After class 19 which is about human resources and business cultures, I keep thinking about the successful business model of Zappos. Zappos is a creative company that shows great care for their employees. Zappos provides free food and snacks for its employees. Before official work, Zappos provides four weeks of training and all of its employees work in the same area on the exact same table. (even the CEO uses works on the same table beside the employees) Zappos’s business culture makes its employees feel like home therefore the employees always hold positive attitude when they are working. Their happiness is the key to enabling Zappos to provide high level of consumer service. This proves the saying “love your employees and they will give back more to you.”
Generally, we believe that if we love our current employees, they will give more back to us. However, after reading an article about Love you Ex-Employees by Michael Schrage, I found out that Michael came up with some interesting and practical opinions. Basically, there are four processes. These are respecting ex-employees enough so that they can generate referrals, making references, providing resources and even returning. Although returning is difficult and challenging, they are worth it. Some company would treat their ex-empolyees as defectors and traitors who are not welcome to return to the company. I believe showing respect to the exes is a form of respect for the current employees. Talented employees are fully aware of how the exes are treated since it projects how they would be treated as an ex. Leaving a company and exploring more options is not a sin.
Overall, getting those talented exes back is not an easy thing. To maintain good relationship and show respect to the exes are very necessary and the exes may even bring more opportunities back to the business.
