While some companies are finding it difficult to retain or attract employees during the "Great Resignation," other companies have built a robust culture that continues to draw new talent. In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Nov. 5, Fool contributors Vicki Hutchison and Toby Bordelon discuss two such companies.
Vicki Hutchinson: One of the things is, unless a company ends up in the news like Rivian, it can be hard to know if there's something back there that's going to come out and bite investors. We have Glassdoor, we have the 100 best companies from Wichita kinds of awards, but it can be hard to figure it out. I do think it's important.
The company that I think is doing a really good job here is Shopify (SHOP +3.32%). In fact, as I've been investing in Canadian companies in general, they are the ones that tend to pay their CEOs more of a reasonable salary.
When I get that question, "Do you approve of the C-suite salaries?" I don't just have that gut reaction to mark the no box without doing any research. They have a lot of really nice material on their website, people first. When COVID came out, Shopify was one of the first ones that sent people home.
They subsidized investments in electronics so that employees could work from home. They are about autonomy. They don't do that micromanagement thing. It makes it a lot easier to work from home, and they trust their employees to do what's needed to be done without someone having to tell them how or when or what.
When it comes to hiring, they have a journey over resume. A lot of companies, if you don't have all the right buzzwords on your resume, they're not even going to look at it.
Shopify takes a broader look at the resume and who the person is and whether or not they think that they would fit in and contribute to Shopify. They also are in the "conformity kills creativity."
We know that with Motley around here. But you don't have to do it the same way. Everybody has something to contribute. They believe in diversity. That's helped get Shopify where it is from where it was when we first started talking about it here.
Toby Bordelon: Yeah, I think that's important and I think it's important to have an environment like that where everyone can feel they are welcome and contribute. That's your long-term success potentially.
I'll throw out Markel (MKL +1.12%), which is when I love from a culture standpoint. It had a very strong ownership culture.
If you go to the annual meeting, you'll notice that most of the people there are employees and their annual shareholders' meeting also, what can I get is combined with their annual employee awards meeting.
It's really interesting. They really prioritize that idea that if you're going to be an employee in this company, you're also going to be an owner of this company.
You're going to be valued as if you're the owner of this company, I think that comes out in some of the stuff they're doing.
