Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you technologists. So I’m going to start with a really question: what was it like to manage this diverse through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, think the only constant has been change. And as leader, you obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. And I think what all found, as leaders, no matter what company you were … responsible for, that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How do we flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real time and people informed as we try and move through things? And then, just how do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really over the last few years is we each experience the world differently. We have employees who are remote. We have incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on front lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, you have people in different of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I it was really just — the hardest part was being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to build trust, because to be 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, has trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust create a greater sense of community or even to communicate that there no certainty, that is a muscle that you think you’ll to use in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a of things that we did. One — and we are a platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is you context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we make a concerted effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to it with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And we did that through streaming a lot of 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 a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did allow the humanity and the context to come through and I think that us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to about when things aren’t working, because a critical part being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And one of the things that we do at Vimeo is try — I do this in all of my town halls, we do it a lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, what are our top three things, and isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind of created, I think, a that sort of takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And when you make 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. both of those, being more video-first in our communication and being transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love advice about being video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live in a world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about the organization has changed. How do you see the changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming into workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, of the things that we think about at Vimeo a is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different environment a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is line between your personal life and work life is blending. … If you think about your personal life — look TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And they then have to come to work and to be trained on a job, read 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 to happen. And so I think that there is sort of this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words saying the way … we communicate and interact in personal lives is going to translate to work. And so I think that’s an area of 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 our communication mantras we never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My told me that this is what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do something because someone with formal authority them to do it. They want to do it because they understand why matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that that forces to really bring more of the “why” into how communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the I see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — this is true of all of us, but particularly the generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they want options and choices. And it’s not easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I and orient it more to agility. How can we have and principles and be committed to things, but also know to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of are going to want, either in terms of purpose in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve 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 I think, many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and understand our is very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and like that. And some of the things that we’ve done, have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have for our users, for internal teams. But I would say one of the that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we get from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look it all in totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” what you actually — when you really dig into it truly listen and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. so, I think for us, what we’ve really just tried 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 thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still of figuring it out, but I will tell you, some of things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid or travel or even things like our approach to compensation or our to DE and 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, an average the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because 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, of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and 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 is 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 team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it working, and changing them. And a great example is our and A. I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on they do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time 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 newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because another thing hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a about making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose they need, but also the training and the wisdom comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or to who’s done the job for many more years. What is your philosophy and on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will of have a solution for. I think about that all the time. We have a very distributed at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive team entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of able 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 folks that are the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches we’ve been taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re it at the top. So if my entire executive team distributed, that means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, and development for a whole set of new executives have just joined. We have sort of changed up executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call it our system — we’ve had to design an operating system, an executive team, for how we’re going to work in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do we the right communication loops? And so I think, from perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it ourselves model it and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for people. I will say, like many companies … I do that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to in and spend time in a room with their team, do social activities, of those things. I don’t think they will go away, do I think they 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, we do that, so this next generation is able to get the same growth that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the that you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can 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 go 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 a large of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and the different things that people are to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit how you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve thought the responsibility of a leader is to empower people do their best work and the responsibility of a company is to empower our to do their best work. And so, of course, we have a real role to play in supporting like mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the way initially probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. think that’s really important. And I always say, to so 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 people place who care. At the same time, I will what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach actually the root cause — that we can control at — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout 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 doing those things. And that, I think, actually where we should be spending more time — is how do we actually set the right prioritization focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root cause there that’s “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is detail there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, know, one of our themes at Vimeo this year “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going be 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 pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work SAS, software as a service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, for me, I think what I over the last few years is — that part, think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, lot of times when companies, we did things because maybe it was service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, any case. So, you know, I sort of see it as — way you channel how you are caring towards your and how you are empathetic, always should be in of helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for bottom line. And 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 have you taking care of yourself 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, a leader, do you practice some self-care or how do you make sure you’re getting the balance you need to be the most leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both can be true.” say this a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public the height of the pandemic and last year, market has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously 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 job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging of those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind of lead, been — it’s always been this way, which is, me, it’s I have to have passion. I have to have passion. I have believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important and for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and then will — I can kind of move through anything. I to find joy in my team. I feel like, especially in hard times, look back at my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought group of people together all on one team, and so think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. then, yeah, like, you have to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support network me and I do … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I for a couple of hours. I just disappear and walk around the city and I listen to my music and do whatever I need to do, that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work is 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 other days. Tell us little bit more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I the idea of an office as a time and completely goes away. And I think it’s really going to people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere the world. Even the concept of where you’re located going to change. And then the idea of like “I’m going to on this time zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on date” — I think that’s going to go away. I 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 — to basically enable that at scale many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going to look different. I think it’s going to require — if you think about the skill set to be global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require — I think in the future … the skill is going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and at scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. But I the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are going to go away. And promise is that if we are flexible and smart and we use technology the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much more evolved efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some of the passion you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you energy to lead that of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.