The Blubber

Zillow, $Z, CEO says job applications have quadrupled since going remote-first.

While Seattle, where Zillow's headquarters are located, remains a “fantastic” place for both the company and its CEO, Zillow’s flexible work model has significantly expanded its talent pool, with employees now located in all 50 states. Wacksman’s key focus is, “How can people stay connected and find opportunities to gather, and when they do, how do we create those in-person interactions that don’t happen every day?”

Some companies have implemented return-to-office (RTO) mandates to encourage in-person connections daily, though Wacksman acknowledges that this may not always be valuable or appreciated. The various RTO mandates in place at other firms, however, “make recruiting easier for us,” he said. “We have a more diverse workforce, are more representative, and our attrition rates have dropped.”

It’s important to note that hybrid work, which requires a set number of in-office days per week or month, differs from Zillow’s remote-first approach. Annie Dean, head of Team Anywhere at Atlassian, explained to Fortune last summer that the hybrid model offers an “illusion of choice.” Hybrid work mandates office attendance, removing many of the potential benefits of flexibility for employees and companies alike. Even a single mandated office day each week forces employees to rearrange their lives around the office, while companies continue to bear real estate costs. Dean argued that this model carries the disadvantages of both old and new ways of working without the efficiencies of either.

CloudHQ and Remote-First

Since mid-2020, Zillow has embraced a remote-first model it calls CloudHQ, signifying that its headquarters exist in the cloud rather than a physical office. While Zillow still maintains a few offices nationwide, its real estate footprint has shrunk significantly, cutting its lease commitments to just one-third of pre-pandemic levels.

Naturally, the transition wasn’t without hurdles, particularly when it came to coordinating across different time zones and transforming in-person onboarding into a fully remote process. “There’s a lot to figure out with training and development—how do we onboard remotely?” Wacksman said. “We’re constantly piloting new approaches every six to 12 months.”

“Just like there are challenges with cloud-based work, there are challenges with office-based work,” Wacksman added. “But we’re clear that this is who we are: We iterate, try new things, and listen to our employees. That, to me, fosters an environment where people can do their best work.”

This remote-first approach has remained consistently popular, with flexible companies like Zillow outperforming their office-centric peers in the race for top talent.

Before the pandemic, Zillow was strongly pro-office, but while other companies struggled to adapt to the changing landscape, Wacksman recognized the need for reinvention. “Early on, we decided to challenge our assumptions and shift to being cloud-focused,” he told Fortune.