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Although the era of remote work is done at Amazon, Google, AT&T and Disney, Seattle-based residential portal Zillow is sticking with its “Cloud HQ” model.
Zillow Chief People Officer Dan Spaulding dished about the benefits of remote work at Fortune’s Workplace Innovation Summit at the end of May, saying it’s all about empowering employees to work in an environment that’s best for them — whether it’s at home, in the office or both.
Dan Spaulding | Credit: LinkedIn
“We call it Cloud HQ because we wanted to take the politics of proximity out of the equation and start from a place where remote work isn’t a perk, it’s a business strategy,” he said. “And so for us at Zillow, it’s an intentional strategy that everything we do starts in the cloud. It’s gonna be documented. It’s gonna be written down, it’s gonna be clear for our employees to follow, so whether they’re working at home or in the office together, that they know the rules of the road and, for us, it’s been really transformative on our culture.”
Even with the focus on remote work, Spaulding said Zillow still understands the power of in-person interactions. That’s why the portal invests in regular “Z-retreats” that enable employees in the same market to gather and collaborate on projects.
“Making that transparent to the company really gives our employees the ability to understand what’s happening outside of the virtual world that they work in on a daily basis,” he told Fortune.
On LinkedIn, Spaulding explained the benefits of Zillow’s Cloud HQ, saying the portal has been able to hire employees in all 50 states, increase productivity and innovation, and stoke a 4x increase in applicants per role. Spaulding said remote work has boosted morale, with 94 percent of employees saying they’re proud to work at Zillow.
“We hire adults and treat people like adults,” he said on LinkedIn. “That means giving people the freedom to choose where and how they work best — and trusting them to show up when it matters. That trust? It’s paying off.”
In February, Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman dove into the portal’s remote model, saying that it’s saved the company millions of dollars in overhead costs.
Since switching to the Cloud HQ model in 2020, Zillow has reduced its office footprint by 73 percent, from 1,046,413 square feet to 274,771 square feet. The company shuttered its Denver and Overland Park, Kansas, offices and dramatically downsized its offices in Seattle; New York; Atlanta, Georgia; San Francisco; and Irvine, California, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Zillow’s office reduction measures lowered the company’s leasing costs from $54 million in 2022 to $34 million in 2024. The company expects its leasing costs to drop to $18 million over the next four years, and anticipates earning $26 million in sublease income during the same period.
The portal’s moves, including Cloud HQ, have improved its bottom line.
In the first quarter of this year, Zillow turned a profit for the first time since 2022, earning $598 million in revenue and making an $8 million profit, a reversal from last year’s $23 million loss.
