New Approach: No Managers or Job Titles

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Recommended: Research proposal on the impact of motivation on employee performance

This year, Las Vegas based retailer Zappos is doing something that few companies on the international scale have had the courage to do and taking a chance with the company’s future based on the faith they have in their employees to make decisions. They are reorganizing their entire internal structure in order to implement a system called holacracy. Under this system there will be no managers or job titles as far as internal operations go, and the traditional corporate hierarchy will be replaced with a series of overlapping, self-governing “circles.” As a result, many more employees are being given the power to make what decisions they have to in order to accomplish their responsibilities without having to ask permission from managers who may not be as familiar with the intricacies of the problem. This seemingly chaotic approach has been proven effective at some smaller organizations, but never before attempted on this scale.

Zappos was founded in 1999 and by 2009 Amazon had bought it for 1.2 billion. This rapid growth is why the leaders of this organization are trying so hard to hold on to the unique culture its 1,500 employees enjoy. Experiencing this culture is the key to understanding why the company would take such a risk with their operations. There is something special about working at Zappos and it is worth holding on to. They are relentless in its approach to providing outstanding customer service and satisfaction. To that end they want employees to be happy in their work and do everything they can to stifle out the rigid corporate lifestyle that is so prevalent in other companies. There are jungle plants hanging from the ceilings, employee’s desks are covered in trinkets and personal decorations, executives are offici...

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...e high level of internal collaboration across sectors that would normally not often intersect. This gives the employees a different perspective on the company as a whole and makes them feel that they are all playing a part in shaping the company’s future. While this may not be a measureable business statistic it absolutely plays a role in employee morale. Which any experienced manager will tell you means more motivation and better results.

As of now it is still unclear how Zappos will adapt to their new structure, as only 10% of the company has fully implemented it. They are however hopeful that the total changeover will be completed by the end of the year. The unprecedented size of this effort has caught the attention of business leaders all around the world, who will continue to watch anxiously to see how the first chapter of large scale holacracy unfolds.

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