Running head: THE BEST PLACE TO WORK
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Abstract
Many organizations today are focusing on how to invest in employees for competitive advantage.
These organizations are leading the way by creating empowered work cultures. Googles’
leadership believes in the bottom-up approach through sharing and developing new ideas, caring
for its employees, access to its leadership, innovation, and support. At Zappos, the employees are
the number one priority. From the beginning, leadership understood the importance of feelings in
determining behavior. Leadership at Pixar creates and fosters a culture of trust. They realize that
creativity is alive and can be released through play in their corporate playground using
collaboration and team spirit. At Gore Corporation they have no hierarchy and no bosses.
Employees decide what they want to work on. They encourage technical innovation and give
their employees the freedom to be creative. Southwest Airlines is like a family within a family
where everyone bonds. Leadership has created a fun, upbeat, productive atmosphere. At Valve
there are no managers, and the employees can work on any project they want. They value
employees’ ideas and foster innovation. They advertise that they are looking for talented people
with original ideas and the passion to realize them. Semco recognizes every employee as a
leader. There is no hierarchical structure and employees set their own work hours. Semco trusts
their employees and encourages them to find balance in their lives. These organizations have
engaged and energized employees. Leaders who focus on these principles could turn any
organization into one that generates more synergy and has people wanting to achieve.
The Best Place to Work and
What Makes Them So Great
One of the most important aspects a company should be aware of is that their employees
want to be treated with trust and respect. They want to be recognized for their contributions.
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Employee engagement should be the goal of every organization. Creating a motivating
environment, effective use of power and politics, creating high-performing teams, and
developing a change-hardy culture guided by high ethical standards are strategies for improving
productivity and performance among employees with the ultimate goal of creating a positive
work culture for all. This paper will detail the strengths of companies such as Google, Zappos,
Pixar, Gore, Southwest Airlines, Valve, and Semco, and explore their organizational success. A
successful corporate culture is the ultimate environment for maintaining the highest levels of
team member or employee satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability” (Loube, 2008).
Leadership
Leadership is defined as the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute
toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (McShane,
2000, p. 350). A successful leader helps grow his or her company into a vibrant workplace that
attracts and keeps talented individuals. Leaders who concentrate on positive abilities rather than
weaknesses of whom? will more than likely have engaged, productive, and happy employees.
Leadership needs to allow their employees to use their talents and abilities to get the job done
without breathing down their neck. They need to try to remove all obstacles that may keep them
from experiencing pride in their work (Aguayo, 1990).
Google is an organization that believes in the bottom-up approach through sharing and
developing new ideas, caring for its employees, providing access to its leadership, fostering
innovation, and providing support. High expectations and standards are set for all employees,
and they are afforded the freedom to take initiative, think, and act independently. According to
Brin and Page, co-founders of Google, “Our management philosophy amplified that quality
employees who are motivated do not need to be managed” (Finkle, 2012). A couple of years ago,
Google implemented Project Oxygen, a program that gathers information about managers
through performance reviews, feedback surveys, and other reports. The program is used to
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discover what employees value about leadership. From this project, Google found that
employees valued caring managers above everything else. After prioritizing the information that
was collected, a list of eight qualities was identified and Google incorporated them into training
programs. Can one be trained into being caring? Prasad Setty, Google’s vice president for people
analytics and compensation, said, “We want to understand what works at Google rather than
what worked in any other organization” (Bryant, 2011). Project Oxygen clearly defined the way
managers matter in the employees’ view.
Leadership at Zappos is non-traditional and innovative. Tony Hsieh’s, CEO of Zappos,
number one priority is to make his employees happy. He does this by creating a culture of
participation, growth, caring, and respect for individuality. Employees refer to themselves as
“The Customer Loyalty Team” because they are empowered by having discretion to do whatever
makes the customer happy. There are no planned scripts, no timed phone calls, and they are
allowed to make decisions on their own. Hsieh believes that if his employees are happy they will
want to make their customers happy as well. Apparently it works because they are consistently
ranked as one of the best places to work in America as well as being a favorite company among
customers. Tony wants his employees to think of their work as a calling rather than a job, a place
they want to be for the rest of their career. He even offers new employees $2,000 within the first
week to quit. This is called “The Offer,” and it suggests a rare company that believes if
individuals want to amaze customers, a great way to start is to amaze employees and inspire
them to amaze everyone who comes in contact with the enterprise (McFarland, 2008).
Zappo’s employees are passionate about what they do, work well together as a team, listen to
each other, and enjoy a strong company culture. Tony Hsieh leads by letting employees shine,
encouraging innovative ideas, and appreciating everyone for helping in the success of Zappos.
Power and Politics
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Leaders can implement effective use of power and politics within their employees by
asking hard, interesting questions, and creating opportunities for employees to get together and
brainstorm. Each individual needs to be given the opportunity to make decisions that support the
mission of the entire organization. There needs to be a culture of trust within the firm. With
support, clear expectations, and accountability, leaders can trust their judgment and know that the
trust they extend to their employees will foster innovation and performance. The late
management thinker, C. K. Prahalad said, “The most vital skill going forward will not be how
much you know, but how quickly you can access what other people know” (Wiseman, 2011).
Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, admits that he does not know all the
answers. He is always reaching out to the employees asking for their input and discussing
problems with them giving everyone the opportunity to reach a decision on how to solve a
