Zappos $1,000 Offer

Ever heard of a “Quit-Now” bonus for new employees? We’ve all heard of severance packages where long-standing employees are essentially paid a bonus to quit now. But a “Quit-Now” bonus for new employees to voluntarily leave after a week on the job … that’s novel.

Bill Taylor, of Mavericks at Work fame, writes how Zappos , a fast-growing online shoe retailer, will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. Zappos will ask new employees this question … “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.”

Why does Zappos do this? The reasoning, as Bill Taylor put it, is …

“Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)” READ MORE

Brilliant! Bloody brilliant!!

Thanks to someone’s blog for the hook-up. (Sorry, I forget who clued me in.)

Comments

[Becky Carroll]

Zappos is all about employees and a strong culture. They spend a lot of time training employees on that culture and even have a Zappos culture book! Other companies may try to copy their business model, but it is tough to copy a culture - especially one that is driven as passionately as their CEO, Tony, drives Zappos culture.

Thanks for sharing this, John!

[Glenn Gabe]

What a brilliant way to maintain your corporate culture as you scale. So, while you lose employees that don’t fit your company, you will keep those that work hard, tough it out, and ultimately drive the company forward. I love it.

[Tracey]

I applaud the priority of maintaing a loyal workforce.... however, won't that just motivate people to apply to Zappos *just* to get the $1k and quit?

[john moore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Tracey ... interesting point. But I'm sure Zappos does a very good job in whom they offer a job to that this wouldn't be a problem. Nevertheless, it could happen.

[Stephen Denny]

This is a good idea -- it's crystalized given the call center reality of their business. Give people an incentive to leave if they want to, as quickly as possible.

For a healthy company with a generative culture, this is a great program to emulate, and not just for one-week-old employees. How about one year? Why not? Toxic cultures can't do this because they'd lose the employees that are good enough to land elsewhere.

[Patrick Byers]

I love this idea. I doubt the $1k is often given to someone that applies just for the cash. They'd have to hire them first and I'll bet they are fairly confident they've found a good fit before they make the offer.

Zappos is doing some groundbreaking things in social media as well.

Their CEO is on twitter and they have a corporate twitter page: http://twitter.zappos.com/

Patrick Byers
The Responsible Marketing Blog
http://responsiblemarketing.com

[nicole]

$1,000 is a lot of money...haha

[Katherine Coombs]

Interesting - and laudable - approach that they've taken here. I have a slightly different motive in mind for offering that $1000 "sign-off bonus", though.

Zappos are using it as a way of culling those who are Zappos-type people. But what about also thinking of it as a recruitment tool. Something along the lines of "we guarantee that you'll love working here so much, that we'll even pay you $1000 if you don't!"

Employers - especially big names - tend to spout things like pensions, leave, health care etc as inticements to get people to join. But having a culture of pride and a compny so driven to keeping its people (employees, as well as customers) happy is VERY important to me, and I'd love to see a company put its money where its mouth is. Then the company is forced to ensure that employee satisfaction and retention is considered alongside customers'.

[Reginald Halstead II]

In my honest opinion, I think this is a phenomenal idea. During my years in store management I have seen many people come through our revolving employment doors. Granted this is a fact of life, my concern is that they always stayed too long.

A sign-off bonus would help expedite the process. Considering the cost of keeping an employee that you know will not work out, $1,000 dollars is nothing in comparison. A sign-off bonus saves, not only on the actual costs of training and paid time, but it can save the morale of the team, by filtering out those that are right for the job. It's far easier to recoup lost dollars than it is to rebuild a cohesive team.

I wouldn't mind if my organization developed a tactic like this. Until then, I better just filter them out before they get in the door.

[Jacob]

Seeing how $1000 dollars does not even cover half my rent in NYC I would rather keep the job. Long term happiness with a company like Zappos greatly outweighs the short term happiness of the quick dollar. Besides I would probably just blow the entire wad of money on one trip to the roulette wheel.

[Troy]

Wow! What an awesome idea. I wonder where the money is budgeted. Talent Management, Recruiting, Advertising, Promotions? I'm not plugged-in to Zappos, but judging from the comments to this post, I wouldn't be surprised to see this scratch show up on a line item called Guerilla Internet Promotions. Just look at us!

[Rusty]

Brilliant!

[dheeraj singh]

try http://www.reviewmirchi.com