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