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