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Cities That Lure
The answer, like the Frank Sinatra tune, is New York, New York. The two-part question? What are the nation's most favorite and least favorite cities to live and work. Yes, the Big Apple topped both lists in the Human Capital Institute's 3rd Talent Market Index, which was released March 10 during the group's annual National Human Capital Summit at the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale, Ariz. The second most cited favorite city in which to live and work was San Diego, followed by San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Detroit, meanwhile, was cited as the second least favorite city to live and work, followed by Los Angeles, New Orleans and Chicago. Allan Schweyer, executive director and senior vice president of research for HCI, shared data from the study of 658 employers and 2,438 employees in the United States during an afternoon session at the three-day event. Similar to two years ago, when the survey was last conducted, climate, cost, green spaces and entertainment were cited among the top reasons employees select a city to relocate. "Cities think if they get an NFL franchise, they'll attract people, but it's not nearly as important as [these other factors]," Schweyer said. The report, Schweyer said, found that employees continue to choose "place" over "job." American workers are unlike to relocate to many cities, even for a "dream job," he said. It also revealed a significant disconnect between "employer perception" and "employee reality" when it comes to reasons employees will relocate, Schweyer said, with companies putting much more weight than employees on factors such as culture, sports and entertainment.
Unorthodox HR Earlier, Tony Hsieh, CEO of online retailer Zappos, shared his business philosophy and some of Zappos' unorthodox HR practices during a morning keynote address. Founded in 1999 as an online shoe retailer, Las Vegas-headquartered Zappos today has sales of roughly $1 billion, employs about 1,400 workers and now also sells clothing, handbags, eyewear, watches and more. Zappos' reason for being is to provide customers with the best online shopping experience, Hsieh said. To achieve that, the company features its toll-free phone number at top of every Web page -- "We want employees to interact with our customers" -- and offers free delivery and return shipping, as well as a 365-day return policy. Hsieh said he believes Zappos' unique "culture" is key to its success. "Culture is our brand," he said. "If you get the culture right, everything else falls into place." The company thoroughly screens job candidates to determine how well they fit the culture, Hsieh said. "We do two [job] interviews -- the first for skills and the second for cultural fit," he said, adding that the company has opted to not hire many talented candidates and has fired employees because they didn't fit the culture or weren't passionate enough about customer service. Fifty percent of the company's performance review focuses on culture fit, he said. To ensure employees are committed to Zappos' core values, it offers new hires $2,000 to leave the company. "We don't want people here to just claim a paycheck," he said, adding that those who remain tend to be much more energized and those who leave would probably leave anyway. Last year, just 1 percent of new hires took Zappos up on the $2,000 offer, down from 3 percent a year earlier. Other presenters at the Human Capital Summit, which began March 9 and ends today, included Wharton professor and HREOnline columnist Peter Cappelli and William Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine and author of Mavericks at Work.
March 11, 2009 Copyright 2009© LRP Publications |
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