Zillow Allows 90% of Employees to Work From Home Indefinitely

As major tech companies such as Google and Twitter announce that they will be letting employees work remotely for the foreseeable future, Zillow yesterday followed suit by letting its employees know that 90% of them will be allowed to work from home indefinitely. A blog post on the Zillow website says:

“Effective immediately, we will offer about 90% of our employees the flexibility to work from home as an ongoing option, at least part-time, allowing them the ability to work where they are most productive, whether that is in the office, their home, or a combination of both.”

In the blog post, Group Chief People Officer Dan Spaulding admits that the company was previously against the idea of remote work and says that the company’s “old preferences have been debunked during the pandemic.” We reported back in April that Zillow CEO Rich Barton had personally been converted to the idea of working from home and now it seems that the company has put in place the measures necessary to allow it to become a reality for the company’s employees on a permanent basis.

It remains to be seen if other portal companies follow suit in allowing their employees to work from home on a permanent basis. When we first surveyed the industry about the issues facing their workers back in March, the majority of the 190 respondents said that working from home would have a negative impact on their businesses with 54% saying that it would have either a very negative or negative impact on productivity and 62% saying the impact on employee morale would be very negative or negative.

The results of the survey from March are still available to download here. If you are a CEO or head of HR and you have had your theories about working from home debunked just like Zillow, please do get in touch. We’d love to hear your story.