Work is stereotyped as a five to nine job that entails boring and repetitive tasks while being cramped up in a cubicle that isn’t even big enough for a monkey. Relationships and work are two separate entities and the employees that clock in every day are completely dissatisfied.

I read an article online about the company Zappos which is an online shoe retailer that completely flips this script and redefines the work environment. Unlike most companies, Zappos completely understands employee attitudes, and job satisfaction in the workplace. Unlike the conventional system where there is usually a head of a company, Zappos is “a work place where no one and everyone is the boss” (Noguchi 2015).  Zappos has adopted a self-governing system that has eliminated management. This drastically changes the environment of the work place.

Employees are rewarded by their peers, and they work in teams in order to develop new ideas or solve problems. As a result, there is tremendous job satisfaction as employees have real meaning in their work, and they make decisions on a regular basis that impact the company. These results draw parallels with concepts learnt in class in regards to job satisfaction and the effects on the organization.

This job satisfaction effectively increases the productivity of workers, which makes employees more motivated to go above and beyond their usual job duties. Further, relationships between employees become extremely strong and genuine which translates in to another positive externality of the worker’s attitudes on their workplace. Because Zappos is a retailer that focuses on communication with their customers, Employees go to great lengths in order to ensure customer satisfaction. One employee went as far as to spend over two hours on the phone in order to help a customer.

This is a company that understands how inter-connected employees are with their customers. The work place should not be a stage where employees resemble marionettes that sway helplessly to every movement of their boss who pulls the strings. I hope more company’s plan to integrate a system that mimic’s Zappos where they get rid of the top-down hierarchy and employees have a larger responsibility.

Word Count: 355

Works Cited:

Noguchi, Yuki . “Zappos: A Workplace Where No One And Everyone Is The Boss.” NPR. NPR, 21   July 2015. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.