Page 251 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

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hotels, including restaurants, spas, and affiliate hotels. Joie de Vivre
Hospitality is also the company that manages the various residential
projects that have hotel-like services. In an interview with the San
Francisco Chronicle, Conley recalled how he decided to name the busi-
ness he started: “I’m going on this path because I’d better get some joy
of life out of it, because I’m not going to make a lot of money. I made
$24,000 a year my first two years, which is sort of embarrassing out of
Stanford Business School.” Joie de Vivre’s collection of businesses now
has annual revenues of just under $200 million per year.
Conley has said he defines success based on how much joy there is
in his life and in other people’s lives. That translates into building and
sustaining an empowering business culture in spite of rapid growth. As
Conley put it, “Most companies lose their culture as they grow. But
what Southwest Airlines taught us is that it’s all about empowering em-
ployees at the lowest level of the company as much as possible.”
When JDV Hospitality bought the Kabuki Hot Springs and Spa in
San Francisco’s Japantown, employees got free communal bathing and
50 percent off on spa treatments. All employees get to stay in JDV ho-
tels for free. Salaried employees receive one month paid sabbatical every
three years, even during economic downturns. When the downturn of
2001–2002 hit the hotel industry, Conley didn’t take a salary for four
years. Senior leaders all took 10 percent pay cuts, and salaried staff ac-
cepted pay freezes to avoid mass layoffs. “It was what we needed to do,”
says Conley, “because we didn’t want to kill our culture in the process
of suffering through what was our Great Depression.”
Conley’s passion for building a premier workplace and inspiring
others to do so is such that he has written two books, Peak: How Great
Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow (Jossey-Bass, 2007) and The
Rebel Rules: Daring to Be Yourself in Business(Fireside, 2001).
To learn more about Joie de Vivre’s recipe for building a best work-
place, we spoke with the company’s chief people officer, Jane Howard.

Q: Why is employee recognition so important to Joie de Vivre
from a business standpoint?