I was recently looking at stuff listed on Digg thanks to Popurls, and saw an article entitled, Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too, and it struck me as a really interesting idea. Zappos tries to weed out potential staff members that won’t understand and be part of the company culture, and I think that blog networks really need to work on some way of weeding out their own problem employees.

From the article:

After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!

Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later.

Not everyone is committed to being an amazing blogger, and I understand more than most how hard it is to not only write content, but also promote it, and actively communicate with those in your niche, both on and off your blog, but as blog networks try to grow their business, they really need to make sure they have the right staff, or they will only be ruining their company in the long run.

Originally posted on May 21, 2008 @ 7:36 pm