Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, have technologists. So I’m going to start with a easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning 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. as a leader, you obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. And I think what we found, as leaders, no matter what company you were … for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always the environment and the things around you. And so, know, for 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 and move through things? And then, also just how we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, of the things I’ve really learned over the last few years is we each experience the world so differently. We employees who are remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who on the front lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, you have people different parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, so I think it was really just — the hardest part was being 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 agile 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 time with a culture that more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications build trust or create a greater sense of community or even to communicate that is no certainty, that is a muscle that you you’ll continue to use in the organization far into future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — and are a video 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 you lose nuance you communicate. And 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 with your face, and your hands and body and your emotions. And we did that through streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So send … I record my screen and just send a out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did allow the humanity and the context to come through and I think that helped a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, think, really important 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 this in of my town halls, we do it in a lot of meetings — is always talk what’s working, what are our top three things, and what isn’t — yet. And we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that sort of takes stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized and for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to be open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, what we need to pivot. And both of those, being more video-first in communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, think has been really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: 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. Which me to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, first wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. were designed for a totally different environment and a totally 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 at TikTok. generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they then have come to work and to be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I think that is definitely sort of this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those just fancy words for saying the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s an 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, I think there’s a desire to really understand the “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras we never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss me that this is what we’re going to do” — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, don’t just want to do something because someone with authority told them to do it. They want to it because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two the things I see, and then, you know, the third I think just flexibility. I think — and this is true of all us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking flexibility and they want options and choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible to ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and orient it to agility. How can we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also know to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, you share a few examples of ways that you Vimeo have tried to 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 or terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put place that really speak to this big sea change we’re seeing in of values 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 things that we’ve done, we a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same we have for our users, for our internal teams. 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 … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look it all in totality and try and pull out an “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you — when you really dig into it and truly listen and do 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 have a bunch of different mechanisms and then resist the urge to 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, some of the things we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to work or travel or even things like our approach to compensation or approach to 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 have offices and teams in many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the we solve different things. And we used to have a very, of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and what found is we have to be more localized. We really do. We have to mechanisms to support our teams in a very different way, because their experiences and the around them is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, has involved a lot of — as an executive and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. a great example is our Q and A. I like every leader I know has a perspective on whether they do open Q and A anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve our approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and have a dialogue a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on to the workplace for just another moment, because another thing I from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about making sure that we not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close to a mentor or to somebody who’s done the 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 that I don’t 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 realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds of opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that 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, that means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship development for a whole set of new executives who just joined. We have sort of changed up the team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with the challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call our operating system — we’ve had to design an system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work together in that environment. do we share real-time feedback? How do we create right communication loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s more we have be able to do it ourselves and model it then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. will say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. do have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, ask folks to come in and spend time in room with their team, do social activities, all of things. I don’t think they will go away, nor I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and think it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, so that this next generation is able get the same growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, 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 number of organizations that have really encouraged their young to present, as a way of having to go and find the information they need. And then, because we have video tools available to us now, know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas a large group of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and the research, and sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a bit about mental illness 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 really personal bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit how you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves to office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility a leader is to empower people to do their best and the responsibility of a company is to empower our people 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 companies, the way we initially probably sought to do that 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 — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. I always say, to so many of our managers … care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place care. At the same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach and the root cause — that we can control at Vimeo — the root cause a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have … focus, we’re asking people to do too many 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 do we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some there, right? There’s a root cause there that’s a “Oh, I like I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get into “What is the detail there, and do we need do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at this year 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 my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, as a service, so we already went from “growth all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My on this — and it hasn’t changed — I the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will better results. And so, you know, for me, I think what I over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot times when companies, we did things because maybe it lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, any case. So, you know, I sort of see as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees how you are empathetic, always should be in service helping people do 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 that and if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it not be a trade-off. These are 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 you just had baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice some self-care how do you make sure that you’re getting the balance need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I — recently, the 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 is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public the height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a ton post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a war — all these things that have happened. 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 of acknowledging both of those things has helped me lot. The way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has — it’s always been this way, which is, for me, it’s I have to passion. I have to have passion. I have to so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important matters for the world. And if I have passion, have energy and then I will — I can kind move through anything. I have to find joy in team. I feel like, especially in hard times, I look back at my career and actually, some of my fulfilling times in work were when — in the business situations. But it’s because it brought a group of people together on one team, and so I think that’s been, know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, have to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have a support network around me and I do … My and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city I listen to my music and do whatever I to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you about how hybrid work is going to look very different 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 a little bit about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as a and place completely goes away. And I think it’s really to be 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 to work 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 more work, particularly knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I it’s going to require — if you think about the skill set to be a CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require now — I think in the future … skill set is going to be like, “How do communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time in a way that is effective, that provides context alignment at scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. But I think ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these 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 the promise is if we are flexible and smart and we use in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you showed us some 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, thank you so much being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.