Employees working around the world increasingly connect to each other through video conferencing technology; this trend dramatically accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting increase in the number of employees working from home. Remote meetings may be conducted over a variety of different platforms, including Teams (owned by Microsoft), Hangout Meet (by Google), or Webex (by Cisco). Among these platforms owned by the giants of technology industry, the San Jose, California based Zoom emerged as a rare company that was able to take on these mature platforms by building a loyal following among thousands of business customers.
Anyone can use Zoom for free, but to access more options, organizations can purchase corporate subscriptions. And many do, with the company boasting approximately 265,400 corporate customers each with over 10 employees as of this writing.
Today, Zoom is regarded as one of the most valuable cloud-based companies in the world, and it belongs to a rare group of companies that were actually profitable when they went public in March 2019. Interestingly, the company attributes its success to "delivering happiness." In fact, the S-1 statement (a document filed with the Securities and Exchange commission when the company went public) uses the word "happiness" over 50 times. Compare this to the S-1 statement of Uber, where it was not mentioned at all. Zoom views happiness of customers and happiness of people as the core elements of their corporate culture and the key to their success and future operations.
The search for happiness is a key part of the company's origin story. The company founder and CEO Eric Yuan, who immigrated to the USA when he was 27 and found a job as a software developer at the video conferencing company WebEx, rose through the ranks and became the VP of engineering. He was making a salary in the "upper six figures." But he was not happy.
Since he left his high paying job to develop his own videoconferencing software in 2011, he has been asked many times about the risk he was taking. His answer is this: "The purpose of life is to pursue happiness, and I was not happy. Then, what's the risk?" By all metrics, Zoom is delivering happiness to customers and employees. Zoom is highly popular among its customers, because the products are user friendly and the company is innovative and responsive to customer needs and concerns. In fact, Zoom has a Net Promoter Score (a common metric to measure customer loyalty to the firm) of 70, similar to that of Apple, which is 73. At the beginning of 2020, the company had over 2,500 employees, with plans to hire upwards of 500 more people while expanding to new locations. Zoom also had a turnover rate of 3% in 2019, which is exceptionally low in the software industry. The company provides generous benefits and perks that are typical of technology companies. More importantly, employees feel appreciated and empowered at work, and believe that they have a voice in the company. A "happiness crew" of around 100 volunteers from different units of the business make sure that they host digital meet ups to connect the company's employees scattered across eight countries. The company was ranked the #2 best company to work for by Glassdoor in 2019, and #1 in happiest employees by Comparably. According to CEO Yuan, the company does not focus on revenue goals. Instead, he believes that focusing on customer and employee happiness will lead to increased growth.

Questions

1. Review websites such as Glassdoor and Comparably to see what employees like and dislike about working at Zoom. Would you like to work in a company such as this?
2. Zoom uses “happiness” as part of their brand as an employer. What advantages and downsides do you see to this brand?
3. What is the connection between employee attitudes, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth as described in this case? How generalizable is this relationship to other industries and companies?
4. Zoom had an IPO in 2019, which made it a public company. How do you expect that this may affect their corporate culture over time?
5. The case mentions many factors that could affect employee happiness, such as happiness crews and generous perks. Which elements mentioned in the case do you believe are the most critical to employee happiness?

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