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