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