferences.

In this program, Zappos opens their world of customer services and its importance to others. They organize live phone calls with customers, how WOW leads them to word of mouth marketing, provide you with tips on quality assurance, and teach you how important it is to find your own path. Values are an important part of any company and Zappos helps you to find them and implement them into your services. Companies can also experience how training for customer services look like and how you can help the customer and your business with empathy and connection. Zappos also includes Q&A sessions and fun was of learning and advising through breakfast and lunch.

With different tour routes, you’ll be able to meet the companies culture and see how a “weird” kind of a company looks like from the inside and out. This was made to help businesses see how their culture could look like and that it wouldn’t affect them in a bad way, but quite the opposite. They will be able to see how a company functions if all their employees are satisfied and happy, which is a huge ambition goal to most of the companies. It’s not the concept that you have to copy, it’s the idea. The reason behind these kinds of tours is that companies realize what they need to do in order to be successful internally, like Zappos. You could have guitars, games, ping pong tables, parties in the open, or you could have yoga sessions or cats and dogs, it's a smile on people’s faces that matters.

They are slowly outperforming other companies in productivity and working cultures. They are slowly, year by year, taking a higher number on the ranking list of most wanted places to work. Why is that? They believe in their people, and their employees believe in the company. If you can be 100% yourself at work and get appreciated, you will never want to leave your job. Zappos succeeded in creating such a value and a brilliant company culture that could be an example to every other small or big company. They are treating their customers with the best care because they have the best people who are doing so. Zappos is creating, in my opinion, one of the most difficult cultures to follow up on when it comes to the satisfaction of their employees. It’s funny how a company whose brand isn’t that famous positions itself amongst the most known companies in the world only by implementing a culture that everyone desires. This semester is one of the hardest ones I have encountered. We have a lot of homework, projects, and difficult exams.

To be honest, for this course there’s a lot of work, but I a haven’t regretted or found it difficult to write the assignments for one second. All the assignments make sense, are beneficial, and relevant. The workload from the overall point of view is enormous, but we are seniors and we must manage. My only concern is the homework and projects during the exam week or the weekend before exam week. We can do the projects, but it’s hard to start studying if you have 5 due dates that you just couldn’t do before. I’m not saying we’re doing the task last minute, but we just don’t have the time to write all five projects and then start studying. I just have to manage my time a little bit better and then everything will fall back into its place.