Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: you, it is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going start with a really easy question: what was it like manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, think the only constant has 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 … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and things around you. And so, you know, for me, it was about agility. How do we stay flexible as a team? do we communicate in real time and keep people as we try and move through things? And then, also just how do we with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of things I’ve really learned over the last few years is each experience the world so differently. We have employees are remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, are literally at war. On the other hand, you people in different parts of the world who are mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it really just — the hardest part was not being to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I think it forced us, as a 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 that actually we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications build trust or create a greater sense of community or even communicate that there is no certainty, that is a that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far into future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — and we are video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re sort of disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance you communicate. And we did make a concerted effort to move away from email chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, do it with your face, and your hands and your and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming a lot 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 video to welcome introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just video presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the 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 important thing.
Another important thing is, think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to about when things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we an 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 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 takes the stigma away from talking what’s not working. And when you make that normalized and comfortable people, I feel 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 of those, being more video-first in our communication and more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, and something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. many of our members of our workforce live in a video world. They’re used to as a means of communication. Which brings 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 into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, of the things that we think about at Vimeo lot is a lot of the mechanisms and communication that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally 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 life is definitely blending. … If you think about personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And they then have to come to work and to be trained on job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the recording of a three-hour meeting — 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 words for saying way … we communicate and interact in our personal is going to translate to work. And so I think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort of the generation, newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really understand “why” behind 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, “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 told them to do it. They want to it because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. I think that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we communicate and people.
So those are two of the things I see, then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this is true of of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for and they want options and choices. And it’s not always easy feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and principles and be committed things, but also know when to question, and when actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive when comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees are going want, either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in place that speak to this big sea change we’re seeing in terms values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s about 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 that. And some of the things that we’ve done, have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, same way we have for our users, for our teams. But I would say one of the things that we’ve really to do is appreciate that when we get inputs our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look at it all totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really into it and truly listen and do focus groups and 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 just tried to do have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will tell you, some of things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our to hybrid work or travel 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, really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, average or the same. And for us, it’s been stark because we have offices and teams in so many different and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the we solve different things. And we used to have a very, of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we to be more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms support our teams in a very different way, because their experiences and the world around is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and will tell you, it has involved a lot of — an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a example is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I has a perspective on whether they do open Q and A or Q 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 a dialogue a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers to the workplace just another moment, because another thing I hear from of my generation and older is a concern about making sure we are not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and purpose that they need, but also the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s done the job many more years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that will sort of have a solution for. I think that all the 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 realized benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the folks that are entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it the top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that means I have to learn how 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 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 an operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work together in that environment. How do share real-time feedback? How do we create the right loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s more have to be able to do it ourselves and model and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. will say, like many companies … I do believe in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We do have — we bring people into 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 should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I it’s really critical that as 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 interesting — the tools 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 having to out and find the information they need. And then, because have video tools available to us now, you know, they an opportunity to share their ideas with a large group people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and the research, and sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a bit about mental illness and the different things that people bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little about how you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a is to empower people to do their best work the responsibility of a company is to empower our people to do best work. And so, of course, we have a role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, way we initially probably sought 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 time off. And, I — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. I always say, to so many of our managers … just care. we just care, a lot of things get easier. don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the people in place who care. At the same time, I say what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we control at Vimeo — the root cause of a of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too many things or don’t feel like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is how do actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root there 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 should into the “What is the detail there, and do we need to do differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so we already went “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, if treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get results. And so, you know, for me, I think what I observed over last few years 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 sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of it as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees and how you empathetic, always should be in service of helping people do their best work, which deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. you have to believe that. You have to be committed that and if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not a trade-off. These are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how you been taking care of yourself during this period tremendous turmoil 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 make sure that you’re the balance you need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both can 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 at the of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine through a war — all these things that have happened. so, it’s a hard job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things has helped a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind of lead, been — it’s always 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 matters for world. And if I have passion, I have energy and then will — I can kind of move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. feel like, especially in hard times, I look back my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because brought a group of people together all on one team, and so think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think have a great support network around me and I … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and I listen my music and do whatever I 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 in office a couple of days, work from home a couple of other days. Tell a little bit more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: think the idea of an office as a time and 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 the concept where you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I that’s going 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. and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable at scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are 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 will require now — I think in the future … the skill set is going to like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a way that effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether 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 place budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are to go away. And the promise is that if we are flexible and smart and 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 that you’ve talked about as the thing 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.