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