At Zillow, one of our founding values is to “turn on the lights,” increasing the transparency of the real estate industry and giving home buyers, sellers and renters free and easy access to the information they need. This transparency extends to the very way in which our company operates. Zillow has made a commitment to progress in equity and belonging, and every spring, we share our gender, ethnicity and pay equity data from the prior year.
Our flexible workforce model and culture has expanded our reach and appeal to potential employees and we’re beginning to see that reflected in our company makeup. That benefit – an increasingly diverse workforce – is one of many key reasons we believe our company and culture is better when our workplace is more flexible. Here is the progress we made toward our commitments to equity and belonging in 2022:
Gender
One of our goals is to increase representation among women in leadership roles. We have made positive steps towards this effort, increasing the number of women in director-level and higher positions from 37% in 2021 to 40% in 2022, our highest year-over-year improvement to date. Since 2019, representation of women in director or higher positions has increased by 6 percentage points. What’s more, since 2019, the total number of female employees at Zillow has increased by 7 percentage points, putting more women into the talent pipeline for these senior positions in the future.
We know that to create a workplace that supports and promotes women, we must address systemic issues, minimizing career barriers with policies such as paid parental leave and flexible work schedules. In 2020, Zillow was among the first companies to announce a permanent distributed work model, embracing a “CloudHQ” workplace that allows many employees to work mostly from home. In 2021, we introduced core working hours to provide more flexible working arrangements. In 2022, our efforts were once again recognized with placements on two prestigious lists: Fortune Magazine and Great Place to Work’s Best Workplaces for Women and Best Workplaces for Parents.
We continue to enhance employee benefits that are important to families. In 2023, we expanded our parental leave policy to offer delivering parents 20 weeks of fully paid leave; non-delivering parents are now offered 12 weeks of fully paid leave.
Ethnicity
BIPOC representation in our total workforce remained steady at 41% in 2021 and 42% in 2022, and the attrition rate for Black employees declined below the average for all employees for the first time. Representation of Black employees has increased by 3 percentage points since 2019.
We’ve also seen increases of BIPOC employees in management and director and higher positions. Since 2019, representation of BIPOC employees in director or higher positions has increased by 8 percentage points – remaining steady in both 2021 and 2022 at 27%. We’re also seeing promising trends in the representation of BIPOC within management, non-director level, roles. For example, from 2020 to 2022, representation of Black and Asian employees in management roles each increased by 3 percentage points.
We know there’s still much to do to increase racial equity across all roles and levels. We are committed to reflecting the community we serve within our workforce and expanding the diversity of our leader talent pipeline.
Pay equity by gender and ethnicity
In 2022, the average American woman typically earned $0.82 for every dollar earned by a man, a number that hasn’t improved much since 20 years ago when women earned $0.80 to the dollar, according to Pew Research Group.
At Zillow, women and men with similar skills are paid within 1% of each other, based on measurable factors such as job characteristics, market value, performance and experience. That means for every $1 a man earns, a woman earns $0.99.
Black women at Zillow earn $0.98 and Black men earn $0.99 to the dollar as compared to white men. Latinx women and men earn $0.99 to the dollar, and Asian women and men both earn $1.01.
Since 2015, we have shared annual data on our company’s gender and ethnicity representation and pay equity. We remain focused on creating a culture, policies and programs that drive a more equal workplace this year and beyond – work that ensures we are maintaining momentum and not regressing in commitments to progress. Our leadership is committed to transparency, and to asking the hard questions that ultimately lead to policies and practices that drive positive change.
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