Zillow (stock 700% ⬆️) plans to hire 2000 employees after exceptional growth through work from home 🚀
Zillow, an online real-estate marketplace in the US, was one of the first companies to announce permanent remote after the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. The company saw phenomenal growth - its stock peaked at 700% compared to March 2020 since Zillow work from home started.
Riding on the wave of this growth, Zillow is planning to expand its hybrid workforce by 40% 🔥
Majority new hires to be remote & hybrid
Zillow realised much before the pandemic that employees need more flexibility. Their chief people officer, Dan Spaulding, had said in an interview that there was already tension between the senior management & employees regarding this. Younger workforce that was more inclined to use asynchronous tools (e.g. email) wanted flexibility in work schedule.
The sudden remoteness due to Covid-19 was a major push for Zillow to take the already pending decision of going permanently remote (hybrid). Over the last one year, Zillow has seen remote in action & experienced all its benefits and hence, wants to even have majority of the new hires to be remote or hybrid.
They also believe that most knowledge workers want flexibility and for Zillow to be able to attract talent, they need to be remote, at least part-time.
Zillow had strong resistance for remote but has grown beyond that
The company was founded in 2004 and its growth & culture was predominantly defined by in-person collaboration. The leadership had seen people grow up in the workplace and was almost wedded to this way of working.
It's laudable that the company has made such a drastic shift in just a year. Maybe this is a strong wake-up call for all other companies (particularly tech) to give up their resistance towards remote.
After embracing remote, Zillow has also rethought many of its practices & initiatives to fit more into the remote setting. For instance, there are 3 levels of perks given to employees who are care-givers:
1) Allowing schedule flexibility
2) Partnered with external agencies to provide back-up care (e.g. daycare center for kids)
3) Caregiver leaves/paid time-off
It is quite un-intuitive that companies like Zillow, that embrace remote & change their ways of working to provide flexibility to employees, rank lower compared to dream tech companies like Netflix, that are absolutely against remote.
We definitely need a change in paradigm to evaluate & compare companies, something that aligns better with the world becoming more remote. Check out some other updates in the world of remote working on this page.