Aimee Groth, Business Insider
Hsieh went on CNBC's Squawk on the Street this morning and he addressed the recent work-from-home controversy.
The debate was prompted by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to make her remote employees come into the office — or quit. Best Buy made a similar decision, ending the company's Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) policy which allowed employees to work from anywhere they wanted, as long as they got the job done.
Here's what Hsieh had to say about working remotely:
Research has shown that companies with strong cultures outperform those without in the long-term financially. So we're big, big believers in building strong company cultures. And I think that's hard to do remotely.
We don't really telecommute at Zappos. We want employees to be interacting with each other, building those personal relationships and relationships outside of work as well.
What we found is when they have those personal connections that productivity increases because there's higher levels of trust. Employees are willing to do favors for each others because they're not just co-workers, but also friends, and communication is better. So we're big believers in in-person interactions.
Watch CNBC's full interview with Hsieh below: