Zillow Group plans to grow its employee base by 40% this year, adding more than 2,000 workers across the country as part of its new distributed workforce model.
The hiring push comes as Zillow’s stock hits new highs, fueled by a red-hot real estate market and record traffic to the company’s platform. Shares were up nearly 5% Thursday, and the company is now valued at $38 billion.
It’s noteworthy that even as Zillow accelerates hiring, many of the new workers won’t be based at the company’s headquarters in Seattle. Zillow in December laid out its new strategy for hiring employees regardless of their location.
The latest hiring push — including roles in tech, mortgage and loans, product, and software development — will mean that a growing percentage of the company’s staff will be located outside of Seattle.
GeekWire in August detailed the impact of Zillow’s work from home policy on the blocks surrounding its downtown Seattle skyscraper. More than 2,700 Zillow employees used to work in the building, but with COVID-19 sidelining most of those workers, the impact was felt at coffee shops, restaurants and arts organizations that surround the headquarters.
Now, Zillow is taking an entirely new approach to its workforce — one which is less centralized around a corporate headquarters.
“We’ll still have our offices downtown where people can collaborate in person — but it’s going to be different,” Zillow spokesperson Chrissy Roebuck told GeekWire on Thursday.
If Zillow’s future growth does not occur at its headquarters, that could be yet another blow for a battered downtown Seattle. And that will have ripple effects.
“How long can we hold on?” is the question Drew Gillespie of the nearby Pike Brewing Co asked in August when GeekWire chronicled the quiet streets around Zillow’s headquarters.
“It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out if there’s nobody in the office buildings downtown, there will be less people to eat lunch and have happy hours,” Gillespie said.
Zillow was one of the first tech companies to implement work from home policies last year as the pandemic hit the U.S. And the company has achieved hiring success with its new approach, bringing on nearly 1,500 employees remotely since March 2020.
Zillow Chief People Officer Dan Spaulding said in a statement: “Our distributed workforce model is a more inclusive, more personalized, more flexible, more efficient way of working.”
And Zillow CEO Rich Barton talked about remote work on the company’s most recent earnings call with analysts.
Zillow CEO on remote work:
— It lets ppl "wrap their work around their lives, rather than vice versa."
— Zillow can recruit from almost anywhere and increase diversity
— Needs to be level playing field. Potential risk for 2-class system w/ ppl at office ahead of remote workers— Taylor Soper (@Taylor_Soper) February 10, 2021
The company is also privy to massive trends in migration, housing and workforce given the amount of data it collects on the buying and selling of homes. And while those patterns — something Barton has dubbed the “great reshuffling” — could benefit smaller cities, more dense urban environments like what Zillow has called home for years may suffer.
The Great Reshuffling in @WSJopinion: More 50% of newly remote workers looking to move want a cheaper house; more 1/4 want to reduce living costs by 50%. Remote unlocks those options. @Zillow continues to lead, letting our employees work from anywhere. https://t.co/0fXZ7GQXT2
— Rich Barton (@Rich_Barton) March 7, 2021
Moving forward, Zillow’s Roebuck said they anticipate using the company’s Seattle offices for team gatherings, leadership development and onboarding new employees — but not day-to-day work unless an employee wants that.
“As offices reopen, employees can reserve time in the office no matter their job designation or working arrangement,” she said. “What exactly ‘working from the office’ looks like will be dictated by employees’ needs. We’re focused on being very creative in how we use our office space.”
The company does not expect to reduce its real estate footprint in Seattle, which includes 16 floors at the Russell Investments building. But the new policy could mean fewer workers in downtown Seattle on a daily basis.
Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, said that cities with thriving arts, sports, culture and small businesses will continue to prosper and attract great talent as long as ample housing is available.
“Seattle can continue to put itself in that category, but should recognize that there is great competition among others and that we can take nothing for granted,” he said.
Zillow is benefiting from a strong U.S. housing market that gained nearly $2.5 trillion in value last year, the most since 2005, according to the company’s analysis. Low mortgage rates coupled with strong demand and low supply are driving tailwinds for the real estate industry.
In March of last year, when the future of real estate was up in the air, Zillow laid out a coronavirus playbook with plans to slash expenses, freeze hiring, and cut marketing spend. But Zillow’s stock price has skyrocketed since then, trading at around $160/share on Thursday, up from $26/share in March.
After what Barton described as a “rollercoaster” year, the company’s annual revenue ended up increasing 22% from 2019, while overall traffic hit a record 9.6 billion page views, up 19%.
