Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: you, it is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, lead a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m to start with a really easy question: what was it 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 was challenging. You know, I think the only constant has been change. And as leader, you obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. And think what we all found, as leaders, no matter what you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, you couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. And so, you know, me, it was really about agility. How do we stay as a 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 learned over the last few years is we each experience world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an team in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who literally at war. On the other hand, you have people different parts 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 for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, a company, to build more trust, because to be and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you have to trust each other. so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging from this time with culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something that you put place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or a greater sense of community or even to communicate that there is no certainty, that is a that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — and we are a platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, I mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, you’re all sort of disparate, is you lose context and lose nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted effort to move away from and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, we were 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 lot of videos. We sent video messages. So I send … I record my and just send a note out to people. Every new does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what really did was allow the humanity and the context to come and I think that helped us a lot to, of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms make it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, a critical part of being agile is recognizing we an area that isn’t working. And so one of things that we do at Vimeo is we try — I do in all of my town halls, we do it a 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 you make that and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to more open, as an organization, about what do we need change, what do we need to pivot. And both of those, being more video-first in our and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. So many our members of our 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 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, one the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally environment and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, think, is the 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 very specific way. And if they then have to come to work and be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or if miss the meeting, and you have to watch the recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not to happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort of — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” are just fancy words for saying the way … communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to translate to work. so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing see from sort of the generation, the newest generation into the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a to really understand the “why” behind things. And one our communication mantras is we never talk about the “what” without “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — idea 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 because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. 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, then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and is true of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking flexibility and they want options and choices. And it’s always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where try and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and and be committed to things, but also know when question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways you at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive when it comes addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees are to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? there programs or processes you’ve put in place that really speak this big sea change we’re seeing in terms of from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And some of the that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have for users, for our internal teams. But I would say of the things that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look the averages. You 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 truly listen do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll is actually there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I for us, what we’ve really just tried to do is have bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, is 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 employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even like our approach to compensation or our approach to 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 particularly 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 name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to more localized. We really do. We have to design to support our teams in a very different way, their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely one, and I will tell you, it has involved a of — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a great example is our and A. I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on whether do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, I know we will again, because we’re still figuring the right way to listen and have a dialogue with very diverse workforce.
SM: I want 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 just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and purpose that 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: I think it’s a major challenge I don’t know that everyone will sort of have a for. I think about that all the time. We have a very workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest that are entering the workforce. So I think it’s challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So if entire executive team is distributed, that means I have learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for whole set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — call it our operating system — we’ve had to design an operating system, an executive team, for how we’re going to work together in environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do we create the right loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to able to 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 believe that in-person is really important for learning. We do have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, ask folks to come in and spend time in a room with 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 I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, so that this generation is able to get the same growth opportunities that we 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 present, as a way of having to go out and find the information they need. And then, because have video tools available to us now, you know, have an opportunity to share their ideas with a large group of people, but first, of going through 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, whether it is, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always 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 a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, know, the way I think, like many companies, the we initially probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting trying to provide mental-health resources or support or time 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 just care, a 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 say we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive and actually the root cause — that we can control at — the root cause of a lot of stress burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in those things. And that, I think, is actually where we be spending more time — is how do we set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s root cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel 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: the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, work in SAS, software as a service, so we already from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. so, you know, for me, I think what I over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. were, I think, a lot of times when companies, we did things maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, know, I sort of see it as — the you channel how you are caring towards your employees and how you empathetic, always should be in service of helping people their best work, which will deliver results, which will good for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. have to be committed to that and if you use that consistently your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These not mutually exclusive 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, do you practice self-care or how do you make sure that you’re the balance you need to be the most effective leader you be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot myself is “two things can be true, both can true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I think of as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We public at the height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re going through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team Ukraine going through a war — all these things that have happened. so, it’s a hard 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, for me, it’s I to have passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important and matters the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and then I will — can kind of move through anything. I have to find in my team. I feel like, especially in hard times, look back at my career and actually, some of my most times in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because brought 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 little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I really fortunate. I think I have a great support network around and I do … My husband and I have a deal, on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I 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 is going to look very different in the future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in a couple of days, work from home a couple of days. Tell us a little bit more about what you could see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of an office a time and place completely goes away. And I it’s really going to be people are going to want to work from 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 time zone” or “I’m to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I that’s going to go away. And I think what you’re going to find is more and more work, particularly knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and — 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 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 be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global and employees across time zones in a way that is effective, 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 very different. I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether was time or place or budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints going to go away. And the promise is that if we are flexible and and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much more and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This great.