Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here with today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, have technologists. So I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it like to this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think the constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you a 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 company you were … 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 really about agility. How do we stay flexible as team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed as we try and through things? And then, also just how do we with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really learned over the last few is we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an incredible in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who are literally at war. On the hand, you have people in different parts of the who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think was really just — the hardest part was not able to give everyone certainty, not being able to apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, a 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 with a culture that is flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something that you into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or trust or create a greater sense of community or even communicate that there is no certainty, that is a muscle that you you’ll continue to use in the organization far into future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. — and we are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk video, but I mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all of disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did a concerted effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as much possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, we were communicating, to do it with your face, your hands and your body and your emotions. And did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I … I record my screen and just send a out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity the context to come through and I think that helped us a lot to, kind of, close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important 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 of the things that we do at Vimeo is try — 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. And we’ve kind of created, think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma away talking about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized and comfortable for people, feel like it’s allowed us to 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 in communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live a video world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How do see the workforce changing? What is different with the millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: think it’s incredibly different. And, you 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. They were designed for totally different environment and a totally different generation. But I see lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the line between personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you about your personal life — look at TikTok. This is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a 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 going happen, right? Or if 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 think that there definitely sort of this — you know, we talk the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the way … we and interact in 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 the generation, newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, of mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really 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 — the that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, is 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 they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we and motivate people.
So those are two of the things see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this is of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re for flexibility and they want options and choices. And it’s always 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 and be committed things, but also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation employees are going to 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 really speak to big sea change we’re seeing in terms of 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 listen understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And of the things that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, same way we have for our users, for our internal teams. I would say one of the things that we’ve really tried to is appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look at all in totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what actually — when 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 really just tried to is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of it out, but I will tell you, some of the things we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or things like our approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. So I it’s more just like I said, that agile listening, really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we offices and teams in so many different countries and differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the way we solve things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we to be more localized. We really do. We have design mechanisms to support our teams in a very different way, because their experiences the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely one, and I will tell you, it has involved a lot — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s a lot of trying things, it not working, and them. And a great example is our Q and A. feel like every leader I know has a perspective on whether they do open and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve our approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, another thing I hear from CEOs of my generation and older a concern about making sure that we are not providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a or to somebody who’s done the job for many years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge I don’t know that everyone will sort of have solution for. I think about that all the time. We have very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the 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 approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort of nice, we’re modeling it at the 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 of new who have just joined. We have sort of changed the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call our operating system — we’ve had to design an system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And I think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to be able do it ourselves and model it and then, I it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important learning. We do have — we bring people into an office. you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and time in a room with their team, do social activities, of those things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I think it’s really critical that as leaders, do that, so that this next generation is able to get the same growth opportunities that all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can 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 have video tools available to us now, you know, they have an to share their ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind of going the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness the different things that people are bringing to work, whether is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues 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 thought responsibility of a leader is to empower people to do their best work and responsibility of a company is to empower our people do their best work. And so, of course, we have a role to 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 more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re by trying to provide mental-health resources or support or off. And, I think — and empathy, just 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 same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is 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 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 set the right 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 themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to 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 work in SAS, software as service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results treat people well. And I actually think, if you people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get results. And so, you know, for me, I think I observed over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot times when companies, we did things because maybe it lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, any case. So, you know, I sort of see it as — the way channel how you are caring towards your employees and you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping people do their best work, which deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You have be committed to that and if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should be a trade-off. These are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care of during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but growth? You 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 sure you’re getting the balance you need to be the effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use lot to myself is “two things can be true, can be true.” I say this a lot. And me, I think of it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going a war — all these things that have happened. so, it’s a hard job, and it’s an incredibly job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind lead, has been — it’s always been this way, which is, for me, it’s I have have passion. I have to have passion. I have believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and 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 were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it a group of people together all on one team, and so I think that’s been, you know, really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. I am really fortunate. I think I have a support network around me and I do … My 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, that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how 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 home a couple of days. Tell us a little bit more about what you potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as time and place completely goes away. And I think it’s really going to be are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of like “I’m to work on this time zone” or “I’m going attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going go away. And I think what you’re going to 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 enable that at among many people, anywhere in the world. And then think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because think it’s going to require — if you think the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require now — think in the future … the skill set is going be 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, whether it’s, you know, training?” of that is going to look very different. But I the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve with, whether it was time or place or budget, some cases. And I think those constraints are going to go away. And the is that if we are flexible and smart and use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed some of the passion that you’ve talked about as the thing that gives you energy to lead that of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.