Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. I’m going to start with a really easy question: what it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial 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 has been change. And as a leader, obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. And I think we all found, as leaders, no matter what company were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always the environment and the things around you. And so, you know, for me, was really about agility. How do we stay flexible a team? How do we communicate in real time and people informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how do we lead more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really over the last few years is we each experience the world so differently. have employees who are remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who on the front lines, who are literally at war. the other hand, you have people in different parts of world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and I think it was 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 trust, because to be agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, have to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic actually we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense of community or to communicate that there is no certainty, that is muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a couple of that we did. One — and we are a video platform, so I obviously to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — one the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And did make a concerted effort to move away from and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to do it with your face, and hands and your body and your emotions. And we did through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record my screen and send a note out to people. Every new hire does video to 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 and the context to come through and I think helped us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing 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 that isn’t working. And so one of the things that we do at Vimeo is we — I do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always talk what’s working, what are our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind created, I think, a framework that sort of takes the away from talking about what’s not working. And when you that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to be open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, do we need to pivot. And both of those, more video-first in our communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think been really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice 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 how the organization changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave Gen Z coming 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 totally different environment and a totally different generation. But see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is line between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If think about your 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 trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or if you the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom recording a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to translate to work. And so I think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s desire to really understand the “why” behind things. And one our communication mantras is we never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a desire — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this is 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 why it matters, why it ties to the mission. I think that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two the things I see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. think — and 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 try and orient more to agility. How can we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, you share a few examples of ways that you at have tried to really be proactive when it comes to addressing understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want, either in of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in that really speak to this big sea change we’re in terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And some of the things we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the way we have for our users, for our internal teams. But I say one of the things that we’ve really tried to is appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. can’t look at it all in totality and try pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” what you actually — when you really dig into it and listen and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is actually there’s different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I think us, what we’ve really just tried to do is a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re kind of figuring it out, but I will tell you, of the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. So I it’s more just like I said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not everything as, like, an average or the same. And for us, it’s been stark because we have offices and teams in so different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about way we solve different things. And we used to a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of and fairness, and what we found is we have to be localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms to our teams in a very different way, because their experiences the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s been one, and I will tell you, it has involved a of — 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 do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our there multiple times, and I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right to listen and have a 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 about making sure that we are not providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s done job for many more years. What is your philosophy and take on making that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. think about that all the time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the 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 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 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 set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of changed up executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — call it our operating system — we’ve had to design operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do create the right communication loops? And so I think, from perspective, it’s more we have to be able to it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We do have — bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend in a room with their team, do social activities, all of those things. I don’t they will go away, nor do I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t 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 opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — tools 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 encouraged their young to present, as a way of having to 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 going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a little bit mental illness and the different things that people are bringing to work, it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives protests, we had a lot of people coming to the office trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering you can share a little bit about how you deal this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of leader is to empower people to do their best work and responsibility of a company is to empower our people to do best work. And so, of course, we have a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the way we probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources or support time off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s important. And I always say, to so many of our managers … just care. If we just care, lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have right people in place who care. At the same time, I will say we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, that that’s a reactive approach and actually the root — that we can control at Vimeo — the root of a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re people to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re 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 much going on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, we get into the “What is the detail there, and do need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at Vimeo this was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think there are 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 clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — think the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you 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 because maybe it was service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s what people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of see it — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees how you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping people their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You have to committed to that and if you use that consistently in decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care of yourself during period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you 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 to the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase use a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I say this 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 volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously through a ton 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, and it’s an incredibly job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging of those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried kind of lead, has been — it’s always been this way, is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have to passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is is important and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I energy and then I will — I can kind of through anything. I have to find joy in my team. I feel like, in hard times, I look back at my career actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were when — the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a of people together all on one team, and so I 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. think I have a great support network around me and 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 do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work going to look very different in the future than how we describe today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, work from home couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what you could see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of office as a time and 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 of where you’re located is going to change. And then the idea like “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m going attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going to go away. And I 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 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. I think it’s going to require — if you about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 ago versus what that will require now — I think the future … the skill set is going to like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and across time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that going to look very different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place or budget, 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 more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think just showed us some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being thing that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.