There are a variety of trends that are driving the current labor shortage, and one of the most prominent of them is what has been termed 'The Great Resignation.' More and more workers are demanding fair and balanced pay, better working conditions, and flexible work options, and are increasingly looking to other companies or adjusting their career path when their current employer can't or won't meet these requirements.
In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Oct. 27, Fool contributors Trevor Jennewine, Brian Withers, and Rachel Warren discuss one company keeping its work culture stronger than ever during this period.
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Trevor Jennewine: I'm going to go with Shopify (SHOP -2.37%), and I'm going to take a page out of Brian's book and share my screen real quick. This is Shopify's hiring page, and so it says culture is the product of strong values and purpose, empathetic leadership, and a place where all people feel they belong, and I feel like that is a great sentiment to have, and I've heard Tobias Lütke CEO talk on lots of different earnings calls and he really does embody that.
I heard him do an interview once where he talked about dress code at work, and he's like, what's the point of that. He wants people to feel comfortable. It's not so much the formality that other companies are going to bring to the table.
They are very focused on making people feel like they belong. If you keep reading on their hiring page, it goes on to say that conformity kills creativity, and so they really do appreciate that diversity.
Then I think building on that, earlier or last year, Shopify announced that they were going to be digital-by-default, which just means that they are transitioning to a remote work model. In doing so, I think that gives their employees a lot more flexibility.
They don't have to choose between living where they would like to live based on friends and family and then living close to where they work so they can live life the way they want to and still work for the company that they want to.
From the corporate perspective, that also allows Shopify to hire top talent from around the world and then those people don't have to relocate.
These Glassdoor numbers, they're not going to seem impressive after Brian's, but Shopify does have an 81% of people who would recommend it to a friend and the CEO, Tobias Lütke, has a 90% approval rating. I think those figures are still strong, but DocuSign is very impressive.
Brian Withers: Yeah. I remember Shopify way before the coronavirus crisis. Tobias Lütke recognized that a number of his staff work from home, and he decided on a Friday and says, on Monday, we're going to spend a month where everybody works out of their house, and he threw the company for a loop.
But they learned a ton of stuff from that and I think it was in 2017, but when the coronavirus came around, they were very well prepared, and I'm not surprised that he talks about being digital-by-default because that is totally what their company is all about, is helping entrepreneurs be digital-by-default and have a great website where they can sell their goods online from anywhere.
Rachel Warren: I love both of those companies and I love the fact that they also seem to be doing such a good job of not only attracting employees, to keeping them happy once they're there, which is very important.
When you look at companies that you want to invest in, part of looking at their business is seeing how do employees feel about that business? I think it seems that both Shopify and DocuSign are doing a really great job with that.
