ENTER THE WORLD OF BUSINESS Shopify Supports Employees In an Autonomous Environment Shopify's growth over the past five years has been substantial. The company which was started by Tobias Lutke in his garage has seen its market cap soar to almost $30 billion with almost 3000 employees. Shopify allows businesses both large and small to build and create websites to sell goods all over the world. To date 600,000 merchants have used Shopify to create websites and they have recorded $63 billion in sales. With Canada's unemployment rate at its lowest level in almost four decades, many employers are struggling to attract talent. Shopify is not one of the employers, in fact, Shopify routinely attracts many applicants who go through a rather rigorous hiring process in which many prospective candidates are unsuccessful. What attracts prospective employees to Shopify? To some it may be the Silicon Valley-type office perks, including Shopify's work spaces, which resemble an likea showroom; they are open, and employees get to enjoy a variety of benefits including an indoor go-kart track, a games room, free food, and generous health and parental benefits.~ While all these perks are appealing. what drives many prospective employees to apply is the autonomy Shopify provides employees and the company's concept of trust. Shopify very quickly thrusts new hires into projects where they can play a substantial role and perhaps even lead. Shopify also openly discusses what they refer to as a Trust Battery, which is a measure of how much trust people have in each other. Lutke says anyone who can make it through their stringent hiring process is assigned a 50 percent rating on their Trust Battery and, based on their interactions and work, this trust can grow or decline. New employees state that starting with such a high trust rating enables them to work independently, to lead projects, to be creative, and the Trust Battery concept provides them with an understanding of how their successes or failures will impact their Interactions with their employer and their colleagues 3.4 To ensure Shopify hires appropriate people, they engage in an exhaustive hiring process. The company routinely has candidates complete interviews with numerous people to eliminate bias. Shopify also shuns traditional interview questions such as asking candidates about their strengths and weaknesses. Rather, Shopify tries to make a human connection with people, get to know them, and understand how they respond to changing circumstances. Lutke says that Shopify tends to focus on pivotal moments in people's lives to see how they reacted to understand the type of person they are. Annie Zhang, a recent hire at Shopify, describes the interview process as being placed in a blender and spun around and coming out alive. She says her selection process took four months and she completed 12 chats/interviews, wrote an article for Buzzfeed, completed a case study on a new product, and built a Shopify store. Zhang say the result, a job at Shopify, was worth going through the process but cautions that working for a fast-growing firm and having a great deal of autonomy may not be for everybody. For example, if asked what she does daily Zhang's response is she just figures it out- Overall employee feedback for Shopify is strong, and the company has frequently been recognized as one of the top employers in Canada, dating back to 2014. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Shopify's hiring practices? 2. Based on the information in the case, create a definition for the term Trust Battery. Do you like the concept? Do you think it accurately represents work relationships? Why or why not? 3. Are you surprised Shopify provides employees with such a high level of autonomy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of work environment