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