How Zillow’s CEO and CHRO Partner for Off-the-Charts Employee Engagement

Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff is the first to say that he considers HR to be “the most important function of the company.” This, admits Zillow Group VP of People Dan Spaulding with a laugh, makes his job both easier and harder. While he has his CEO’s complete buy-in, he also knows that his department will be held to a higher standard and closer level of scrutiny than most.

Still, it’s proved to be a tremendous asset to have a CEO as engaged as Rascoff is. In many ways, Zillow Group is a perfect case study of what it looks like when a great HR department and an invested executive team collaborate to ensure that their company is a great place to work. The results? Zillow has an impressive company rating of 4.2, has made Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list on four different occasions, and, most recently, Rascoff was named a for the third time.

Glassdoor’s Emily Moore recently chatted with Spaulding to learn how he’s worked with Rascoff to build up their employer brand, secure the budget and resources his team needs, and ultimately highlight Zillow Group as an example of world-class HR — here are a few of his top tips.

Glassdoor: At many companies, it can be a challenge for HR to communicate how important their function is to the CEO. Clearly that’s not the case at Zillow Group, but I’d like to hear what your advice would be to somebody who’s having that challenge?

Dan Spaulding: I think HR is always uniquely positioned to tell a CEO what is happening in two areas that are of importance to all CEOs. The first is what is happening in their own organization. We’ve always got access to people and data that help to paint a pretty compelling narrative for a CEO of what is going on within their organization, and that is certainly compelling for most CEOs, but I would say also, just as importantly, as HR professionals we’ve got access to what are the trends and issues in the communities that surround the workplace, whether that is conversations about diversity and inclusion or what is going from a market competitiveness standpoint in terms of compensation, or even just what your competitors are doing from an HR standpoint. [Those] are also compelling subjects that you can get access to your CEO on… A CEO that has got so many demands on their time [has] to make that space, but I think those internal and external insights [are] the real value that the HR profession brings to the workplace. And I think as long as you’re focused on where your opportunities to elevate your CEO’s knowledge in those areas [are], you’re going to get attention.

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Glassdoor: How have you collaborated with management to drive a positive culture?

Dan Spaulding: I joined Zillow Group about a year and a half ago… 10 years into its journey. What I really have done to try and contribute to the culture is two things: I’ve tried to deeply understand what has made the company great to date, and understand the decisions that were made [and] the people who have built the company. [I’ve tried to understand] the history of how the product was developed and the place that the company holds in the hearts of the employee base today, and then translate that into an actionable people strategy to develop the company for the next decade and where we will need to evolve and scale our capabilities if we want to be as relevant in our second decade of existence as a company as we were in our first… I think managing that tension between understanding the path and drawing an actionable blueprint of how we’re going to achieve the future has been what I’ll try to focus my organization [on] as the company grows.

Glassdoor: So what have you found out so far about what makes Zillow Group such a great place to work?

Dan Spaulding: I think two things. One, Zillow Group is really into the long game. We’re not going to make shortsighted, short-term decision to drive a quarter or to drive revenue within a particular year. We’re going to make the best long-term decisions and investments for consumers and our business partners. I think that has been extremely compelling to employees because they know that the leadership of the organization is invested in really building a sustainable company, not just a great company today.

Then I think internally with our employee base, our focus on transparency and discussing topics openly [and] freely. Whether everybody agrees on the topic, whether everybody agrees on the outcome that we’re driving, is really not the focus. What we try to focus on is if there are questions, if there are concerns, if there is a gap in information, we try to engage, understand that, and resolve it to the best of our ability, and I think that transparency and that honesty around the subsequent conversation really resonates with people in today’s modern workplace.

Glassdoor: This certainly sounds like it isn’t the case at Zillow Group, but have you ever worked with a CEO in the past who is hesitant to be really transparent with employees and get their open and honest feedback?

Dan Spaulding: Honestly, I’ve worked with really great CEOs. Every CEO is slightly different [in] what they have focused on, [but] I wouldn’t say that I have worked with a CEO who is hesitant to get employee feedback. What I would say is, I have worked with CEOs who don’t get into the details of what their employees are actually trying to tell them. They’ll listen to the sound bite, but they don’t dig a little bit deeper. I think that is what makes Spencer unique… He’ll ask two or three deeper questions beyond the initial question to really understand what is going on in that employee’s day-to-day world, whether it’s [a] business issue or an employment issue… He’ll really try to understand what is the root of the challenge that the employee is dealing with. I would say I haven’t always dealt with CEOs who are that motivated to really understand the root cause of an issue. Oftentimes they’ve been maybe a little bit more focused on acknowledging the employee and then passing the employee off to somebody to resolve the issue. Spencer wants to actually be a part of driving solutions across our company. I think that resonates significantly with our employees because he’s in the room and he’s in the trenches with them when they’re working through an issue.

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Glassdoor: I have to say, I’ve chatted with a lot of CEOs before and I can’t say I have met many that show as much commitment to employee engagement as Spencer does. That must make your job a lot easier.

Dan Spaulding: Easier and harder. [Laughs] I think Spencer’s underlying philosophy is it’s better to know a hard truth than it is to avoid it. I believe in that as well. From an HR perspective, I’ve always believed very much that our job as a profession is to explain what is happening and why it’s happening to an employee base, even if it’s not comfortable, whether that is around compensation, whether that is around benefits, whether that’s around strategic decisions that are made [in] the business. I found that relationship to be very in line with Zillow Group’s mission as an organization and very much in line with Spencer and the rest of the senior leadership team. It actually has made our relationship a very simple one to build. I haven’t had to really build a relationship from any level of complexity — I just started the job and we worked through issues as they come up every day. That is kind of Spencer’s style.

Glassdoor: How do you have those difficult conversations with your workforce?

Dan Spaulding: I think what makes conversations difficult is that you delay them… anywhere in your life, whether it’s a personal relationship or professional relationship, things get more uncomfortable if you delay what you know and it’s an inevitable conversation. Our hardest conversations [are]letting somebody go, redirecting a team, making budgetary cuts. We try to not delay the conversation. We try to make the decision as quickly as we can, and then as honestly as we can and with a level of empathy and understanding. We try to communicate it as promptly as we can. I think treating people like adults in those situations mean that they don’t necessarily like the outcome, but they do appreciate the way in which you drove to that outcome. And to me, as an HR professional, that is the ultimate win: When everybody can walk away feeling like they were treated like an adult in a situation.

Glassdoor: Speaking of budget, how have you successfully negotiated with your CEO for additional recruiting budget or resources?

Dan Spaulding: I start with the outcome that the business wants to achieve. If they want to, say, develop their high potential talent for the future, I work backwards from if that is the goal, what are the resources that are going to be required to achieve that goal, and then being clear in articulating what capability, [what] capacity do we have to gauge [and] deliver against that goal versus if the organization wants a world-class outcome, what are the resource demands that are going to be required? I think [rather than] focusing on, “Here are all the things that I need and then we’ll talk about the outcome,” I start with the outcome and say “Okay, if this is what we want, here are the steps that we’re going to have to take to get there and here are the investments that you’re going to have to make.” Just be honest and transparent about it. I think sometimes HR people think that saying “yes” in the moment if a client [or stakeholder] is asking for something will make everybody feel better… In any other part of the business, that is an acceptable answer. If you go to the marketing department and say “Hey, we want to increase the effectiveness of our advertising,” a marketer is going to start with “What level of effectiveness are you looking for with the advertising? Here’s what you’re going to have to spend to achieve that.” You’ve got to do the same thing in the HR space.

Glassdoor: Zillow Group has built up a very attractive employer brand — how have you built that up internally?

Dan Spaulding: I think it starts with word of mouth and building a culture that everyone understands and communicates in a very similar fashion. One of the things that I think we have done really well here at Zillow Group is we focus on really shared language in describing our culture. I think if you go to any of our offices if you talk to our employees whether they’re in tech or in sales or in other parts of our business, they’ll describe our culture in very similar ways [and] in very plain English where we act with integrity. Our company works together like a team sport. These sort of universal [ideas] that when people are talking [with] their social networks and outside of the workspace really resonate. I think a lot of companies, maybe their mission is a little esoteric or the employees can’t really quite put their fingers on ways to describe the company. We provide very clear language to our employees.

We tie back the decisions that we make of the business to that language and I think it creates a really shared view and narrative of what the experience of working at Zillow Group is. That helps us in recruiting because candidates go to Glassdoor, [and] when candidates read articles in Business Insider they see the same language that they actually hear in their interviews. Being intentional around that shared narrative is a top priority for the HR team and the communications team with the Zillow Group. I think the attention that we get from the broader community of tech is real because of the simplicity in which we are able to tell our story to our employees.

Glassdoor: Beyond just bringing people in the door, though, you, of course, want to keep them there. How have you made sure that employees want to build their careers at Zillow Group for the long haul?

Dan Spaulding: We intentionally focus on their development. At Zillow Group, we’re focused on making sure that people are getting the experiences, resources, and connections across the organization to develop a unique career. When you look at a lot of people who are in leadership positions at Zillow Group, they’re people that started at Zillow Group as interns. There are people that started in the early days of the company, and they have shared the growth and the success of that company with the growth and success of their career. I think when you position people for success, when you put them in jobs that are compelling and demonstrate that if you work hard and if you are willing to take that next challenge, [then] we’re going to be willing to take the next challenge with you as well. It’s provided an environment where people have really felt that they can stay and grow with the company.

In a lot of ways, we have created an environment where the company has grown in such a way that it feels like a different company every year. You talk to people who have been here five, six, seven, 10 years, they’ll tell you that the Zillow Group today is a completely different company than Zillow was as its own company three or four years [ago]. [But] we still have that common shared language of what our view of the future looks like, and what success looks like here at Zillow Group, and that is compelling to folks.

Glassdoor: You’ve been here at Zillow Group for about a year and a half now, but you’re still a relatively new employee. From your perspective, what makes it such a great company to work for on a day-to-day basis?

Dan Spaulding: I think ultimately, for me what makes Zillow Group such a unique place is… the transparency of where we are today and what we need to do to get where we want to be. [It’s] something that we never stop challenging ourselves with. The idea of growing the company in a way that brings us all along and is the best long-term outcome for the people who are impacted by the real estate industry is something that is very unique. Every other company that I’ve been in has been focused on, “How do you maximize your product? How do you maximize your market opportunity?” We’re focused on taking one of the biggest challenges that every one of us as people faces, which is where are we going to live? We think about how are we going to improve that process for everyone involved and build a successful company at the same time?

Call it transparency, call it honesty, we’re trying to attack one of the most fundamental challenges that we all face as people in our lives, and we’re doing that with a sense of community, and that is something that I’ve never really experienced in any other company that I’ve worked [with] in the way that I have experienced it here. I think that translates into real ownership. People don’t just want to come and work here. People feel like they’re owners of the future of this company, and by extension, we’re going to be part of driving what the future of real estate is going to look like, and whether you’re thinking about where your parents are going to retire or when you’re starting a family, getting your first house or where is that first place that your daughter is going to rent when she graduates from college, you’re actively involved in the solution that impacts yourself and everybody else in the United States. That is probably what for me makes the company a special environment. You can call it honesty. You can call it mission. You can call it transparency [in] tackling a really hard challenge. But I think at the end of the day, it’s that level of ownership that we all get to feel in tackling that problem that makes Zillow Group really special.

Glassdoor: Right before you joined Zillow Group, what was it about the company that made you say “Okay, I really have to come here”?

Dan Spaulding: A couple of things stood out for me. One, the way the culture showed in everybody that I interviewed with, whether I was meeting with the Chief Technology Officer or the Head of Sales or the Head of Marketing. They all shared an aligned view of where they wanted to see the company go, and how important our cumulative success would be in achieving that vision… at least from an HR standpoint, when I see that alignment between senior leaders, it makes my life a lot easier. I knew that aligning on the mission and the vision… had already been done. Now, it was about how do we scale and optimize the company for the future. Really, most of my interviews turned into real dialogue on where the company was and where we aspire to get the company to, and [the] general intellectual curiosity from everybody that I encountered at Zillow Group about how my background and my expertise could contribute to the long-term vision of the company.

From that standpoint, by the time that I was through three or four interviews, I didn’t even feel like I was really interviewing at that point. I felt like I was actively problem-solving on where we were going to go as an organization. That was just really appealing to me. It was really less about proving that I belong, and it was more around how was the organization going to leverage and utilize all the experience that I had gained up to that point. That immediately [fostered] a sense of community for me that I wasn’t just making the decision around a job — that I was really joining an organization that I was able to be with for a long time.

Glassdoor: What does leadership mean to you?

Dan Spaulding: Leadership for me is about positioning people to do the best work that they can do. That can take many forms. For a new employee, that can be setting them up for success and making sure that they know what to do and how to be successful in their job. For an employee who has been in their organization for some time, that can mean pushing them out of their comfort zone and pushing them on to a new endeavor within your organization that really challenges or stretches them.

It can also mean… positioning them to think differently about their organization or around a problem that they’re trying to solve within their business. But positioning people for their optimum outcomes is what I believe that great leaders do. They don’t dictate that outcome — they influence that outcome through really providing a vision, providing inspiration, but then understanding where that individual is today and [how do they] help position that individual to be the most successful that they can be going forward.

Glassdoor: Before we head out, is there anything else on your mind that we didn’t quite get to yet?

Dan Spaulding: I speak at a lot of events — sometimes, the question of what can HR departments do to make themselves more effective [comes up]. The one piece of advice that I would give HR practitioners in any organization at any point in its growth cycle is to focus on incremental progress. Too many HR organizations try to focus on solving all problems at once, when I think the most effective thing that you can do is focus on how can you get incrementally better at everything that you’re doing every single day, whether that is a slight process improvement, whether that is managing an interview process better than you managed it yesterday, whether that is engaging employee relations with a more outcome-based mindset. But focusing on incremental progress over time leads to great outcomes from an HR perspective. I think sometimes people focus too much on trying to fix a complicated system as opposed to focusing on what can they incrementally improve in the bodies that they control at any given moment.