AXSChat Podcast with Denise Reed Lamoreaux, Director of Equity and Belonging at Zillow

Denise Reed Lamoreaux has 30+ years of experience in Learning and Development, Marketing and Communications, Leadership, and Diversity and Inclusion.  SHe has won over 40 international awards for her efforts, and is a sought after speaker across the globe.  One of her career highlights was presenting at Copenhagen 2021, the world's largest human rights conference, on the topic of Transgender rights in the workplace.  Denise is currently the Director of Equity and Belonging at Zillow, and consults regularly with AARP, parity.org, Valuable 500, Inside OUT, Textio, and the Hispanic Promise.  She is the former President of SUNY Geneseo's Alumni Association, and is active in her community, supporting Western NY's Cystic Fibrosis Organization and NY's Warrior Alliance. 

Transcript

0:00

This is a draft transcript produced live at the event and corrected for spelling and basic errors. It is not a commercial transcript. AXSCHAT Denise Reed Lamoreaux

NEIL: 0:05

Hello and welcome to Axschat. No Antonio this week, he is on holiday. Don't blame him, it's summer. It's beautiful but there is still three of us and delighted to welcome back my former colleague and great friend Denise Reed Lamoreaux, who is now, let's get this right, Director of Equity and Belonging at Zillow. and so, great to have you with us Denise. For our European and non-US audience can you tell us about Zillow?

DENISE: 0:32

Absolutely, yeah, thanks Neil and I'm so glad to be back here with you and Debra. I miss Antonio of course but I'll catch up with him at some other time. So, Zillow is a phenomenon where people can come out to the website which is zillow.com, here in the US and look for homes.

And the tagline is: 0:54

find it, tour it, own it. So, it is an eye buying opportunity, an internet purchasing opportunity, where you can purchase a home. You can look for new construction. You can look for current homes. You can look into foreclosures; you can look at for sale by owner. You can rent from retail buildings down to personal homes. You can also get involved in understanding what you would qualify for, what a mortgage calculator can tell you about what you would be paying monthly for a home. And then you can also sign up for mortgage assistance and speak to a mortgage broker. Then you can take it to that next level after you've toured some of the homes, they've a 360-degree view of the interior as well as the exterior of the homes they list. You can then connect with a real estate agent, a home improvement pro and so on and so forth and then the pros can advertise on Zillow's site and really be able to get that buyer's buy in from every step in the process. So, what started this small has now grown exponentially.

DEBRA: 2:11

Can I add more?

DENISE: 2:12

Absolutely Debra.

DEBRA: 2:14

Because I love Zillow, Americans love Zillow and I also want to say, as one of your customers, that you can also decide where you want to live and they've reporting and information about what are the right cities, and we've these zoom towns going on right now. But since you decide you want to live in this one area of North Carolina, you can go to Zillow and find out everything that is to rent, to buy, how much it is. How the history. Oh my gosh we love it. We love Zillow in the United States. It's an amazing tool.

DENISE: 2:53

And you know there's that whole concept of first starting with the dream of either homeownership or rental of a new place to live. Then moving through to the reality of getting into that place. And Zillow is trying to expand the experience for these searchers, these dreamers, to be much more inclusive, to be much more accessible and then in turn be much more of a way by which to be exactly what we are looking for and they know that they are going to be welcomed in that neighbourhood that they are moving into.

NEIL: 3:26

So, we've a slightly similar set of tools in the UK. You've got one called Right Move and another one called Zupa and as someone that has moved a few times in the last few years, I have spent inordinate hours looking at properties online. I used to say I was doom scrolling through Right Move, but it appears to me that whilst there is a lot of those similar services, you have got a community aspect to this that is not there in the sort of house shopping tools that we have on this side of the Atlantic.

DENISE: 4:05

And you know that is part of the magic that has grown up around this platform is that it really is focused the people side of the equation, as much as it is on the business. So, it isn't just sell, sell, sell, it's incorporate, improve, it's provide, it's share. So, all of that really leads to you know, people spend, who aren't even looking for homes, spends hours a week on this platform and it can be educational for them from many different angles, plus it's sort of a form of entertainment which really took hold during the pandemic when people didn't have places to race off to in the evening, they'd go out and look at homes as Debra said the zoom town practice has really been a big one in this market.

DEBRA: 4:58

You can also, if you are really a nerd like me, you can go and look at your neighbours’ houses are decorated. How rich mansions are decorated, you can get ideas, it's a place to dream. It's wild but some day, I mean it's just I don't know, we have fallen in love with it. Americans are picky and we've taken Zillow and we've made it our own. I can't think of a lot of other brands that we've adopted. I feel like the Americans have adopted Zillow. And I don't know the two you talk about Neil but the community that is built around Zillow, it's really a very, very interesting case study because I figure, I think Zillow belongs to me. I believe it belongs to me.

DENISE: 5:45

And that is a great position for us to consider, from our client's perspective, our customers, the people who shop for homes with us. We want them to feel like it belongs to them it's tailored to them and supportive to them. And a lot of the work we do within the company side of the work is, we talk about personas, the buyers. Who are the buyers? What are their desires? What is their background? What is their buying power? How can we support those different dimensions in getting them into a place that they can call their own. Whether it's a rental or a purchase of a home or some kind of real estate investment that they are getting into etc. We want these personas to feel comfortable and supported and that they are getting best value for their dollar.

NEIL: 6:43

So, I guess one of the other things that immediately I think is really helpful about you know online house viewing tools is the amount of time that it saves you in traveling to horrible nasty places that you would never want to buy. I mean, I have driven thousands of miles in the last few years, maybe tens of thousands of miles, traveling even to the ones that I have seen the online photos of but, previously when you were, before the internet, finding a home, finding an apartment would mean traveling to a city, picking up the classifieds, going to the estate agents. You know, all of those kinds of things take time and money and require mobility. So, particularly the cost and the mobility challenges, you know meant that getting to quality housing would end be being more difficult for the people in the disability community. So, their online purchasing tools for housing are democratising in that respect.

DENISE: 8:01

Yes, very much so.

NEIL: 8:03

Another thing to consider.

DENISE: 8:04

Yeah, and you consider the fact that there is such a robust touring aspect on the site. Wherein you can go out and have is a 360-degree tour of the home before you do anything further because you know a picture of the outside is not a picture of the inside and so, you really need to know what the inside looks like as well. But then you can also view what the neighbourhood looks like. Your house maybe pristine and the rest of the neighbourhood maybe far from that. But you're right about the mobility aspect. This online touring does kind of even the playing field of doing that preliminary review of what house would be best for you, regardless of your background and whatever mobility issues you may face as you know, as you move through your life. Another topic we're starting to really pay attention to, everywhere we turn, regardless of the fact, the fact that I work for Zillow, is the fact of aging in place and you know, the three of us know this very well. And so, it's important for someone doing a home tour to see oh boy, this is a not a ranch. I need a ranch. I need a house with only one floor, or I need you know, a bedroom and bathroom set up on the first floor. I'm caring for an aging parent. I need to be able to make sure that that individual will be able to be comfortable in this home. You know, I have a disability whereby I utilise a wheelchair. How am I going to navigate through narrowed hallways? Obviously this home is not for me. And all of this stuff is really becoming really, really more important. And what I think is interesting and totally unrelated to Zillow. But I don't know if the two of you saw the announcement that pottery barn has come out with 150 pieces of furniture designed with accessibility in mind.

DEBRA: 10:03

Oh, I did not see that.

DENISE: 10:04

Yeah, that is had a game changer. Think about it.

DEBRA: 10:09

Go Pottery Barn.

DENISE: 10:11

And of course, some of other retailers now will follow suit because Pottery Barn tends to appeal to a more high-end entry customer. But you will see others following suit, like your targets and Walmart’s will jump on this bandwagon as well. But that is another smart move forwards towards accessibility and assistive tech and now furniture that is accessible and really will work well in a home or in an office setting for someone that requires some extra attention in that space.

NEIL: 10:49

Yeah, I expect Walmart will be upping their game now. They've just appointed Victor Calicia as their Head of Accessibility. Victor is a strong...

DEBRA: 11:04

Powerhouse.

NEIL: 11:05

Yeah. Good fun too. I like Victor.

DEBRA: 11:09

Yeah, he is really fun. The first time I saw him, he went down the escalator in his wheelchair and we about had a heart attack, but he got it.

DENISE: 11:21

Wow.

DEBRA: 11:23

And then, we made him do it again, so that we could take pictures, yeah, which was wrong but, yeah.

NEIL: 11:33

So, yeah, I think the tool does have sort of accidental accessibility benefits. You know, these were not things it was designed for but it's facilitating these sorts of things. But obviously you're not a technology designer. So, what are the programmes that you're running within Zillow and how do they fit into the culture? Feed into product design? But also, what are you doing for the employee base?

DENISE: 12:11

So, you know obviously, I'm still fairly new in this role but one of the biggest things that we are doing is that we are building up the educational offerings for our employees in the space of diversity inclusion, equity belonging, accessibility especially because that is still something that is not as widely understood or known and, we’re pulling together review processes for all of our internal learning programmes to make sure that they are as accessible and as inclusive as they possibly can be. We are focusing right now, I'm working on a really good project with our technical recruiters, making the recruiting process for technical employees more equitable, more inclusive and especially more accessible. And that also includes a segment of their interview where they're asked to create something using code live, you know, as an example of how they could act and react in the workplace and making sure that that process is not only accessible but also inclusive and respectful of all of the different cultural and you know, generational norms that exist. So, that we are not asking someone to do something that they would feel uncomfortable with. We are asking them to do something they feel confident with being able to produce and then being you know, add to the work that we're doing here and the personas themselves, we are really concentrating on personas of differing abilities and backgrounds. And so, you know, being more reflective of what society looks like and ensuring that our teams are looking at their various responsibilities that they use these personas to put themselves into the mindset of those individuals. And that is a big piece of the work too. I am also, right now working on survey questions for the employee survey, to assess how people feel about you know, their ability to be their authentic selves in the workplace. Do they see programmes that support what they're for greater understanding on. Do they see people like them in senior level roles in the company? Things along those lines. So, lots of different moving parts and pieces but with the intent that you know, we're building a better internal experience so the external experience will be that much more enriched as well. I partner with a lot of external groups. ARRP American personnel here in the US, has a collation that I've been involved in since back in my ATOS days which is called living, learning and earning longer. Mentioning the fact that we are staying in the workplace ten to 15 years longer than any previous generation and tied into that I've been brought into one of their other collations called age intact where they're looking at new assistive technology products that will help with people as they age and then another coalition through them which is about equity and housing and of course, since I work with Zillow, this is an important connection for me to have made. And of course, I'm saying with the other tried and true like perita.org[sic] which supports the development and advancement of women and people of colour in the workplace and the Hispanic Promise for the rights of Hispanic employees, working with veterans’ groups. In fact, he one of the personas that we are now introducing is a disabled veteran. And so, that is another angle and lens that our people are looking through as they're considering how to build a solution.

NEIL: 16:14

Debra, you are first.

DEBRA: 16:19

I also apologise Denise for talking over you with my excitement about Zillow before.

DENISE: 16:25

Oh, my goodness no worries.

DEBRA: 16:27

I get so excited. I was going to ask you about aging in place, you already did that. And then I was going to ask you about Zillow, is a surprise, I know Zillow must be surprised themselves of how successful they have been. And of course, it's really amazing when the community takes the brand and makes it what we need it to be. And they let us do that is my perception. I appreciate that. But we like other countries, really, really struggle with making sure that everyone can be homeowners and so, and we're seeing, we continue to see really terrible stories about how people are being disenfranchised, discouraged from buying a home. You can't do it and so, I just read something this morning in Jack Millaney's Accessibility Newsletter that talked about, Neil, you mentioned it, a black Professor, whose house had been undervalued by $300,000 because of the colour of his skin. What? So, what is Zillow doing? What can we do to help and support Zillow but to try to breakdown some of the barriers to truly owning a home in the United States.

DENISE: 17:47

So, obviously that is something that is looked at closely, carefully and respectfully as well. And there has been some social impact programmes in that space. One of them has been, the title is Racism has no Home Here. And of course, playing off the home and Zillow and so forth. Another one has been Better Together, where we are looking to ensure that people understand the processes and so forth. And right now, all of our employees, regardless of who they are and what their function and role is in the company, have been going through this training program where we're really talking about our leadership blueprint. Our core values and really providing at every step in the purchaser renting experience that we are there to support the individual, answer their questions. You know, there's, it's like this word map and it's depicted in cartoon fashion, and you see like people actually, two people holding a house, tug of warring because they are in a bidding war. You see a person in a wheelchair sitting there with a perplexed look like where do I go to find a home that's going to suit me and the conversations that have come up around this effort alone have really made such a difference in the way we're approaching thing that we know we are on the right track because of this. So, the internal work will support the external work and the ever-evolving opportunities we have to engage with the people that we serve.

NEIL: 19:29

Excellent. So, I'm enjoying Debra's enthusiasm for, obviously Debra is a big fan of housing porn, housing porn, as we call it in the UK because as a guilty secret, everybody is looking at this stuff. But I think that their market as, they are really tough and the disparity between the dream, the reality has, you know, even more myself and I'm privileged, I have a good job, you know and not starting out in life, the disparity between you know and the reality of what you can get for your money in most global north is really significant. So, I think that that is especially amplified for people with physical disabilities and so on, I think this is starting out. So, I'd love to see initiatives with partners, like maybe the Ikeas of this world because Ikea are doing modular housing, modular and accessible housing and stuff like that. So, I think there is so much innovation that can happen in the space. You know, when we're thinking about how houses are designed. How, you know, if it's modular, you know I think then you can convince, I mean, Debra just put something about Tesla in the chat window.

DEBRA: 21:23

They are doing it too; I actually want one. No sorry, no I don't. It looks cool.

NEIL: 21:31

But if you're buying a car, you go on as a configurator. I don't know, is there, when you go and search stuff like accessible homes, can you tick, because usually when we are searching in the UK you can search and there's all sorts of things you can breakdown. So, you can breakdown. We've got seniors accommodation; you can put things like that. You can break it down, whether you want a ranch, as you call it, bungalow as we call it in the UK. But are things like saying, you know accessible accommodation, all of these kinds of things, are those things that pre-exist or things that we could maybe encourage the market to do more of, to narrow down that search, also data drives behaviours.

DENISE: 22:23

Right.

NEIL: 22:25

So, if people see that there are huge numbers of searches for you know, accessible homes, you know disability friendly, ones that are being designed for aging in place. That data can feed the manufacturing market because, they are, I am sure that the big construction firms in the US, are looking at Zillow data all the time and certainly, are looking at sort of the Right Move data and the other data in the UK, I'm sure it's the same in the US. They are not just building on spec. They want to know what people are looking at, what we've noticed is, over the last decade, where I have been searching for homes. You know, the new homes advertised are being designed in a slightly different layout because they know what people are searching for. Right. So, can we influence that by shaping what people can search for? So we can actually sort of filter up and make available the fact that this is something that people want.

DENISE: 23:44

And you know a lot of that work is being done. Every day there's conversations about these topics. Right on Zillow's page there's a whole section on fair housing. And what is nice about it is if a person wants to understand more about what fair housing really means, they talk about rental discrimination. They talk about classes that are protected from rental discrimination, what to consider when renting to families with children. What do fair housing laws prohibit etc, etc. So there are all kinds of stuff that people can learn right from that site. Then they talk about protected classes, under State and Law. So, you can look at what's going on from protecting people who are aging, protecting veterans, sexual orientation and etc. So, there's a lot that can be said. There is a segment about limited English proficiency and you know how you can determine maximum occupancy of a home as well. So, there is a lot that is out there, but of course, it's always been evolved, always being improved upon to be more aligned to how people are buying homes now. I'll go back to what Debra mentioned earlier, zoom towns. You know, now that we are seeing the ability to move, open up a bit differently as a result of the pandemic and companies continuing to have work from home solutions for their employees. Some people are moving because they can go someplace different now and still have the same job. So, now that now that there is as much more demand in particular areas, it makes it even more important to have that understanding of what is available from an accessibility perspective or I have got a family of nine and I need to be able to house them. What rules do I have for a rental if I have a family of this size and all of those different dimensions are really being considered and information like I said is popping up every single day.

NEIL: 25:59

So, I'm busy side eyeing stuff and looking at your search filters. So, you know it's interesting so, there is a bit to hide 55 plus communities. And we've that filter too. But surely this should be a choice to only show those.

DENISE: 26:19

Right.

NEIL: 26:23

So, I'm thinking that I mean it's interesting, must have pool. Okay, yeah different world. I think that that is something that we in Britain are now considering much more seriously after the last few months.

DENISE: 26:37

After the summer, yeah. No kidding.

NEIL: 26:40

But it's this section here, where I think that you can really do some great work on inclusion by allowing people to choose those kind of things, rather than it being key word search because key word searches are, I don't require using those sort of things so it's like, maybe I'll put in accessible. But that data then, you'll have the analytics on that, and it will be something that you know potentially can help shape markets.

DENISE: 27:18

Yes, and that Debra mentioned before that the person searching owns the site because it's so tailored to them.

NEIL: 27:31

Yeah, that's it. You'll have your preferences and then you can have them saved and so you can only search for accessible homes with a massive pool and AC in an over 55's community.

DENISE: 27:48

And a maid and all of those wonderful things to create a perfect life.

NEIL: 27:55

Yeah, yeah. But in all seriousness, I do think, yeah, I'm more and more interested in how you know, data can drive behaviours in industries and where you have a platform like this, which is pretty dominant that there is a real opportunity to be able to use the data and use the community actually to shape something for good.

DENISE: 28:24

Mm hmm definitely. And you know we've the whole arm of Zillow, which is called Zillow for Good, where we're involved social justice and volunteerism. And that is another focus in that team too on how we can help within the communities and that we have a presence in, and you know, do what we can to make things more equitable out in the communities as well.

NEIL: 28:53

Yeah. No, I mean it sounds excellent. And now I'm getting all excited looking at houses on that.

DENISE: 28:59

It just draws you right in.

DEBRA: 29:03

It does draw you in.

DENISE: 29:05

And before you know it you've spent like 45 minutes.

DEBRA: 29:08

Yeah, just looking. Just dreaming, you can go out there and just dream, oh, I wonder what it would be like to buy a five-million-dollar house on the beach. Oh let me just go see because I might not have the nerve to tour that five million dollar house but I can look at it online.

DENISE: 29:26

Exactly.

DEBRA: 29:27

You know, what is fascinating to me is how it has just, it has become part of our society. In the way that brands always want to be, but Zillow is loved I don't even know if they have any competitors. I don't know why anybody would go anywhere else but Zillow. It's terrible. I'm such a fan. You all need this pay me Denise. You all need to give me some money because I love you.

DENISE: 29:58

It's definitely like the terms Xerox and Kleenex.

DEBRA: 30:03

That is what I was going to say. Brands like Kleenex, we know that when you say Zillow, I mean you don't look for a house or an apartment o a rental without going and checking Zillow in the States. You just don't

DENISE: 30:15

Right. It's no longer just a noun it's a verb now too, did you Zillow that? It's taken on its own life which is such an interesting concept and of course, an enormous responsibility too, to be able to keep the integrity intact and really still have your finger on the pulse of the communities that you serve.

DEBRA: 30:41

Can I also say, and we all know this too and I know that Neil has walked some of this path but sometimes we don't like, society doesn't like brands to be successful, so then we look for things to be mad with them about. So, Zillow has been such a big success and it has become such an important part of how we do things in the United States. I would think there is also some people that, you know it seems like it's sometimes a double-edged sword. But we just have to keep doing your best, right?

DENISE: 31:19

And you know we've these core principles that we live by as well as the leadership blueprint and you know, the leadership blueprint talks about fostering an environment where everyone can thrive, not just today but tomorrow as well and build relationships based on trust. And then within our core values, there is better together, which I mentioned, there is customer are our North Star and then there is also the concept of turn on the lights, which means make people understand what is available to them and what they can access and so forth. So, that there is not that ambiguity and people aren't fumbling around in the dark trying to figure things out and then obviously do the right thing is obviously one of our largest core principles from everyone's perspective because we're all responsible for it. So those values, that blueprint, it all drives the behaviour of the people who work here. So, it is a company that is focused on doing the right thing.

DEBRA: 32:24

Are you only in the States, Denise?

DENISE: 32:27

Well, there is every evolving movement, so, stay tuned for some information in the upcoming very near future, actually about some ideas to widen the opportunity to be involved and engaged with Zillow. So, you'll hear, I'll be happy to come back and talk about it once everything is announced so, there is, but yes, is started here the US but there is some movement in that space.

NEIL: 32:57

Okay. Interesting, and how many employees does Zillow have at the moment?

DENISE: 33:04

Around 5800.

NEIL: 33:06

Okay.

DENISE: 33:07

So, not the size of ATOS where Neil and I worked together but a growing and committed employee base. So, we're hiring. So, take a look at zillow.com for open roles. They're technical roles and roles within the ENB organisation as well as every other Department you might think of as typical in a business environment. So, we're looking for Top Talent. We have great development opportunities for that talent, and we really expect them to be part of the evolution of this company.

NEIL: 33:45

Great and not many organisations are of the scale of the ones we've been in recently. When it gets into the hundreds of thousands, it's a different magnitude.

DENISE: 33:58

Yeah.

NEIL: 33:59

And there are so many other things going on. I think that what you've got now is you've got a product set and an environment and a platform, where I think you know, you can focus on that one thing. Of course, there are multiple things within the company but it's not like 26 different companies. It's not like a choice that you get in big SI's, where there's oh this little company and another one and another one. So, I'm looking forward to seeing you, you know motor forwards with your programmes, and we'll definitely check back in and see.

DENISE: 34:38

Yeah, thank you.

NEIL: 34:40

So great, thanks. It's been lovely to catch up with you. We look forward to you joining us on its Twitter and thank you once again. And to My Clear Text for keeping us captioned.

DEBRA: 34:53

Yes, we love My Clear Text. But also, I just want to make a comment, it's so cool to see leaders moving to different brands. Because it was ATOS and then you actually went with Microsoft for a little while and now, you're at Zillow. And I love how leaders are moving to different brands because this is so good for our community.

DENISE: 35:13

It is. And you know, certainly five, well ten years ago that would have been sort of frowned upon. And then looked at with a level of, what is she doing wrong, you know?

DEBRA: 35:28

I agree. Right, now it's like okay we understand. Yeah, yeah.

DENISE: 35:33

And as this world evolves and the way we work evolves you will see hopefully more leaders who have some experience in this space and can bring that lens and that different approach to another company that may not be as mature as the one they came from or maybe focusing on something different than where you were before because you know, I have been stretched every which way in the roles I have been in which has been to my advance and I have certainly learned something with everything I have done. But you're right Debra, I think this opportunity for the thought leadership and the experience to move with the greater good is more and more prevalent than ever and I'm glad to see that as well.

DEBRA: 36:25

I agree. Thank you for being on, Denis. We love you.

NEIL: 36:29

Thank you and one final thing. We have a Go Fund Me for Axschat. So you know, it costs us money to keep on air. We do this for love. But service don't get paid in love. So go fund us, or at least go share because actually we know that the disability community is often cash scrapped and what we don't want anyone going into financial difficulty to support us. But you share it on social media because there will be people who want to contribute amongst our friends. We know who our friends are and thank you to all who have. But yes, thank you. And see you soon.

DEBRA: 37:13

Thank you.

DENISE: 37:14

Bye everyone.