Organizational culture has become a greater focal point for
employees, candidates, and employers in recent years. According to the 2015 Best Companies to Work For
list, most of the top employers appear to apply the Marriott
philosophy: “Take care of the associates
and they will take care of the customers.” By ensuring that associates feel like they
belong to their organization, employers ensure that employees are able to do
their best at work. In this issue of Astronology, we will explore some unique
hiring and recruiting practices that focus on workplace culture.
Gamification
The Marriott
Hotel chain has for some time used gamification to stir recruitment. In
2011 the organization created a Marriott themed game called “My Hotel,” in
which potential employees are exposed to the usual challenges of running a
hotel, starting with multitasking in a hotel kitchen. Quixey, a mobile
technology company focusing on mobile apps, created a game called “The
Quixey Challenge.” NBC reported that “Hopefuls
can register for one of the site's challenges, which are created and run by job
recruitment platform Readyforce. If they can fix the challenge's programming
bug in less than a minute, they win $100 and a chance to interview with the
company.” Halloweencostumes.com uses a simple game of Jenga. Prospective
employees are invited to a game of Jenga with their potential managers. Each
Jenga block has a question on it that has to be answered by the person who
pulls it. This particular ice breaker game opens up discussion and allows for
everyone to see how well they could possibly work together.
Halloweencostumes.com also uses game-like rapid-fire question sessions.
Peer Evaluation
Amazon.com
utilizes a “bar raiser” program in their hiring processes for non-warehouse
workers. Current employees nominate themselves to essentially take a second job
as “bar raisers.” The “bar raisers”
perform an estimated 20 work hours related to this role, on top of their usual workloads.
Five to six bar raisers will interview
one candidate on their own, either in person or on a phone call. At some point
during the process, the candidate may be asked to respond to an interesting and
intense question such as “Why shouldn’t you work at Amazon?” Bar raisers who’ve interviewed the same
candidate will meet, discuss, and make a decision on whether the candidate is a
good fit. Any objection to the candidate by any of the bar raisers means the
candidate is eliminated for consideration. The goal is for every new hire to
‘raise the bar’ for the next hire, giving Amazon a continuously improving
talent pool. Says
Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s CEO) in a 1998 interview, “I’d rather interview 50
people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.”
Overall Experience
Zappos.com
takes a totally different, all-encompassing approach. The potential employees (applicants) are
encouraged to complete a profile on the company’s social media site. They are
urged to “show Zappos their true colors” by including video recordings on the
profile as well as using Twitter to follow Zappos recruiters. The company then
uses screening software and recruiters to find the best candidates. When a
position needs to be filled, Zappos creates a candidate pool from those
existing profiles. After selecting some
candidates for follow up, the interviews are conducted with the team the
potential employee would be working with. This is done to ascertain if the
candidate has the needed skills. A
second interview is done with Human Resources to ensure the candidate also has
the organization’s core values at heart. Typical questions include “how weird
are you?” or “who’s your favorite superhero?”. This interview is to ascertain cultural fit,
which carries a heavy weight in the decision making process. If hired,
regardless of the position, onboarding includes training in different
departments. In addition, Zappos offers
$2,000 to new hires to quit if the new hire truly does not want to be a part of
the organization. Few actually take the offer.
Many
of the organizations listed here have the wealth to support their unique, and
even possibly risky, hiring and recruiting practices. Understandably, for
smaller organizations, more can be at stake during the recruiting process. For
many, the typical approach to hiring and recruiting in their particular
industry can seem the most reliable. Astronology
wants to know, does your organization have any unique hiring practices? Have
there been talks to possibly change those practices? Share
your thoughts with us and we may publish it at a later date!
