Lola Gonzalez, the owner of Accurate Background Check in Ocala, Florida, decided to resign in order to avoid having to lay off one of her employees.

After it became clear that the company would have to eliminate a position, Gonzalez decided that she didn’t want to lay off any of her employees.

Gonzalez is now employed as a social worker and is earning less than half the salary she received at Accurate Background Check.

Read more at USA Today

Delivering Happiness is further proof that the workplace doesn’t have to be hostile and ruthless in order for companies to succeed.  In his book, Tony Hsieh explains how his career evolved from starting an unsuccessful worm farm business as a child to investing in and managing Zappos, the online shoe retailer, as its revenues grew from nothing in 1999 to over $1 billion in gross sales in less than ten years. 

Tony Hsieh - Zappos CEO

Zappos was able to build such a successful brand because it created and developed a culture that was focused on treating one’s customers and coworkers well.  Hsieh realized that unparalleled service is critical in order to thrive in competitive markets such as shoe retailing, and that happy employees are best equipped to provide great service to customers.

Zappos’s culture is based on ten core values, which include:

• Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
• Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
• Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
• Be Humble

While many companies claim to support values such as building a family spirit, Zappos has truly weaved these values into its DNA.  For example, Hsieh describes how Zappos has developed a recruiting process that helps filter out potential bad bosses.  Hsieh writes, “Be Humble is probably the core value that ends up affecting our hiring decisions the most.  There are a lot of experienced, smart, and talented people we interview that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line.  But a lot of them are also really egotistical, so we end up not hiring them.  At most companies, the hiring manager would probably argue that we should hire such a candidate because he or she will add a lot of value to the company, which is probably why most large corporations don’t have great cultures.  Our philosophy at Zappos is that we’re willing to make short-term sacrifices (including lost revenue or profits) if we believe that the long-term benefits are worty it.  Protecting the company culture and sticking to core values is a long-term benefit.”

With regards to building a positive team and family spirit, the goal at Zappos is “to create an environment that is friendly, warm, and exciting.”  The key to developing a healthy work environment is to have bosses “that lead by example and are both team followers as well as team leaders.”  Whereas most companies are organized and managed according to a top-down hierarchical structure, Hsieh and other Zappos executives “believe that in general, the best ideas and decisions are made from the bottom up, meaning by those on the front lines that are closest to the issues and/or the customers.  The role of a manager is to remove obstacles and enable his/her direct reports to succeed.  This means the best leaders are servant-leaders.  They serve those they lead.  The best team members have a positive influence on one another and everyone they encounter.  They strive to eliminate any kind of cynicism and negative interations.  Instead, the best team members are those that strive to create harmony with each other and whoever else they interact with.”

If more companies developed a culture like Zappos, then workplace bullying probably wouldn’t be such a widespread problem and people wouldn’t need to rely on services like eBossWatch to evaluate the work environment at potential employers.

Bob Moore, the owner and CEO of Oregon-based Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods celebrated his 81st birthday by giving the company that he founded to his employees.

Moore said, “It’s been my dream all along to turn this company over to the employees, and to make that dream a reality on my birthday is just the icing on the cake. To me, this is the ultimate way to reward employees for their contributions to our ongoing success and growth. We have many loyal and long-time employees who I expect will be joined by many new faces over the years to run the company.”

Operations VP Dennis Vaughn, said, “The partners could have sold this company many times for a lot more money, but to them this company is about so much more than the money. I’m just proud to wear the Bob’s Red Mill logo because anywhere I go in this country people say nice things about the company.”

Bob’s Red Mill, a leading provider of whole grain natural foods, has averaged an annual growth rate of 20%-30% over the past 10 years and in that time their mostly North America distribution has expanded internationally.

Here is the third installment of the Boss’s Tip of the Week.  This advice column for managers is brought to you by Bob Rosner and Allan Halcrow, co-authors of The Boss’s Survival Guide.

The economy is precarious, budgets are tight, and companies are still dumping their most valuable assets faster than TV networks dump shows that struggle in the ratings. But wait. There are alternatives to layoffs. If you pursue those alternatives, not only do you retain key employees, you can still trim labor costs, keep morale high and put yourself in a position to prosper when the economy bounces back. Here’s how:

• Consider making some jobs part-time. Some employees will leap at the chance to cut their hours while maintaining full or partial benefits. Later, when business improves, you’ll be in a strong position to ramp up.
• Offer job sharing. Two employees, each working part-time, voluntarily sharing one position, bring double energy and double smarts to the job. The challenge is to make sure you’ve got the right people and the right jobs. 
• Offer phased retirement. Offering phased retirement allows retirees to settle gradually into a new lifestyle and it gives you continued access to their brains and experience.
• Offer leaves or sabbaticals. Offering time away from work without reducing benefits, seniority or employment rights can help you keep top talent while temporarily cutting costs.
• Get creative. One company granted stock options to employees who voluntarily reduced their salaries. It offered $2 worth of options for every $1 in reduction. Twice the anticipated number of employees accepted the offer — and morale soared. What “perks” can you offer that will make employees want to help you?
• Ask employees. Go direct to the source and ask employees for ideas on how to cut costs. Trust us: They know where the excess is hiding.

Real Life Examples

• Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, called employees to a meeting. He stood before them and told them the truth: The hospital was facing tough times. But it wasn’t merely an announcement; it was in invitation to dialogue.

“I’d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners… now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice. It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.” Employees erupted into loud, enthusiastic, sustained applause. And then they offered ideas. Lots of ideas. Levy says that at one point he was getting 100 email messages an hour.

Ultimately, the cost-cutting moves that employees suggested weren’t enough to save every job. But together the hospital team saved more than 400 jobs.

• John Brown, president of Primary Freight Services, a shipping and logistics company in Rancho Dominguez, California, had similar thoughts. Brown saw his family-run firm’s revenues drop 24 percent, but he decided to buck the downsizing trend. Instead he cut executive pay — including his own — and moved his staff to a four-day work week, thus saving 18 jobs and medical coverage for his employees.

“It would have been a lot easier to look better if I laid off staff,” he says about his company’s balance sheet. “But…if I took away the core of what I have I would have taken away from what made the company successful in the first place — my employees.”