Why would we? We want our whole company to work, and for that, we need to look at each individual we’re hiring. Not just the suit they wear or the résumé they bring, but the whole person. We want to value the whole person we’re bringing into our family.
Johnnie Brockett
Treasury and Accounts Receivable
I used to be terrible at math. Now I work in Treasury.
I’ll say right up front that I recognize that a lot of companies wouldn’t even think about hiring me just because of the way I look. I’ve got tattoos and gold teeth. I don’t look like a typical “corporate employee.”
I grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the Army’s Fort Bragg is located. It’s a tough town, man. I fit right in there. But walking into HR in most companies, I could tell they closed the door to hiring me before I even said my name.
Zappos was a different story. They care about what your mind can do, and how much you care about other people, and whether you value doing the right thing, the honest thing—’cause all of that is a whole lot more important than how a person looks on the outside.
Looks can be deceiving.
Case in point: About two weeks after I started, we were still in class, and we got invited to a meeting at Downtown Cocktail Room. We were sitting at this big table, and everybody’s got on Chuck Taylors and Zappos t-shirts, and little did I know I was sitting there with some team leads, managers, and executives—everybody. And we were just hanging out! That’s how this company is.
It’s amazing how much trust they’ve put in me over the years, too. I’ve grown here into something that I never imagined for myself. I went to college for zero years. Zero! All of my education on the business side has been right here at work. I’ve moved up. I’ve moved into positions where I was needed. And just last week I was handling a quarter of a billion dollars in transactions. Just me. No one else.
Bhawna Provenzano
Head of Benefits and Wellness
I have traveled to over fifteen countries and can’t wait for our next adventure!
We hire employees who care, who want to make a difference, and we see it as our job to provide benefits that make a difference to our employees and show them that we care, too.
First of all, we want to remove as many barriers as possible for our employees. We want to make sure they’re covered in case there are catastrophic events. We want to make sure that their medical care and the costs that are associated with it won’t ever throw them into bankruptcy. But that’s just a start. We want our employees to feel safe. To feel healthy. To feel covered, so they don’t have to worry every day about basic things. We make the conscientious decision to say, “Okay, we are going to pay more and spend more on benefits, and to do it purposefully. Mindfully.” And like any other company, we have to be mindful of costs, right? But that’s not the number one thing for us.
Our employees are number one.
Our employees, in addition to our core values and culture, are our north star.
Why would we not want to WOW them?
So in addition to offering the best-possible health care plans, with expansive maternity and paternity leave and, honestly, the sort of support that so many people dream about at other companies, we offer all sorts of on-site benefits and perks as well. For example, the company pays for pet adoptions. We’ll bring a bunch of little doggies on site and let employees play with them as a fun, relaxing thing to do, and if anyone really bonds with and wants to take one of the dogs home as a pet, we’ll cover the adoption fee. That may seem frivolous in the corporate world, but the idea came from an employee, and people love it!
Close to 90 percent of our benefit ideas and wellness ideas come from employee feedback. They’ll email us and be like, “What do you think about this? What about that?” And oftentimes we’ll try new ideas simply because we can—simply because we want to offer the best possible service to our employees.
We’ll pay the entry fees for employees who want to run marathons or 5Ks for a cause.
There are fitness classes here during work hours. Employees can purchase meal prep plans for themselves and for their families. We have an outdoor space where people can partake in community gardening.
Maritza Lewis
Engage Team
My husband and I met at work before we both came to Zappos, but we didn’t dare date at our previous job. It was forbidden. Here? There are lots of couples. Dating coworkers isn’t discouraged. I mean, people understand not to take it to the extreme and, like, make out in front of your coworkers and stuff, but there aren’t any rules about it. We’re all adults. Since Zappos is really careful during the hiring process to find people who just sort of “get it,” who fit the culture, who want to do right by the people around them, it just works.
One of my roles here is to teach eight hours of company history during new-hire training, and I even talk about this dating business as part of our company history. Our founder, Nick Swinmurn, met his wife, Gabby, here. When Nick started dating Gabby, one of our HR representatives at the time pulled him into a room and said, “Nick, what the hell are you doing? You’re the founder of this company. You can’t date your employees!” And he was like, “What?”
The HR rep said, “This could end great and you end up marrying her, or—or—this could end really badly and she’ll take everything you have!” And Nick looked at her and said that he would much rather assume that something positive would happen than to focus on the worst possible outcome.
Nick and Gabby did marry, in fact, and they have a son. Today, there are lots of other couples here at Zappos who work side by side in some cases, and in different departments in others. The only policy we have is that you can’t date someone you report to, or vice versa.
When you hire employees you trust, who fit your company culture, then you can trust them to do the right thing.
I think one of the most unique things I’ve found about working here at Zappos is that 20 percent of your time is really meant to build relationships and bond with your coworkers and colleagues from other teams all across the company. You don’t find that in a lot of organizations, because, in most organizations, if you’re not sitting at your desk, well, guess what? You’re going to get in trouble. But here, the site is built in such a way that the entire campus is Wi-Fi friendly. You have little places to work all over. It’s been drilled into us that it’s okay for you not to sit at your desk. Actually, we would rather you not sit at your desk.
You can get your nails done, or you can paint pottery, or get your oil changed or get a car wash while your car’s just sitting in the parking garage all day, rather than spending time doing those things after work or on the weekend. Having a gym on site matters to a lot of employees. We have showers here so you can go during work. And the fitness classes—even they contribute to team building. There are whole teams that go together and have fun with yoga classes and dance classes in the middle of the workday.
It all goes back to removing barriers for the employee. We’re thinking holistically when we’re providing these things. It’s about service. It’s about “What can we do to make the employees’ lives better?”
That includes paying for as much coverage and as many benefits as possible for our employees’ families as well—because if someone is worried about the health of their spouse or their child, that’s going to affect their ability to concentrate at work, and ultimately to deliver great service to our