How Jet.com Plans To Stand Out By Putting Employees First
In today’s profits-driven business environment, the effect on the bottom line is always a key consideration for a new program or initiative. With ROI being king, the metrics that are typically tracked, analyzed, and discussed are mostly a matter of dollars and cents. However, what is lost or overlooked in this world of big data and analytics are the softer metrics that can also have a significant impact on ROI. Elements like work/life balance and employee happiness are not usually top of mind for business leaders. But by ignoring their employees’ needs, some companies have found themselves in unexpected trouble. For instance, Amazon, long considered a model of Silicon Valley success, experienced a major PR snafu earlier this year as a result of a high-profile expose’ detailing frustrated, overworked, and disgruntled employees.
Jet, an Amazon challenger, is taking a different approach. Marc Lore, the CEO of this buzzed about e-commerce startup, has made it a key priority to retain a durable and happy workforce. In a recent piece for the New York Times, he says “I’m constantly asking people at Jet if they’re happy… It’s really important for me to know that they love working here and think this is the best place they’ve ever worked.” According to the article, commonly used perks like free food, extended parental leave, and unlimited vacation help contribute to overall satisfaction. But there are also unique elements to Jet’s strategy designed to further emphasize how much employees are valued. “Transparency is a big word with Mr. Lore. So is ‘fairness.’ Make people feel good, he says, and they will do their best. Trust them and they will reward you.” To emphasize this transparency, Jet introduced an app that shows salaried employees and investors real time company financial data, including number of orders and even the amount of cash the company is holding.
In the tech world, where start-ups can balloon and burst in the matter of months, Jet is betting that to sustain itself in the long term, they will need experienced and motivated employees who will not jump ship at the first sign of an impending storm. To that end, Jet also encourages a healthy work/life balance. Lore says that in previous positions on Wall Street he “saw that it didn’t matter how you treated people, you just paid them enough so you didn’t care if you burned them out, and then you got new people and burned them out. It was an environment of very short-term thinking.”
I commend Jet on their strategy of investing in their employees and keeping their happiness as a main priority. In a year where corporate profits were used increasingly for mergers and acquisitions of competitors, rather than internal investments and R+D, it is refreshing to see a start-up concerned about their people. It is also worth noting that this strategy does indeed have a link to the aforementioned “holy grail” that is ROI. The University of Warwick in Britain conducted a recent study stating that happy employees led to a 12% increase in output. In light of this, metrics like employee happiness should not be considered a luxury when considering company culture. When it is installed and communicated effectively as a core element of business strategy, happiness can lead to increased retention, productivity, and positive word of mouth encouraging future ranks of talented and motivated employees.
Here are five quick tips you can use to instill more happiness at work:
- Invest in training: Let your people know that you value their professional development by helping them to learn and grow
- Promote healthy work/life balance: If your employees are known for burning the midnight oil with late emails, encourage them to follow a “hard stop” hour in early in the evening (outside of emergencies)
- Communicate in the right way: Know your audience, and target different groups through the communication platforms they are most likely to engage with
- Create brand champions and advocates: Designate the most vocal and motivated employees to become brand champions, who are trained to promote key brand values and nurture less engaged employees
- Encourage feedback: If something is wrong, it should not be swept under the rug. By keeping honest and transparent feedback loops, employees are inclined to share issues they have encountered and feel more respected.
(photo courtesy Jet.com)