$1000 Quit-Now Bonus

“You’ve been on the job for a week now, and we’d like to offer you $1000.00 if you quit today.”

How would you like to be greeted on your seventh day at work by that statement? Does that statement even seem possible? Well it’s real. And the company that is doing it is called Zappos – an on-line retailer of shoes. It’s called their “quit now” bonus.

Zappos will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. The employee will be paid for the amount of time they’ve worked, plus they are offered another $1,000 bonus if they quit immediately.

Why does Zappos do this? As it turns out, Zappos wants to ensure that the employee they have hired has the same sense of commitment that Zappos is looking for in all of their employees. The Zappos culture is clearly defined and they want to ensure that the employee engagement of the new hire is up to par with the other employees.

Zappos would rather pay now than pay later for weeding out the deadwood. They also want to ensure that the employee is committed to the company the same way Zappos would like them to be before they invest any more money in the employee. The work is not necessarily glamorous. The work is in a call centre. It’s not for everyone and the percentage of new hires taking Zappos up on their offer is about ten percent.

Zappos has figured out a way to not be saddled with a “dud” employee and are willing to pay one thousand dollars early so they don’t have to pay many more thousands later in finding a way to terminate an employee who isn’t working out, to keep the morale high and to stop the cancerous spread of negativity before it gets a chance to take root. It’s also another way to test commitment levels of the new employee to the job.

Attitude Adjustment: If more businesses would be willing to adapt the Zappos example of weeding out problem employees in their own businesses, there would be fewer problems with customer service and employee engagement down the road. It may seem like a lot of money for some smaller businesses but not really when you consider how much could be lost to customer dissatisfaction, whining and complaining on the job and by actively disengaged employees working against good productivity. This may not be the only way to weed out prospective problem employees but it’s got to be better than the way things are working now. The real learning from Zappos is that they are willing to think of creative ways to eliminate problems before they become problems that affect the bottom-line. So, what’s it worth to your organization to get rid of some of the problem employees that you may have right now? If you’re the problem employee, would you take the thousand bucks to make you go away?