Think fun, think Yahoo!

“We make it our business to have fun at work every day,” says Jessie Lim, HR Director – Southeast Asia, Yahoo! In an organisation whose very name exudes fun, its corporate culture is no different. Fun and innovation are built into the fabric of every ‘Yahoo’s uniform’. Potential employees are even assessed for their ability to have fun when being considered for a role in the company, while fun in the workplace can also extend to pranks on colleagues. For instance, employees who go on leave for an extended period of time are prepared to come back to a totally different or unrecognisable desk!

Life@Yahoo!

Yahoo!’s core business is creating innovative products and content for consumers. Naturally, the company thrives on creativity and ingenuity. “We seek the innovations and ideas that can change the world,” says Lim. “A fun and relaxed environment is the perfect breeding ground for these innovations and ideas.”

Now that Yahoo! is seeing an increasingly diverse group of generation Y and Z coming onto the scene, maintaining a fun and innovative workplace culture becomes even more important in keeping staff engaged.

“These young people demand speed, creativity, flexibility, mobility and leadership opportunities. They know what they want, how and when to get it,” says Lim. “Our job is to facilitate this development and harness their energy. We give our employees the space to grow, research and discover independently, and develop at their own schedule.”

Yahoo! offers opportunities for cross-functional/departmental networking. One such program the Singapore office launched within Southeast Asia is ‘SEA Innovation Day’, modelled on the corporate office’s ‘Yahoo! Hack Days’ whereby teams of cross-functional members take a Yahoo! product and ‘hack’ it – for the better. They have six months to work in teams of four on a specific Yahoo! product and at the end of six months, the winning team wins $5,000 plus resources internally to bring their idea to fruition.

In Singapore, Yahoo! has another internal program – Fun@SEA in which teams organise monthly ‘Happy Hours’ (where everyone comes together and lets their hair down with games and great food), health and wellness classes (like yoga, Pilates and free health screens), and cultural assimilation classes, as a large proportion of employees are non-local.

Thinking purple

One way Yahoo! instils fun and innovation into its corporate culture is by placing great importance on the talent it hires. “A diverse and inclusive environment brings together a variety of talents, backgrounds and experiences, serving as a catalyst for new ideas and innovation within the organisation,” says Lim. She believes that these contributions and differences drive Yahoo!’s competitive business advantage, stimulate employees’ personal growth and ultimately create success for the company.

Embedding new hires into Yahoo!’s culture and on-boarding them as quickly as possible allows the company to preserve this culture of fun and promote inclusiveness. This is achieved through several ways, including a comprehensive orientation session on an employee’s first day and a more in-depth business review and organisational overview two to three months thereafter.

“We also do informal luncheons that get all the new hires for the month together for a casual get-together. The dialogue doesn’t stop there – we do regular check-ins with all staff on where they stand and what we can do to ‘move their needle’ over time,” says Lim.

Purple goes global

Yahoo!’s HR team operates across Southeast Asia – so cultural awareness and adjustment is paramount. Each person in the HR team operates with the mindset that no one market is the same, so listening with an open heart and mind takes precedence. It also helps that the HR team itself is made up of different nationalities and experiences, which helps with a diverse approach to decision-making.

“We take into consideration cultural nuances, local practices, traditions and current market data and insights when formulating policies and programmes,” says Lim. “Our approach when implementing HR services in each market is a ‘localised’ one – with support and cost commitment from our global team; we truly need to put ourselves in their shoes and understand the effect of each implemented service.”

One such example is the recent rollout of medical insurance coverage that HR localised to suit local practices, needs and market limits.

Stars in the making

At Yahoo!, staff are told that they own their own careers. Instead of having them rely on their managers for career direction, empowerment is encouraged. “Every Yahoo! should take ownership by articulating clearly what they envision their careers would look like in the span of short- to medium-term,” says Lim. “We constantly give priorities to our existing talents for lateral moves and promotions.”

Yahoo! also has a robust learning and development strategy in place to instil leadership readiness within the entire Yahoo! family. ‘Leading Yahoos’ and ‘Managing Yahoos’ are two examples of leadership and management development programmes. ‘Leading Yahoos’ is targeted at leaders, managers and individual contributors in the organisation. It is intended to create alignment across cascading business goals and build accountability for organisational performance and business results. The programme includes content on expectations through Yahoo!’s leadership standards, understanding company/functional goals and metrics and 360 degree insights into defining strengths, development areas and leadership development plans.

‘Managing Yahoos’ is targeted at new and newly-promoted managers and is designed to support the transition of employees into managerial roles. The programme content includes effective decision making, hiring skills, coaching and influence as well as an introduction to leadership standards.

Yahoo! has also seen a breakthrough this year in its investments in emerging talents within Southeast Asia. “This group of high-energy talents are singled out and assimilated into a high potential program which we have lined up for them,” Lim explains. “They will go through an intensive one-year program which will expose them to multiple facets of the business beyond their scope, and at the same time, prepare them for future roles.”

The company also places importance on developing the next generation of leaders through an internship programme. Interns at Yahoo! are not limited to fetching coffee or photocopying hundreds of papers for permanent staff. They are given ‘real work’ that develops and hones their skills (see boxouts). It’s not uncommon to see many interns coming back as full-time employees.

Recognising stars

Besides the usual monetary rewards which Yahoo! provides annually and quarterly, HR found that specific and public accolades work best in recognising employees, especially in Southeast Asia. “We have a local recognition program called ‘Caught Purple Handed’ whereby anyone within Southeast Asia can give out purple hands to someone who’s done a great job – big or small – and it’s accompanied by a small token of appreciation,” Lim says. “In the past, we’re given out cinema tickets, coffee vouchers and internal Yahoo! swags.”

For group recognition awards within the region, Yahoo! launched ‘SuperHeroes’ in the first quarter of this year. This quarterly reward program pitches the best team projects against each other and is open to all staff in Southeast Asia. Each voter is given one vote and nominated teams go all out to rally for votes. The winning team gets a cash prize of $5,000 at the end of the quarter.

To encourage employees to think global, an annual global reward programme, ‘Super Star’, gathers individual nominations around the world and eventual winners are picked by executive-level staff. Every year, 20 odd winners are picked and flown to Yahoo!’s head office in California for a private meeting with the company’s CEO, Carol Bartz, and an all-expenses paid trip for the week.