Pay Employees to Quit? Recognize Them to Stay!

Bloggers across industries and forums have been commenting on a recent Harvard Business Online article “Why Zappos Pays Employees to Quit – and You Should Too.” Zappos, an online shoe retailer that is focused on amazing their customers, puts new employees through a four-week intensive training course on the company’s strategy, culture and customer service focus. Employees receive full salary during this training.

Then, Zappos makes its newest employees this offer: “If you quit today, we will pay for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos does this to weed out the people who obviously do not have the commitment to be the strong customer service providers the company relies on for its success.

I appreciate this approach by Zappos and I’m sure they have achieved great success in hiring the best, most committed people for the job. But I wonder what they are doing to retain those talented and exceptional people over the long term. A company with the vision to institute an offer such as this one must be equally visionary in continuously and frequently recognizing their employees for their customer service successes.

Would you pay employees to quit? Do you invest in their successes through strategic recognition?