Department of Communication & Theatre Arts
Old Dominion University
Katie is a junior majoring in English at Old Dominion University. Her concentration is in Literature, so she reads for both work and pleasure. She currently works as a dorm desk receptionist for ODU’s Housing and Residence Life, and is hoping to go to graduate school after her senior year. You can find Katie writing passion project essays and drinking lattes in her free time.
Katie Barnett
(she/her)
Pre-Travel Analysis
The organization I chose to do my analysis on is Seattle’s very own Zillow Group, an online real-estate marketplace company. I chose this group because during the pandemic I, like a lot of other people, was often on Zillow browsing houses all over the world. It was nice to daydream about being somewhere else, and the Zillow platform had a range of diverse locations to do just that. Thus, when thinking about which Pacific Northwest organization to choose for this assignment, I was drawn to the familiar face of Zillow. I wondered if the Zillow organization was as diverse and inclusive as the locations and homes it boasted online; so without further ado, let's dive into the information I gathered.
The Zillow Group defines diversity as a necessity for their organization. They have a whole page on their website dedicated to this viewpoint- the opening statement says this: “We strongly believe that creating a workforce that’s representative of our communities enhances our culture and is key to our success as a company.” (Equity and Belonging) The page cites their commitment to equity and belonging by focusing on these diversified concepts: leadership, pay equity, representation, programming, and retention. I think that at least outwardly, Zillow’s position on diversity ends up meeting the standards and understanding that our class has reached in regards to inclusivity.
The best example of this is the release of Zillow’s employee diversity and pay equity data. The release of 2020’s data really compliments our class's ideals in relation to diversity. It highlighted the idea of company transparency with diversity, and stressed the importance of growth on the inclusive front. After the data that showed the gain in diversity that Zillow accumulated in the year, there was an explicit statement that acknowledged the fact that there were still disparities in the organization, and that Zillow “can and will do more” in the future to increase representation. (Pay Equity Data)I think the amplification of company diversity as well as the acknowledgement of needing to do more in the future aligns decently with the idea of company diversity our class has curated.
Zillow’s mission statement is along these lines: “ [Zillow’s] mission is to help more people get home- with speed, certainty, and ease.” (Our Story) Their tagline is this: “Let’s get you home.” Simply put, Zillow wants to help its customers find the perfect home for them. The way the real-estate marketplace goes about enacting this sentiment is by creating filters and various complex ways to pinpoint the supposed perfect place for a person's individual needs. It’s an effective promotional tool; everyone wants to find the perfect fit for themselves to live at. Zillow’s organization also seems to prioritize their employees finding the perfect places to fit into with their utilization of employee resource groups. As of 2022, more than 41% of Zillow’s employees belong to one or more of their employee resource groups. They have multiple different groups, a few of the examples being the Able and Differing Abilities Network, the Black/African Ancestry Network, and the LGBTQ+ network. These statistics imply that Zillow’s ERG’s are funded and well maintained. (Equity and Belonging)
Zillow portrays the treatment of its LGBTQ+ community employees and customers quite well. As of 2020, the real-estate marketplace established the LGBT Local Legal Protections, which Zillow defined as “a data-powered resource to help people see whether for-sale and rental listings are in communities where state and local regulations explicitly protect individuals who identify as [LGBTQ+]” (Newswire) This addition helps customers determine whether or not a home/neighborhood has local laws/jurisdiction that supports fair housing for people of the LGBTQ+ community, and doesn’t discriminate. Zillow acknowledged that people in the community faced housing discrimination, so the LGBT Local Legal Protections was established in order to counteract that. This works toward Zillow’s mission statement of finding the perfect home to fit an individual’s needs. The organization also seems to treat it’s LGBTQ+ employees with respect and care- an example of this is the employee resource group for them, allowing for a sense of community and belonging. Additionally, Glassdoor, a website that allows employees to leave honest feedback on their companies, has data that claims the overall company rating from LGBTQ+ employees is a 3.8 out of 5 stars.
Despite how well Zillow has been portrayed thus far, no organization is perfect, and this one is not an outlier from that. In my research into the company, I found lawsuits against the organization citing both harassment and discrimination that former employees faced. One of the lawsuits was about a female employee who alleged that she had faced “absolutely heinous acts of sexual harassment”, and labeled Zillow’s California location as a sort of “frat house”. (Burgoon) Another lawsuit came to fruition after multiple African-American employees alleged that they had been moved to the back of the sales floor on purpose, and that they were referred to as the “NAACP black coalition.” (Burgoon) Neither of these situations help the idea that Zillow fosters a safe, diverse and inclusive workplace.
The final question I have to answer is this: would I ever want to work at Zillow? If I take into consideration everything that I learned with this project, I think that yes, I would work at Zillow. The class action lawsuits against the organization are unwaveringly bad; but considering that they were made and settled in 2016, I have hope that the organization has worked harder in the eight years since to make it so situations like that do not occur again. It seems as though they have since created a more nurturing environment for diversity and inclusivity. While I acknowledge that there are most certainly flaws with Zillow, I admire that the company is very open about wanting to continue to grow their diversity and equity.
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References
Burgoon, S. S. (2016, June 10). Zillow settles several employee lawsuits. The Law Firm of Stephen S. Burgoon. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.sburgoonlaw.com/blog/2016/06/zillow-settles-several-employee-lawsuits/
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Equity & Belonging - Careers. (n.d.). Zillow. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.zillow.com/careers/equity-belonging/
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Our story. (n.d.). Zillow Group. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.zillowgroup.com/about-us/story/
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Zillow Now Displays LGBT Non-Discrimination Laws on All Homes. (2020, June 23). PR Newswire. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zillow-now-displays-lgbt-non-discrimination-laws-on-all-homes-301081857.html
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Zillow releases its annual employee diversity and pay equity data. (2020, September 8). Zillow Group. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://www.zillowgroup.com/news/zillow-releases-its-annual-employee-diversity-and-pay-equity-data/
Post-Travel Reflection
I think that my understanding of diversity absolutely changed this semester. In my opinion, learning and experiencing diversity is something that is continuous- there is of course a base understanding that everyone should always start with, but that base most likely always has room to expand one's knowledge and understanding of diversity. Our trip to Seattle really helped further my understanding of diversity and inclusivity, particularly with Queer culture and spaces, that I had perhaps not really fully considered or taken note of before. This could be because where I live in Virginia, there is a distinct lack of highlighted Queer culture. Despite being part of the community myself, I had never really considered a lot of aspects that I came to learn about on my trip to Seattle.
This experience ended up making me reflect on my own values as well- as I previously stated, I generally did not put much thought into some important aspects involving archiving/appreciating Queer history, especially because I did not see much of this while growing up where I did. Seeing all of the value placed upon the Queer history and landmarks in Seattle made me realize I should pay more attention and place more value upon the cultural history around me, and appreciate the people who work so hard to preserve and share it. On the trip, we mostly saw the positives in what other’s valued- we saw the history that was preserved, met the people who cared about sharing it, etc. Of course though, we know that this unfortunately is rarely the case- there are so very many important sites and landmarks that have been lost to time, often because cities and governments do not care for their value.
I think that the aspect of the trip that examined LGBTQ+ customers, employees, etc, through an organizational lens was quite the interesting one. It introduced the term “Rainbow Capitalism” to me, and also the notion that it is important to truly research into an organization to see how much they truly place value upon an LGBTQ+ community, as well as just diversity and inclusivity in general. With Rainbow Capitalism, it is very easy to put on a front of caring about the cause; but if you dig into certain companies, it becomes clear that it is just that- a front. When considering this kind of thing, it is important to see how organizations go about showing their value or lack thereof towards their employees and customers. When I researched Zillow, I did so for about an hour, and tried to look at sources outside of Zillow’s own statements. In the end, I found that their words were not hollow- they had mostly good reviews from LGBTQ+ employees, ERG’s, and actively worked towards fostering a diverse space.
I find that this trip certainly changed me in a lot of ways. I was very happy to see a place that so openly emphasized and cared about the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also happy that I gained the reminder to place value in the Queer community around me- the history, the present, the landmarks, the people. In general, I had never traveled so far by myself, and I think that learning that I am capable of doing so really unlocked a new sort of resolve in me to travel where I want, to experience and learn new things. I was also reminded of how nice it is to meet completely new people, and to learn from them and laugh with them- it really was a great pleasure.