Organizational behavior

Organizational Behavior Case Report
City University of Hong Kong
College of Business MGT 3206
2013-14

1) Job satisfaction can be defined as how a person evaluate his or her job and work context, that is pay, promotion, supervision, coworkers, and work itself. Together with the daily fluctuation of one’s moods and emotions, we can appraise one’s job satisfaction level more rationally.1 According to Colquitt’s findings, satisfaction with the work itself is the most important factor correlate to overall job satisfaction, followed by supervision, coworker, promotion and pay satisfaction.

For satisfaction with the work itself, it can be further defined as job variety, identity, significance, autonomy and feedback. For job variety, Zappos’ employees can move around a lot and build relationships with people they have not met before. Also, employees can bid for different shifts every six months in Zappos’ call center.2 This can enhance the level of job heterogeneity and make the work less repetitive for employees. For job identity, Zappos does not outsource the call center duties. Zappos’ employees can in charge with the whole calling process to delight the customers by themself. This can bring employees senses of achievement. For job significance, Zappos believes that satisfied employees will ultimately result in satisfied customers. In this sense, Zappos believes that retain employees is identical to retain customers. This will deliver the concept to employees that they are the assets to the company and every single one is valuable to the company. For job autonomy, employees are encouraged to use imagination instead of predetermined script during service calls. This empowerment raises employees’ job satisfaction. For feedback, employees will receive $50 bonus for their outstanding job accomplishment from coworkers. This policy encourages the culture of appreciation for their fellow employees and hence, increases job satisfaction of the work itself. Also, Zappos hires a life coach to talk with employees and give advice to employees on advancing at Zappos. This feedback mechanism helps employees to improve themselves and obtain higher achievement, which raise their satisfaction level.

Furthermore, non-work practices like pajama parties, obsessively blogs, nap room and concierge service, all these create a fun culture that are unique in Zappos and cannot be easily found elsewhere, which makes working in Zappos is not merely a work-9-to-5 job.

Secondly, supervision satisfaction refers to how employees feel about their boss.3 Zappos’ managers will spend time with employees outside work hours and deliver a family style feeling to employees. This can eliminate the hierarchical feeling in Zappos and increase job satisfaction by spending extra time chatting with employees.

Thirdly, coworker satisfaction refers to employees’ felling about their fellow employees. As mentioned before, the $50 bonus for a job well-done scheme encourages appreciation of their fellow employees and hence, increases job satisfaction. Also, Zappos emphasizes on positive thinkers during their employment process. This can induce the positive emotional contagion in which employees are surrounded by positive coworkers instead of pessimists. Overall job satisfaction will be higher if we work with optimistic coworkers.

Fourthly, pay satisfaction is higher by schemes like profit share and 100% of employees’ health insurance premiums. If Zappos makes more money, employees deserve to share the fruitful result with Zappos. According to Judge4, money may not necessarily make employees happy. Therefore, Zappos pays for the full amount of employees’ health insurance premiums. In this way, employees think that the company cares about their health and in return, work harder for the company.

2) I think “The Offer” cannot maximize job satisfaction. “The Offer” itself is merely financial reward for new employees who found themselves not satisfied with their job, their coworkers and the company. According to Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, pay is one of the hygiene factors that reduce job dissatisfaction. It is the job context that is not related to the job itself. In other words, the $2,000 bonus cannot boost discontent employees’ satisfaction level at all. Moreover, “The Offer” is the quick fix that encourages discontent new employees to leave earlier. It does not solve the root problem of new hires that dissatisfy towards the company. It is hardly for Zappos to enhance new hires’ satisfaction level as dissatisfaction still exists.

3) “The Offer” policy needs to evolve. It is possible that some new hires want to “try” Zappos’ weird culture first and decide whether they still want to work later. It is not a loss for them to try first as they can get the full salary together with $2,000 anyways. Again, “The Offer” can only remove dissatisfaction towards the job. As to boost the job satisfaction of beginners, Zappos has to get rid of their dissatisfaction sources first. For example, beginners may think that it is too crazy to work in Zappos as they saw the wired pajama parties. The $2,000 bonus can use for holding orientation to instill Zappos’ culture to the beginners instead of kicking them out.