Making an Offer They Hope You’ll Refuse

Today’s wacky online merchant tactic: paying employees to quit. You’d think common sense would urge a company to reward employees for staying — especially newly trained hires who haven’t yet earned out their investment. But that’s not how they do it at successful footware retailer Zappos.com, according to Harvard Business Publishing.
 
The theory is, anyone who turns down $1,000 easy cash to stay at Zappos is the kind of committed employee they want. Of course in this economic climate, that may bespeak more anxiety about finding another job than having drunk the Zappos Koolade, but the principle still holds: if you want employees with above-and-beyond commitment, you need to find some way to weed them out even as you give them reason to want to stay. Also cool at Zappos? Call center employees who can actually say what they want. — Meredith Schwartz