六大极限项目留住人才

北面

    北面（The North Face）的高级公关主任杰西卡•霍利斯特永远不会忘记攀岩镐与鞋钉钉入冰岩时发出的声音。当时她正与经常攀登珠峰的知名登山家康拉德•安可一起攀登一座高山。霍利斯特是因为成功地把公司的产品提交给了《户外》杂志（Outside Magazine ）的一个奖项，而被邀请到蒙大拿州的伯兹曼山参与这样一次研发之旅。

    霍利斯特回忆道：“当时你就挂在一面冰墙上，鼻子前面就是冰，你可以看见冰层下面水在往下滴。那个位置非常高，很吓人，人的肾上腺素也飙到了最高的水平。”

    每年，一支户外用品设计师团队都会与康拉德•安可、基德•德斯劳里尔斯等职业登山运动员一道，实地测试北面公司设计的新产品。但是对于霍利斯特和她的同事林赛•赛恩来说，与15名同事一起在白雪皑皑的峡谷里野营三天，一起远足，与专业人士一起登山，绝对是一生只有一次的机会。

    霍利斯特说：“这次经历极大地丰富了我的生活，我每天都能感觉到它带给我的影响。”霍利斯特从这次旅程回来后，就与她的丈夫一起在一家攀岩馆里报了名。现在她和赛恩可以根据亲身经历，回答关于公司户外设备的问题了。同时在观察了设计师与职业运动员是怎样在高山上测试产品后，他们对产品的设计流程也有了更深的理解。

    霍利斯特称：“你不能坐在会议室里空谈为什么要找人出去测试产品，除非你自己也在那儿做这件事。”北面每年还通过抽奖的方式提供10次的免费旅行，其中包括在优胜美地国家公园（Yosemite）漂流、爬山或远足。

The North Face

    Jessica Hollister will never forget the crunching noise of axes and crampons digging into the ice as she scaled a frozen waterfall alongside Mount Everest regular Conrad Anker. The senior PR coordinator for The North Face was invited on a research and development trip to climb near Anker's Bozeman, Mont. home as a thank-you for successfully submitting her company's gear for an Outside Magazine award.

    "You're hanging off a wall of ice. Your nose is touching the ice in front of you. You can see water trickling down behind the ice. You're so far up, it's scary," Hollister recalls. "You get the biggest adrenaline rush."

    Every year, a team of equipment and gear designers make a similar trip with athletes like Anker and Kit DesLauriers, to test out new equipment designs for North Face. But for Hollister and her colleague Lindsey Sine, a PR coordinator, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join 15 colleagues camping out for three days in a snowy canyon, hiking, and climbing with the pros.

    "I feel so enriched by that experience, and I feel the impact of it every day," says Hollister, who joined a climbing gym with her husband when she returned. She and Sine can now answer questions about the company's equipment based on direct experience. Also, they understand the design process more deeply after observing designers work with the athletes in the aftermath of a day of testing out equipment in the wild.

    "You can't sit in a boardroom and talk about why it's important to get someone outside unless you're out there doing it," she says. The North Face also gives employees 10 free trips a year, awarded by lottery, to do everything from kayaking to climbing or hiking in Yosemite.