The Most Interesting Corporate Career Site in the World?

It just might be this one, from stealth start-up Scopely. Scopely is clearly after talent that will match up well not only with the skills and experience that their opportunities require, but that will fit with its, let's say, out of the ordinary culture. When your CTO takes front and center on the company career site, complete with martini and a series of irreverent pitch lines like 'Did GOD use your wireframes to CREATE the HIMALAYAS?', candidates certainly get the impression that Scopely, at least taken at face value, is not looking for 'average' talent.Are you sure you want a job here?

And beyond the CTO as the Dos Equis man picture, and the pithy come on lines, Scopely sweetens the pot with an aggressive and creative sign-on/referral program. Newly hired engineers, (or their friends that make a successful referral), are eligible to receive a package that includes some of today's 'must-have' tech wizard items like a speargun, a 'fancy tuxedo', a year's supply of the aforementioned Dos Equis beer, and oh yeah - $11,000 in cash. Face it, no matter how cool your employee or alumni referral program is, unless you can find some 'sex panther cologne' or have some Cuban cigars laying around in the supply room, our clever friends at Scopely have you topped.

What does Scopely even do you might be wondering? Who knows, exactly? And the careers site, for all its fun and wackiness, doesn't make it easy at all to figure out. But perhaps that is part of the point. While the 'Dos Equis Man' takeoff, and the promise of beard oil and bacon wrapped cash, (did I forget to mention the $11K bonus comes wrapped in bacon?), are mostly designed to grab attention in a really competitive market for start-up software development talent, there is also just a hint of expectation that prospects, (or referrers), would have to do some digging to really learn about the organization and the potential opportunities. Sort of the same way most of us expect candidates for our organizations to do.Your referral bonus

And one more point about Scopely, their sort of insane careers page, and the most bizarre referral package I've seen in ages. No matter what you think of it all, and you're probably thinking it's either stupid, or just amusing, and NOT AT ALL what would be appropriate for your company, they have done all of us a favor of sorts. By setting a new kind of ceiling for recruiting fun and surprise, they in a way have given any of us a type of permission to get more creative and fun ourselves.

No matter how offbeat, unusual, unexpected, and crazy by your standards idea you have seems, the kind of idea that the suits and the bigwigs would NEVER approve, there is almost no chance it would top Scopely in those departments. So you have a kind of out, an excuse, a way to play the 'Look, I know this idea seems wild, but it really isn't all that crazy, just look at what these idiots at Scopely are doing. See, my plan is actually kind of conservative.' 

Maybe the comparison won't get your idea approved after all. But even if it doesn't, you'll at least get to have a few laughs with the boss while you Google 'Sex Panther Cologne'.

Delivering Talent

Note: Tonight at 8PM ET on the HR Happy Hour show, we will be joined by Jamie Naughton from Zappos, to talk about some of the HR and Talent Management practices employed at Zappos.

Everyone knows at least something about the Zappos story.  Small, specialty online retailer survives some rough early years to become a $1B plus juggernaut just a few short years later. This growth is fueled by a relentless focus on providing legendary customer service; understanding, documenting, communicating, and living by their famous company culture and values; and by building sustainable processes for finding, developing, and rewarding the best people to live the culture and that can deliver on the customer promise for tremendous service.

In 'Delivering Happiness', Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's, book about the origins, rise, and philosophies behind Zappos, Hsieh expounds upon many of the talent management strategies that are employed to ensure that the company can continue to live up to its high standards for customer service, ensure that the most important organizational values are supported and strengthened, and that there will be a steady and ready supply of future leaders to drive the constant and rapid growth.

From Zappos practice of interviewing specifically for cultural fit, to offering brand new employees cash bonuses to leave, to the focus on building active and deep pipelines of talent for positions across and through the organization, the examples of effective and even innovative talent management strategies and execution abound in Delivering Happiness, and other writings, speeches etc.

When the entire business strategy and opportunities for success hinge almost completely on the talent, commitment, and execution of people, (face it, you can buy shoes from about a thousand different places), then the challenge, pressure, and opportunity on those folks mainly responsible for the hiring, development, and compensation of these people becomes marked.  I'd submit you can't have a world-class roster of fantastically engaged, aligned, and successful employees without a corresponding world-class HR and Talent Management group helping to deliver on the customer and employee promises.

Sure you know the Zappos story from the book, or from the blogs, or from the thousands of blog posts about the company.  But tonight on the HR Happy Hour show you will get a chance to hear from one of the leaders of the Zappos talent management team, Cruise Ship Captain Jamie Naughton.

The fun starts tonight at 8PM ET.  Join us by listening on the show page here, by calling in to the listener line on 646-378-1086, or using the player below:

It should be a fun and interesting show, and I hope you can join us.

Culture, Wellness, and the Soda Machine

I like to believe that in the workplace almost every form of communication, design, and subtle messaging has the potential to offer some kind of insight or clues to the organization's true culture and values.  

I mainly like to believe this because it provides the justification for an almost endless string of 'What your company (insert any object, policy, statement, product, etc.) says about your culture/values/mission' kind of blog posts. This is especially important on the Monday following a long holiday weekend, and my only other idea for today's post was going to be titled 'What your company can learn from the Knicks gutty, double overtime win over the Pistons this past Sunday', which for some reason is my strongest memory forcing its way through a 72-hour turkey haze.

It was the lingering effects of the tryptophan coma that led to a mid-morning trip to the office soda machine, to fuel up for the next round of meetings. Meetings that while important, had the potential to take the mind back to Danilo Gallinari's back-to-back 3-point bombs in the second overtime that sealed the Knick win.  (You really should check the replay on NBA.com).

At right, is a picture of the aforementioned soda machine.  A very solid and concise headline 'Cold Drinks', followed by two rows of assorted beverages.  The top row, the diet versions of Coke, Mountain Dew, and Pepsi.  Bottom (and less desirable from a product placement point of view), full sugared and caffeinated Coke, Ginger Ale (does anyone at work crave a Ginger Ale?), orange juice, and finally bottled water.

Nine choices in all, with DC and the Diet Dew getting the coveted prime slots on the top row, (and hogging up two spots each).  Out of the nine total choices (seven really), only two would be considered healthy options, with the majority of the selections falling in to the 'wake up, crank out some work, but keep the weight off, fatty' category.

Is there really a message in the drink or snacks that fill up the vending machines? Does the organization subtly or even overtly signal what is really and truly important by the food and drinks it makes readily available to the employees? Am I reading way too much into this, and the real truth is that an outside company services and re-stocks the machines and simply supplies them with what people want, and what sells? Is there really a market for vending machine ginger ale?

Lots of questions for the sluggish Monday following a long holiday weekend.  However, I have just one more - 

Should I have just punted and posted about the Knick game?

Missing Lost

The season finale of the TV series 'Lost' was aired last evening.  Long time fans of the show, and there seemed to be more and more of them in this the final season, would finally learn the secrets of the mysterious island where the survivors of an air crash had been stranded.Lost - ABC.com

I hope that description was more or less accurate, as I admit I have never seen the show, and the last episode did not seem like a good starting point.  

I am certainly not alone in never having seen 'Lost', I took notice of numerous Facebook updates and Tweets yesterday along the lines of 'I have never seen Lost and I am not sorry about that' or 'I can't wait until Lost is over so I don't have to see so many irritating Tweets'.

But just as many smart folks that I admire and respect were almost gloating with a kind of smug superiority that they never watched the show, I also noticed equal numbers of intelligent and successful folks that were clearly and fully immersed in the show, and in the kind of collective experience that social networks can provide as any popular or important event unfolds.  Last night some occasional checks of my Twitter stream revealed the anticipation, excitement, and temporary bonding as they watched and tweeted as the program played out in their living rooms.

So as I said, I did not watch the final episode of 'Lost', I never watched any episode in the series, and I am not at all happy about that.  I certainly don't feel any kind of superiority to any of the show's dedicated fans.  As I write this I am also wasting yet another three hours of my life watching a bunch of millionaires run about trying to put a ball through a hoop. So my tastes in pop culture certainly can be questioned.

Sports, TV, movies, music - they are all parts of our culture, the culture that we live in, that we help create, that our friends and colleagues participate in shaping, and that our companies have to navigate in order to survive and succeed. I know not all 'culture' carries the same weight, or relative importance, but when I see people getting so openly dismissive of one type of culture, be it a TV show, a band or style of music, or whatever I can't help but wonder why they would care enough to publicly denigrate it, and by extension the other people that are its passionate fans.

Melodramatic TV shows, boy bands, 80s hair band reunion tours, American Idol, Karate Kid remakes, Stephen King's 163rd book, or even the NBA, what makes any of these better or inherently more interesting that any other art form or supposedly higher culture?

I wish that I had seen some of 'Lost'.  I wish that I had the time to stay on top of all the interesting books, movies, and music that passes by every day. I am curious. I think by having some appreciation and understanding of a phenomenon like 'Lost', we can develop a better appreciation of understanding of the people in our lives, organizations, and communities.  

Being interested in 'Lost' is not really about caring whether or not the marooned passengers ever get off of the island, it is much more about understanding and empathizing with the millions of people that collectively do care about that island and who tomorrow will be at work, school, and in shops and restaurants. I may not have thought the show was interesting enough to ever watch it, but I know those people are interesting enough, all in their unique way.

I missed 'Lost' last night, and that was indeed my loss. 

The Culture Show - Recap

Last night on a fun and engaging HR Happy Hour show, Charee Klimek from Vocii, and Meghan M. Biro from TalentCulture joined us to discuss organizational or company culture; what it means, why is it important, and how companies and candidates can better understand and leverage culture.

If you missed the show, I encourage you to listen to the replay here:

 

The show brought up quite a few interesting topics, and honestly one hour probably was not enough to cover such a wide-ranging, slightly ambiguous, and diverse subject such as company culture.

For me, a few points really resonated:

One - There has never been more of an opportunity for organizations to communicate the message of what they believe in, how they see themselves, and the kinds of attitudes, behaviors, and values that the people that inhabit the organization exhibit, and by extension what types of people would be good candidates in the future. With all the free and low-cost tools and mechanisms available to organizations, if your message is not getting out the way you desire, either you simply don't care, or you are not really trying hard enough.

Two - Culture is not just about having a cool company blog, or a CEO that likes to Tweet.  There actually were great company cultures and places to work at before Zappos came along, (I am not sure anyone actually said that in the show, but I think it is true).  Culture is woven into the everything the organization does, from what products and services it offers, to the way it deals with its stakeholders, even to the way it is reflected in its physical surroundings, the way it treats the environment, the community, and even the world at large.

Three - And thanks to Mary Ellen Slayter from SmartBrief from the SHRM VIP Tweetup in Washington, we learned that SHRM (at least at this week's Legal-themed event) is doing a solid job promoting fear, restraint, and a firm grip on the status quo with respect to the use of social media.  Rather than rehash it all here, go check out Mark Stelzner's blog for his take.

Thanks once again to Charee and Meghan and all who called, listened, and tweeted!