Whole Foods.

By: Lily

You can notice the difference as soon as you walk inside of the store. It's a strange feeling, not quiet like a grocery store, yet, more, a community. Whole Foods is able to create this sense of community due to its strong hold on its core values. Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet — emphasizes that their vision reaches beyond food retailing.

1. Selling the highest quality natural and organic products available 
2. Satisfying and delighting our customers
3. Supporting team member happiness and excellence
4. Creating wealth through profits & growth
5. Caring about our communities & our environment
6. Creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our suppliers
7. Promoting the health of our stakeholders through healthy eating education 

Join Gore & Change Your Life

W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. has consistently been recognized by financial magazines such as BusinessWeek and Forbes, Inc. as one of the top companies to work for. The company is known for consumer products such as GORE-TEX frabric and ELIXIR guitar strings, and it manufactures products within the electronics, industrial, fabrics, and medical markets. What exactly has Gore done as a company that makes its culture so unique and highly regarded?

In a radical approach to corporate culture within an organization, since its founding by Bill Gore in the late 1950’s, the company does not have any “chain of command”. This wildly innovative idea, especially at a time when traditional management styles were most popular, focuses on a team-based organization with no organizational charts and no “channels of communication”. Associates are hired to work in a particular discipline but feel that they are placed onto projects that meet their skills and capabilities, which has had a very positive impact on employee retention and satisfaction.

What are the risks involved though, to not have a chain of command, job titles, or these charts? This environment apparently has created a great deal of innovation at the company, as employees are more willing to work together in a team environment rather than pursue their own self-interests. To quote CEO Terri Kelly, “We recognize the importance of fostering a work environment where people feel motivated, engaged and passionate about the work they do… Our culture promotes an incredible level of ownership and entrepreneurship. It encourages associates to channel their talents and interests to produce a continuous stream of innovative, high-value products for our customers.”

In recent news, Gore unveiled a new brand campaign, “Join Gore & Change Your Life”, which highlights the very unique culture to potential job candidates with the intent to build a talent pool. Barbara Pizzala, a recruiting associate at Gore, was quoted as saying, “By focusing on product success stories, the campaign goes a long way toward educating potential job applicants about what we do. And just as important, it puts our collaborative culture front and center.” It is clear that through Gore’s ability to give their associates the freedom and resources to create products in such a unique environment that the firm has been voted one of Fortune Magazines “Top 100 Companies to Work For” for 12 years in a row. 

How Weird Are You?

In the Internet era, the emergence of e-commerce and online companies has revolutionized the way business is conducted. With the expansion of information, the whole world will very quickly when your culture negatively impacts your workers’ performance. The only thing to do is reform your culture to enable your employees or risk losing your best talent to other firms. So why is it that Zappos.com keeps growing and adding more and more employees? Besides its ability to provide excellent customer service and cheap products, which have grossed $1 billion in sales in 2009, Zappos places a massive emphasis on its company culture and its core values.

Headquartered in Las Vegas, the company boasts its eccentricity and embraces their differences from others. With its own Zappos Family “culture book,” the company delves into massive detail on how to be a Zappos employee. While their core values serve as guidelines, the actual implementation provides the outside viewer with a better understanding of the culture. Employees experience free lunches and vending machines, and have access to a library, a nap room, and free health care. In addition, employees are encouraged to decorate their workspaces, with some ranging from a rainforest theme to others having an Elvis theme. Tony Hsieh, the CEO, even has an inflatable monkey in his cubicle. Employees are encouraged to spend 10-20% of their working hours simply goofing off, and some even lead parades through the office.

Intent on hiring the weird and fun, Zappos utilizes an intensive interview process, with surprising questions such as “how weird are you on a scale of 1-10” and “what is your theme song?” After the initial interviews, new hires undergo a rigorous customer loyalty training course, in which these employees are offered $2,000 to quit at the end of it. While the incentive to quit and take $2,000 is strong, it also provides an understanding of Zappos’ culture, in that each employee is dedicated to the company. Those that do not quit recognize the values of Zappos’ culture.

Despite the fact that the world is becoming more technologically dependent, Zappos doesn’t let it affect their ability to engage in human moments. Engaging in the openness of the human moments and constant social interactions allow the employees at Zappos to excel at their work. With work satisfaction, it is no wonder that the company is still growing very quickly. 

Wegmans Food Markets

To start out my search for a company with a positive, unique corporate culture, I simply went to the 100 Best Companies to Work For, an annual compilation put together by Fortune of the top companies to work for.  The small blurb for the company mentioned that "this year, 11,000 employees took part in a challenge to eat five cups of fruit and vegetables a day and walk up to 10,000 steps a day for eight weeks."  Much like the video that we watched in class with the hospital supporting breast cancer by having everyone wear pink gloves, Wegmans fosters a culture of unity by challenging all of its employees to eat healthier and to exercise more through a simple program.  This program, however, certainly benefits Wegmans' employees because not only does their health improve, but they also cohesively work together to accomplish their individual goals.  

Creating this sort of unit certainly improves employee morale, which is certainly evident to the average Wegmans customer.  I cannot be classified as the average Wegmans customer, but I have perused the store on a few occasions to date.  The fact that I vividly remember interactions and the overall friendliness of the employees to myself and the other customers clearly shows that the corporation's treatment of its employees is evidently working through small programs that promote unity and good health.  Additionally, "8,000 (employees) took advantage of health screenings that included a flu shot and H1N1 vaccine," all of which was covered by Wegmans.  Wegmans shows its employees that it truly does care about their health through their health screenings, and this also benefits the company in general because it wants to keep its employees healthy because that protrudes a better image to its customers.

Wegmans bases its unique corporate culture on the promotion of healthy lifestyles, and this culture works not only because employee morale is high and transparent to customers, but also because the culture is reflective 360 degrees throughout the company as many participate in the programs from the executives to the hourly employees at local Wegmans.  Additionally, Wegmans offers competitive benefits to its employees which allows them to feel more motivated while at work because they can view their employment at Wegmans as more of a meaningful career, instead of a temporary job.

Introducing: Unique Corporate Cultures by Scared of Clowns

By: Lindsay Miller
Welcome to the Scared of Clowns blog. Do not let the name fool you; clowns, although terrifying, will not form the basis of this blog. We are Brendan Fox, Do Sung, Michael Attridge, Lily Nie, and Lindsay Miller reporting from the perspective of Organizational Behavior concepts. Please continue reading to discover the fresh insight we will provide on Unique Corporate Cultures that have sprung up across the nation.

In business today, Corporate Culture is not only a Buzz word, it is becoming a competitive advantage. As processes are streamlined and technology advances, the way to pull away from competition is through a solid, talent-development program. In other words, who companies hire to work and represent them. So how do companies attract and retain such talent? Competitive salaries and benefits are always helpful, but currently the Millenial generation is asking for more. More Social Responsibility. More Social Scenes. More Work/Life Balance. More Diversity of Task. More Sustainability Efforts.  Many of these factors also work to gain the trust and the business of customers seeking similar initiatives, but the bottom line is that both consumer and employee are looking at the not-so-simple, somewhat intangible concept of Culture.

Team Scared of Clowns will take you through a series of companies that are particularly unique in the way that they manifest their culture: from jungle-themed office space to paid volunteer time-off to functional interest squads and beyond. Follow along as we take you through the by-product of a changing world where companies are no longer just marketing their products, but their identities as well.