Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think the only constant has change. And 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 … responsible for, was that couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and things around you. And so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How we stay flexible as a team? How do we 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, one of the things I’ve really learned 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 are the front lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, have people in different parts of the world who experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think was really just — the hardest part was not being able to everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to more trust, because to be agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic actually we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance or build trust or create a greater sense of community or even to communicate that is no certainty, that is a muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. — and we are a video platform, so I obviously have talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — one of hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did make a effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, much as possible, and actually try, particularly for our team, when we were communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands your body and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record my screen and just send note out to people. Every new hire does a to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and context to come through and I think that helped us lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just mechanisms to make it easier to talk about when aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And one of the things that we do at Vimeo is we try — I do this all of my town halls, we do it in a lot of — 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 that and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed to be more open, as an organization, about what do need to 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 been really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I that advice about being video-first. So many of our members of workforce live in a video world. They’re used to video a means of communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about how organization has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What is different the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s different. And, you know, one of the things that think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were for a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. of them, I think, is the line between your personal life and work life definitely 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 then have to come to work and to be trained a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom recording a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And I think that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the way … we communicate and interact our personal lives is going to translate to work. And so definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I see sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire 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 — the that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this is what we’re to do” or — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, people, they 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 mission. And I think that that forces leaders to bring more of the “why” into how we communicate and people.
So those are two of the things I see, and then, you know, the third I is just flexibility. I think — and this is true of all of us, but the younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and want options and choices. And it’s not always easy feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try 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 be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next of employees are going to want, either in terms of purpose or terms of benefits or 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 all about listening, right? And think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried to and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As and surveys, and things like that. And some of the things that we’ve done, we have a people culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have our users, for our 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 the averages. You can’t look at it all in totality and try and pull out an “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really into it and truly listen and do focus groups and talk to — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different and desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really tried to do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring it out, I will tell you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees have our approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach to compensation or our approach DE and I. So I think it’s more just like I said, that listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an average or same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices and in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re substantial, about the way we solve different things. And we used have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to be more localized. We really do. have to design 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 tell you, it has involved a lot of — as an team 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 feel like every leader I know has a perspective whether they do open Q and A or anonymous and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach there times, and I know we will again, because we’re figuring out the right way to listen and have a with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to 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 providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose they need, but also the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for many more years. What is your and take on making sure 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. I about that all the time. We have a very workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, lack of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, for the youngest folks that are entering the workforce. I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it 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 whole set of new executives have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team almost in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we it our operating system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as an executive team, how we’re going to work together in that environment. How we share real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And I think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it ourselves and it and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important learning. We do have — we bring people into an office. you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time in a room their team, do social activities, all of those things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t think we’ve 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 growth that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — tools that you mentioned at the very beginning of conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that have encouraged their young people to present, as a way of having go out and find the information they need. And then, because we video tools available to us now, you know, they an opportunity 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 Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little about how you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring 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 to do their best work and the responsibility of company is to empower our people to do their best work. And so, of course, we have real role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like companies, the way we initially probably sought to do was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying provide mental-health resources or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. I that’s really important. And I always say, to so many of our … just care. If we just care, a lot things get easier. You don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms if just have the right people in place who care. At the same time, will say what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that that’s a approach and actually the root cause — that we control at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re in doing those things. And that, I think, is actually where we should spending more time — is 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, feel like I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, we get into the “What is the detail there, and we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be stakeholders say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software a service, so we already went from “growth at cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures results and treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, know, for me, I think what I observed over the 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 to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, any case. So, you know, I sort of see it as — the way you channel how are caring towards your employees and how you are empathetic, always should be in of helping people do their best work, which will results, which will be good for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You to be committed to that and if you use consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you some self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting the balance you need 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 this a lot. And for me, I think it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. know, we’re obviously going through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a in Ukraine going through a war — all these that have happened. And so, it’s a hard job, it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried kind of lead, has been — it’s always been way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have to have passion. have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important matters for 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, I look back my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were when — in the 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, really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support network around me I do … My husband and I have a deal, where Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and listen to my music and do whatever I need do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked how hybrid work is going to look very different in the future how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple days, work from home a couple of other days. Tell us little bit more about what you could potentially see that into.
AS: I think the idea of an office a time and place completely goes away. And I think it’s really going be people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in world. Even the concept of where you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of like “I’m to work on this time zone” or “I’m going to attend this that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s to go away. And I think what you’re going find is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we be using tools and technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s — to basically enable that at scale among many people, in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I it’s going to require — if you think about the skill set to be global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will require now — I think in the future … skill set is going to be like, “How do you with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in 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?” of that is going to look very different. But I the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, it was time or place or budget, in some cases. And I those constraints are going to go away. And the promise is that if we are flexible smart and we use technology in the right way, we’ll actually come away a much more evolved 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 you energy to that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.