Candy Butchino

Chapter 1: Zappos
1. The biggest challenge Zappos has to face is the sustainability challenge. The sustainability challenge consists of maintaining a sustainable company that survives in changing market climate by continuing to generate profit, while at the same time being careful to not sacrifice the overall good of the employees. A huge implication of this challenge that also happens to be a huge part of the company’s culture, is to assure the overall community and working environment does not suffer for the sake of profit. It’s a fine line for Zappos because the company has a vision to be the best online retailer with “best service and selection,” but they also want humble employees who are truly passionate about the company. That is a good goal because it’s an objective that will generate profit as a healthy company should, and I think the culture that the Zappos CEO created with the 10 core values is the perfect way to keep that balance of focus on that goal, while keeping emphasis on employee happiness. HR’s evaluations on how well the employees reflect these 10 values creates not only an expectation but a reinforcement on how important they are to culture. Doing this also creates increase of value for intangible assets such as goodwill and brand recognition.
I think the Zappos.com library is clever and that HR should do more with that to maintain a positive vibe with the employees. It gives them context and reason to be passionate about the company, and while the case says that the books are often read and discussed by employees, I think those stories can be used to give the reinforcement of the 10 core values an extra push in successfully maintaining the sustainability challenge.

2. Yes, I do think that the employees have a high level of engagement. First reason being the employees are selected for their “weirdness” and