Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m to start with a really easy question: what was like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think only constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you have a that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening them. And I think what we all found, as leaders, matter what company you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and the around you. And so, you know, for me, it was really agility. How do we stay flexible as a team? do we communicate in real time and keep people informed we try and move through things? And then, also just do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is we each experience world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are the front lines, who are literally at war. On the hand, you have people in different parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and I think it 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 it forced us, as a company, to build more trust, because to be and 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 with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to communications or build trust 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 into future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — and we a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is 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 actually try, particularly for leadership team, when we were communicating, to do it your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And did 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 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 and the to come through and I think that helped us lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, important thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just mechanisms to make it easier to talk about when aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is 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, we do it in lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, what our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that sort takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And when make that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s us to be more open, as an organization, about what do need 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 not working, I think has been really helpful, and something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. So many of our members of workforce live in 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 has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you about your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used to content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they then have come to work and to be trained on a job, 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 a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going happen. And so I think that there is definitely of this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are fancy words for saying the way … we communicate interact in our personal lives is going to translate work. And so I definitely think that’s an area opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort of generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a to really understand the “why” behind things. And one of communication mantras is we never talk about the “what” the “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — the that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that is 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 because they understand why it matters, why ties to the mission. And I think that that forces leaders to really more of the “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So are two of the things I see, and then, know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this true of all of us, but particularly the younger — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they 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 to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want, either terms 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 terms of values from 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 is similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things that. And some of the things that we’ve done, we a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have for users, for our internal teams. But I would say one of the things that we’ve really tried do is appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … 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 people — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different and desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really just to do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of it out, but I will tell you, some of the things that we’ve from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or or even things like our approach to compensation or our approach DE and I. So I think it’s more just like I said, that listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not treating as, like, an average 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 solve different things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to be more localized. We really do. have to design mechanisms to support our teams in very different way, because their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s been one, and I will tell you, it has involved a lot of — as executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it not working, and them. And a great example is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I has a perspective on whether they do open Q A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach multiple times, and I know we will again, because we’re 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 hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with flexibility and the 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. is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think about that all the time. have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, think, a lack of the same kinds of learning and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are 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 executive team is distributed, that means I have to how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a set of new executives who have just joined. We have of changed up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. I’ve had to deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we it our operating system — we’ve had to design operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re to work together in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do we the right communication loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s more have to be able to do it ourselves and model it and then, think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is important for learning. We do have — we bring people an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to in and spend time in a room with their team, social activities, all of those things. I don’t think will go away, nor do I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s area 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 the same growth that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that you mentioned at the very of our conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of having go out and find the information they need. And then, we 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 and the different things that people are bringing to work, 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 about how deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve 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 their work. And so, of course, we have a real role to play supporting things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, many companies, the way we initially probably sought to that was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, to so many our managers … just care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care. At same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, in of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach actually the root cause — that we can control Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, I think, is where we should be spending more time — is how do we actually set right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s root cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too going on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that are going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already pretty 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. My perspective on this — and hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver and treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. so, you know, for me, I think what I observed over last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of when companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, know, I sort of see it as — the way you 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 to that. You have to be committed to that and if use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are not mutually things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care of during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned 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 that you’re getting the balance you need be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I — recently, the phrase I use a lot to myself “two things can be true, both can be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I of it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” went public at the height of the pandemic and year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through 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, 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, has been — it’s been this way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have have passion. I have to believe so deeply that Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have and then I will — I can kind of move anything. I have to find joy in my team. I feel like, in hard times, I look back at my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it a group of people together all on one team, and I think that’s been, you know, a really big of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to be a selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I really fortunate. I think I have a great support around me and I do … My husband and I have deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just and I walk around the city and I listen to music and do whatever I need to do, and that’s important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work is going look very different in the future than how we describe it today. It’s in office a couple of days, work from home a of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what you could potentially that evolving 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 to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of where you’re located is going change. And then the idea of like “I’m going to work on this zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on date” — I think that’s going to go away. And think what you’re going to find is more and work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will using tools and technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — basically enable that at scale among many people, anywhere the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because think it’s going to require — if you think about the skill set be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what will require now — I think in the future … the set is going to be like, “How do you communicate diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a way that effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do you programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve with, whether it was time or place or budget, in some cases. And think those constraints are going to go away. And the promise is that we are flexible and smart and we use technology in the way, that we’ll actually come away a much more and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.