Introduction
Zappos, one of the biggest online sales inventories, has been through some dramatic changes over the years. It is not only matching the other competitors’ growths but also exceeding their potentials. Even Zappos has been expending, it did not change the core value of the company. In fact, the company’s philosophy is the fundamental factor of
Zappos success, and such culture is hard to change because it was already taken-forgranted. This analysis study will take a deeper look at Zappo’s company culture and discuss how this culture influenced its employees to maximize the productivity.
Helping “Newbies” Socialize Into the Culture
Zappos has very special values and norms that control the whole organizational members’ interactions with each member inside and also with the customers outside the company. Those guiding principles including terminal and instrumental values were applied during selecting people who wanted to get into the organization.
The best candidates for positions at Zappos are the “weird” ones because Zappos believes that the weird ones are the adventurous, creative, and open-minded people. The characteristics of those people within the organization made one of the cores of the company’s culture. This is the energy that drives the company. Within the organizational structure, Zappos is also looking for team players, and they encourage employees to make friends at work (the instrumental value) because having friends at work makes employees happy and happy employees will help keep happy customers (the terminal value), which developed the organizational ethics. Therefore a candidate has to pass both technical and “culture” interviews in order to be a good fit for the company.
Zappos has a unique way of selecting their new employees via special applications.
Unlike other companies’ application, Zappos’ features lots of fun questions that can be used to reflect potential employees’ abilities and personalities. Every question is designed to find the employees who will be a good match to the company’s culture. The interviewees will be tested on through out the interview as well. “We ask 10 to 15 behavioral-based interview questions for each of our core values,” said Christa Foley, recruiting manager. “A successful candidate may not necessarily score high on each core value, but they cannot oppose any core value.”
After meeting all the requirements and being selected as a team member of Zappos, the new employees will have to go through a 225 hours of paid training, which is called pipeline. It is a process used to develop employees from entry level to “the highest level

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of management.” This is a great example of socialization. The new employees learnt and internalized the values and norms of Zappos organizational culture.
The first four weeks is designed to help the new employees better understand the core values and also help the company weed out the uncommitted new hires by offering up to
$2000 of cash. It starts at $100 and accelerates over time because Zappos wants more people to take it in order to build better future employee loyalty. This characteristic way in which newcomers respond to this situation reflects how a role orientation works within the organization. This is the last test the new hires face before they become a team member. Zappos chose the top people through their previous hiring tests; and they were confidant about who they have hired because only a few new hires failed this test.
During the remaining 65 hours, new hires will be taking additional courses on communicating effectively, coaching others, overcoming conflict, and managing stress to increase their interpersonal communication and personal management skills. Since they were selected based on their personalities and interests, these employees will have a lot of things in common. Fewer conflicts in the working environment will increase the happiness in the