Warby Parker Case Study

Warby Parker, a cool, trendy eyewear company follows a simple “do good” corporate policy, which shapes how their employees interact with each other and customers. This extends beyond the workplace; Warby Parker donates a pair of glasses to an underprivileged community for every pair of glasses purchased.

The young company has four pillars in their culture code, which consists of treating employees well, facilitating a creative, fun workplace environment, volunteering, and going green. As they put it, it’s nothing crazy.

Starting with the similarities between what we’ve discussed in class and the conduct policy of WP, the biggest similarity I see is the emphasis on active employee engagement. From class material, one driving force behind

Chapter 4 highlights the need to have strong HR policies against hostile work environment behaviors. Warby Parker doesn’t include specific guidelines for any such issues. This comes with its benefits and drawbacks. If the code is really as simple as “treat others as you would like to be treated” then management can be very flexible with disciplining a damaging behavior whereas a company with everything laid out in a policy book may not be able to punish a behavior that is not covered in the writing. Contrary to this, employees at Warby Parker could claim that they were not aware that the behavior goes against their code because it was not highlighted in any formal manner. Additionally WP’s code is lacking other major policy guidelines that we discussed in class such as customer confidentiality, product safety, use of corporate resources, and truth in advertising. Another quality of Warby Parker’s code that I found unique to material that we discussed in class is that it is encouraged in the policy to go out and serve the community. Not many employee conduct policies openly encourage employees to “get out there and make a difference.” Additionally, Warby Parker’s commitment to going green is another reflection on the integrity of the