CoStar CEO Andy Florence responds to the BI article. Note that the "fringe" reporters have a combined 18 years of CRE journalism experience.
All,

At CoStar Group we are proud to employ amazing people who create and provide the best products, information, analytics and marketplaces that power the real estate industry.  We strive to set the standard for accuracy and precision in everything we do because our clients rely on this data to conduct hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions. 

This type of exacting standard requires discipline, determination and commitment and the people of CoStar Group take great pride in their ability to deliver at this level.  We provide our people with world class industry training to advance professionally and enjoy long and rewarding careers within CoStar Group. 

Like any company, there are those who decide that the demands of our environment are not for them, and that’s ok.  For many who choose to leave, they are able to leverage their CoStar Group foundational training and experience to enjoy productive careers in commercial real estate and other industries.  

As you may know, one former employee who was fired for cause has developed an unhealthy obsession with CoStar Group.   He is neither credible nor informed.  Truth, accuracy and perspective are irrelevant to his effort to malign those that work at CoStar.  I am sorry he is in such a dark place, and I hope he can find a more positive purpose.   Some have expressed concerns that this person may pose a security risk. As a result, we have increased our security at the Richmond facility.  Some have expressed concerns that this person’s issues will cause the company to change our plans for our facility in Richmond.  They will not.  What matters is the thousands of great employees in Richmond and throughout our organization doing great work. 

Sadly, this individual directed a fringe reporter to a small but vocal group of disgruntled former employees for whom CoStar Group was not a good fit.  Rather than being open to learning about the real CoStar Group, the reporter chose to write a sensationalized story that grossly mischaracterizes the employee experience within our company.

Among the many things that the article gets wrong, or omits, a few stand out:

·         The reporter virtually ignores the context of the Great Resignation which has swept the country. The turnover rate in the real estate industry in 2021 was 32.8%, yet he mischaracterizes our attrition rate of 36.6% as “unusually high.”   In fact, now that we have returned to work our attrition is below the industry average.

·         During the Pandemic, we achieved a very high employee satisfaction score of 80% on our independent annual Employee Engagement Survey. While our employee engagement score saw an understandable dip when we all returned to the office last year, our employee retention rate has already returned to our normal long-term average. The vast majority of companies will struggle with the same return to office challenge over the upcoming months.  At CoStar Group, we are proud to have that important work behind us.

·         We have a commitment to our clients to provide precise information and exacting customer service and in order to meet this commitment, we must hold ourselves accountable, at all levels of the company, to a variety of metrics, values and goals. We will not apologize for these standards, nor will we compromise them to accommodate a vocal few who decide that this level of expectation is not for them nor that our commitments are not relevant to them.

·         Like many other companies, we believe recording customer calls serves as a valuable way to ensure quality.  Reviewing and sharing select, mostly positive business calls, is a critical part of our training process.  We regularly review sales and research calls to share best practices and to support the continued professional development of our employees.

As disclosed on our earnings call yesterday, we are focused on our plan to invest hundreds of millions into residential real estate solutions, not efforts to drag us all down.   That residential real estate investment is expected to create opportunities for thousands of employees and contribute to the further growth and success of our company.  When we announced that we were going to invest to roll CoStar out nationwide years ago, many outside the company talked us down, but we succeeded.  When we announced that we were going to invest millions into building Apartments.com into the leading site in the industry, again we faced a multitude of skeptics, and again we proved them wrong.   In short, it is always a bad idea to bet against the talented people at CoStar Group.
 
CoStar Group is a company where employees are valued and respected, and we are steadfastly committed to living up to these ideals. 

Despite our best efforts, we realize that there is always room for improvement.  We will continue to focus on ways to enhance the employee experience and provide a rewarding environment for our people.  We have several measures already in place to regularly collect employee feedback, and we will be launching third-party facilitated focus groups in the coming weeks.  We are eager to act upon the feedback we receive.

We are grateful for the hard work and dedication of all of our employees which has contributed to the extraordinary growth and success of CoStar Group for 35 years.
[{"id": "hy4r4jm", "text": "Typical Andy, instead of taking the feedback, he just sits in denial.", "replies": [{"id": "hy511ky", "text": "No contrition there. Just pure arrogance.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy56402", "text": "&gt; We have several measures already in place to regularly collect employee feedback\n\nI\u2019m sure that\u2019s going very well", "replies": [{"id": "hy6s8gj", "text": "Well, he said collect. He doesn\u2019t say what happens after that\u2026", "replies": [{"id": "hy8wgme", "text": "It's a library book return box with a garbage can", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy5j5ph", "text": "Why dont you all unionize?  I'm about to get downvoted but you are basically call center folks with generic job descriptions and responsibilities.  Perfect for collective barganing", "replies": [{"id": "hy5zblp", "text": "Because the Richmond office is all \ud83e\uddd1\ud83c\udfff\u200d\ud83e\uddb2\ud83d\udc71\ud83c\udfff\u200d\u2640\ufe0f\ud83d\udc71\ud83c\udfff\ud83d\udc74\ud83c\udfff\ud83e\uddd4\ud83c\udfff\ud83d\udc85 yass queen VCU grads who are pissed off that life doesn\u2019t work like a Kendrick Lamar song and can\u2019t just go shout and clap in Andy\u2019s face between each word and get all of their demands met. Just like the HR guy said. Are they supposed to fire every executive and replace with a black woman because George Floyd died?", "replies": [{"id": "i11jtpm", "text": "Found the CoStar exec!!", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "hy6g3qh", "text": "Bingo!", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy5joa6", "text": "While there's no doubt in my mind that Costar is running a toxic environment, you can't tell me that [this](https://i.imgur.com/JTdPENv.png) is a healthy obsession either lol.", "replies": [{"id": "hy65qs8", "text": "Agreed, it's a lot but it just shows it's not a vocal minority anymore. Tons of anonymous stories being shared.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}, {"id": "hy68111", "text": "The vast majority of stories are user submitted, the owner of the account is reposting emails/Dms that were sent to him by current and former employees.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}, {"id": "hycufkv", "text": "Worked there several years back as an entry level researcher to get my foot in the door in the business. Not sure how it is now, but it was never toxic. Good benefits and never stayed a minute after 5. Was actually the easiest job I\u2019ve ever had", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy65ijp", "text": "This is funny that CoStar is going through this because I had a headhunter reach out to me for a position lol", "replies": [{"id": "hy6unyz", "text": "I\u2019d never work there. We were a client. Always got a bad vibe", "replies": [{"id": "hy6vbpb", "text": "Are you speaking of Ten-X or CoStar?", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy6eqyn", "text": "This whole letter confirms everything the article says.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy6s5d8", "text": "Not surprising that the environment is toxic at a company that sues its own clients to extract higher fees as part of its business plan.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy743wm", "text": "They treat brokers like shit so not surprising they treat employees like shit. The whole industry hates them", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hy8y513", "text": "I worked at CoStar for 10 months. Worst time of my life, couldn\u2019t get out soon enough. \n\nGenuinely treat their staff just as bad, if not worse, than they treat their clients. So much happier now that I am free of that micro managed sweat shop", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hycixag", "text": "Loving every second of it. The Instagram was funny at first but now it\u2019s kind sad hearing about how toxic the environment is over there. I\u2019d love to build a competitor to that site, been using it for 10 years and I can\u2019t say it\u2019s made and leaps aside from redesigning it\u2019s interface every so often.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]