Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m glad you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start a really easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, think the only constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. I think what we all found, as leaders, no matter what company were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How do stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed as we and move through things? And then, also just how do we lead with more humanity? know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really learned over the last few years is we experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who are literally war. On the other hand, you have people in parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, so I think it was really just — the part was not being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it us, as a company, to build more trust, because to agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you have to each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications build trust or create a greater sense of community even to communicate that there is no certainty, that is a muscle that think you’ll continue to use in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s couple of things that we did. One — and we are video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I mean this — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is you lose context and you nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to it with your face, and your hands and your body your emotions. And we did that through live streaming a of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent video messages. So I send … I record my screen and send a note out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and the context to come through I think that helped us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it to talk about when things aren’t working, because a part of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so one of the that we do at Vimeo is we try — do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always about what’s working, what are our top three things, and isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind of created, think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma from talking about what’s not working. And when you that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed to be more open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, what do need to pivot. And both of those, being more video-first in our communication and being more transparent normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that about being video-first. So many of our members of our live in a video world. They’re used to video as a of communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve talked how the organization has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What is different with the millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the things that think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, think, is the line between your personal life and life is definitely blending. … If you think about your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very way. And if they then have to come to work and to be trained a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom recording a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to to work. And so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I see sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a to really understand the “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And think there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me this is what we’re going to do” or — that, think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want do something because someone with formal authority told them to do it. want to do it because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And think that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are of the things I see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I — and this is true of all of us, but particularly younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they want and choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but is where I try and orient it more to agility. How we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo tried to really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation employees are going to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits in terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in place that really speak this big sea change we’re seeing in terms of from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And some the things that we’ve done, we have a people culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have our users, for our internal teams. But I would say one of the that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we get inputs from employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. can’t look at it all in totality and try pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it and truly listen and do focus groups and to people — what you’ll find is actually there’s different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I for us, what we’ve really just tried to do is have a bunch different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees have our approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach to or our approach to DE and I. So I think it’s more like I said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not everything as, like, an average or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark we have offices and teams in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, the way we solve different things. And we used to have very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to be more localized. really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our in a very different way, because their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So I that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it involved a lot of — as an executive team leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it working, and changing them. And a great example is our Q and A. feel like every leader I know has a perspective on they do open Q and A or anonymous Q A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, and I we will again, because we’re still figuring out the way to listen and have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because another thing I hear from CEOs my generation and older is a concern about making that we are not just providing our youngest employees the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or somebody who’s done the job for many more years. What is philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think that all the time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We people in over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed and being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So if entire executive team is distributed, that means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship development for a whole set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call it our system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to together in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? do we create the right communication loops? And so think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to be able do it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s a proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we folks to come in and spend time in a room with their team, social activities, all of those things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t we’ve really figured out perfectly and I think it’s critical that as leaders, we do that, so that next generation is able to get the same growth that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that have really their young people to present, as a way of having to out and find the information they need. And then, because we have video tools available to now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas a large group of people, but first, kind of going the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked little bit about mental illness and the different things that people bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can a little bit about how you deal with this personal — you know, when people bring their whole to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought responsibility of a leader is to empower people to do their best and the responsibility of a company is to empower our people do their best work. And so, of course, we have a real to play in supporting things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, know, the way I think, like many companies, the we initially probably sought to do that was more, know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, so many of our managers … just care. If just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms you just have the right people in place who care. At same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, in sort this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we control at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout is people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is how we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the detail there, and do we need to things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at Vimeo this was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, sideways, do you think that there are going to be who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work SAS, software as a service, so we already went from “growth at cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you get better results. And so, you know, for me, I think what observed over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s what people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of see as — the way you channel how you are towards your employees and how you are empathetic, always be in service of helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for bottom line. And you have to believe that. You to be committed to that and if you use consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you some self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting balance you need to be the most effective leader you be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I a lot to myself is “two things can be true, can be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a ton with post-pandemic, we a team in Ukraine going through a war — all these things that happened. And so, it’s a hard job, and it’s an privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort acknowledging both of those things has helped me a lot. way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has been — it’s always this way, which is, for me, it’s I have have passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what is doing is important and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy then I will — I can kind of move anything. I have to find joy in my team. feel like, especially in hard times, I look back at my career and actually, of my most fulfilling times in work were when — the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought group of people together all on one team, and so I think that’s been, know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, have to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am fortunate. I think I have a great support network me and I do … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I for a couple of hours. I just disappear and walk around the city and I listen to my music and whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: you talked about how hybrid work is going to look very different in future than how we describe it today. It’s basically office a couple of days, work from home a of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what you potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of office as a time and place completely goes away. I think it’s really going to be people are going want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. the concept of where you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going go away. And I think what you’re going to find is and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — basically enable that at scale among many people, anywhere the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you think the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years versus what that will require now — I think in the future … the skill set going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, it was time or place or budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints going to go away. And the promise is that if are flexible and smart and we use technology in the right way, we’ll actually come away a much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I you just showed us some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.