Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start a really easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it really challenging. You know, I think the only constant been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you have workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s around them. And I think what we all found, leaders, no matter what company you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. do we stay flexible as a team? How do we in real time and keep people informed as we try and move things? And then, also just how do we lead with more humanity? know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really learned over the last few years is we each the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an incredible in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who literally at war. On the other hand, you have people in different parts of the world are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it was really just — hardest part was not being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it us, as a company, to build more trust, because to agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense of or even to communicate that there is no certainty, that a muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s couple of things that we did. One — and we a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I 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 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 communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. we did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a 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 welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick 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 thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, because a critical of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. so one of the things that we do at is we try — I do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, what our 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 from about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us be more open, as an organization, about what do need to change, what do we need to pivot. both of those, being more video-first in our communication and 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 being video-first. So of our members of our workforce live in a video world. They’re used to video as means of communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve about how the organization has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the that we think about at Vimeo a lot is lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re antiquated. They were designed for a totally different environment a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One them, I think, is the line between your personal and work life is definitely blending. … If you think about personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very way. And if they then have to come to 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 Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort of — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are fancy words for saying the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is to translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s area of opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort the generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but think there’s a desire to really understand the “why” behind things. And of our communication mantras is we never talk about “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — 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 to do something because someone with formal authority told them to it. They want to do it because they understand why it matters, why it to the mission. And I think that that forces leaders to really bring more of “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the things I see, and then, 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 for flexibility and they want options and choices. And it’s not always easy and to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and and be committed to things, but also know when to question, and when to pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your generation of employees are going to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits in terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put place that really speak to this big sea change we’re seeing terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. some of the things that we’ve done, we have a and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way have for our users, for our internal teams. But I would one of the things that we’ve really tried to do is that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 … 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 how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it truly listen and do focus groups and talk to — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, think for us, what we’ve really just tried to do is have a of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing as action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring out, but I will tell you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach to compensation or our to DE and I. So I think it’s more just like said, that agile listening, constantly 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 countries the 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 in the name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to be more localized. really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our in a very different way, because their experiences and the world around them quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it has a lot of — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of things, it not working, and changing them. And a example is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I know a perspective on whether they do open Q and A or Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve our approach there multiple times, and I know we again, because we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay 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 employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity a mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for more years. What is your philosophy and take on sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort have a solution for. I think about that all the time. We a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being to 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 same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest that are entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve been taking, what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it at top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development a whole set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve to deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had to — we call it our operating system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as executive team, for how we’re going to work together in that environment. How we share real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? so I think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to be able do it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do that 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 a room with their team, do social activities, all those things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an that I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly I think it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, so that this next is able to get the same growth opportunities that all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve of a number of 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, because we have video tools available to now, you know, they have an opportunity to share ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a little about mental illness and the different things that people bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m if you can share a little bit about how you deal with increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader to empower people to do their best work and the responsibility of a is to empower our people to do their best work. And so, of course, we a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the way we initially probably sought do that was more, you know, you’re seeing a and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources or support or off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. think that’s really 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 have to design a hundred mechanisms you 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 that’s reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we can control at Vimeo — the root cause of a of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in those things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be spending more time — how do we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s issue there, right? There’s a root cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, should get into the “What is the detail there, and we need to do things differently?” And, you know, of our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so we went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, if you people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, for me, think what I observed over the last few years — that part, I think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, think, a lot of times when companies, we did things maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s what people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort see it as — the way you channel how you are towards your employees and how you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping people their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. And have to believe that. You have to be committed to that and if you use that 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 yourself during this period tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just 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 need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two can be true, both can be true.” I say a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This job is hard, it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going a war — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s hard job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve to kind of lead, has been — it’s always this way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what is doing is important and matters for the world. And I have passion, I have energy and then I — I can kind of move through anything. I have to joy in my team. I feel like, especially in hard times, look back at my career and actually, some of most fulfilling times in work were when — in hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a group people together all on one team, and so I think that’s been, you know, a really part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to 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 husband and I have deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just disappear I walk around the city and I listen to my 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 basically in office couple of days, work from home a couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think the of an office as a time and place completely goes away. And think it’s really going to be people are going want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of where you’re located is to 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 on this date” — I think 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. Communication and will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to enable that at scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I it’s going to require — if you think about skill set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require — I think in the future … the skill set going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and at scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of is going to look very different. But I think the thing you’ll see is just … there were these that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or or budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are to go away. And the promise is that if are flexible and smart and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually away a much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, think you just showed us some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This great.