Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m glad you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 people — you have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, 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. And I what we all found, as leaders, no matter what you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t control the environment and the things around you. And so, you know, for me, it really about agility. How do we stay flexible as team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed as try and move through things? And then, also just how we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of things I’ve really learned over the last few years we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on the lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, have people in different parts of the world who experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it was really just — the hardest was not being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply 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 to lead humanity, you have to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is more flexible nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or trust or create a greater sense of community or even to communicate that there is no certainty, is a muscle that you think you’ll continue to use the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a couple things that we did. One — 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 and you nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted effort to move away 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 and body and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous messages. So I send … I record my screen and send a note out to people. Every new hire does a to welcome 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 helped us lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms make it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing have an area that isn’t working. And so one the things that we do at Vimeo is we try — I this in all of my town halls, we do it a lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, are our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that sort of the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And you make that normalized and comfortable for people, I like it’s allowed us to be more open, as an organization, what do we need to change, what do we need to pivot. And both of those, more video-first in our communication and being more transparent normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, and something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about video-first. So many of our members of our workforce in a video world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. Which brings to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, know, one of the things that we think about at a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. were designed for a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the line between personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you think about your personal life — look TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very way. And if they then have to come to work and to 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 that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy for saying the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to to work. And so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing see from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, of mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really understand the “why” things. And one of our communication mantras is we never talk about “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me this is what we’re going to do” or — that, think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do something because someone formal authority told them to do it. They want to do it because they understand why matters, why it ties to the mission. And I that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the things I see, then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. think — and this is true of all of us, particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for and they want options and choices. And it’s not easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is I try and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and principles be committed to things, but also know when to question, and to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding your next generation of employees are going to want, either in of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there programs or you’ve put 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 about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As engagement surveys, and things like that. And some of the things that we’ve done, have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same we have for our users, for our internal teams. But I would one of the things that we’ve really tried to do appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at averages. You can’t look at it all in totality and try and pull out obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — you really dig into it and truly listen and do focus and 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 just tried to do is have a bunch of listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing as the action.” it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our to hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach compensation or our approach to DE and I. So I think it’s more like I said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not everything as, like, an average or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we have and teams in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re substantial, about the way we solve different things. And used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our in a very different way, because their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it has involved a 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 our and A. I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on whether they do Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out right way to listen and have a dialogue with very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on to the workplace for just another moment, because another thing hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about making sure we are not just providing our youngest employees with flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and the that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a or to somebody who’s done the job for many more years. What is philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think about that all the time. We have very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds 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 the top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that means have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set of new who have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team almost in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call our operating system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as an executive team, how we’re going 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 have to be able to do it ourselves and it and then, I think it’s a more proven for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is important for learning. We do have — we bring people into office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time a room 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 an 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 to get same growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that really encouraged their young people to present, as a 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 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, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and really personal 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 people bring 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 to do their best work 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 in things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the we initially probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s important. And I always say, to so many of our managers … just care. If we care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care. the same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach and actually the root — that we can control at Vimeo — the root cause a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too many things or they don’t like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, I think, actually where we should be spending more time — is how do we actually 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 too much going on. I don’t equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the detail there, and do we to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: 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 pendulum has swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, will get better results. And so, you know, for me, I think I observed over the last few years is — that part, think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, lot of times when companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service or 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, sort 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 best work, will deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. And have to believe that. You have to be committed to that if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it not be a trade-off. These are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how you been taking care of yourself during this period of tremendous and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a lot on shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice some self-care or how do you sure that you’re getting the balance you need to be the most effective leader can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot myself is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I this a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This job hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the 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 incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things has helped a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has been — it’s always been way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply what Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world. And if have passion, I have energy and then I will — can kind of move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. I feel like, in hard times, I look back at my career and actually, of my most fulfilling times in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s it brought a group of people together all on team, and so I think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. then, yeah, like, you have to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support network me and I do … My husband and I have deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and I listen to my and do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So talked about how hybrid work is going to look very in the future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, work home a couple of other days. Tell us a bit more about what you could potentially see that into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as a time and place completely goes away. And think it’s really going to be people are going to want to work anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of 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 to go away. And I what you’re going to find is more and more work, particularly from workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and will be using tools and technology — whether it’s video, it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale among many people, in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders going to look different. Because 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 require now — I in the future … the skill set is going to like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and across time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context 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 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 promise is that if we are flexible smart and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some the passion that you’ve talked about as being the that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.