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, lead a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it like manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, think the only constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re to control what’s happening around them. And I think we all 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 the things around you. 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 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. We have who are remote. We have an incredible team in … employees who are on the front lines, who literally at war. On the other hand, you have people in different parts of the who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I it was really just — the hardest part was not being able to give everyone certainty, being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I think it forced us, as a company, to build more trust, to be 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 is more and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater of community or even to communicate that there is certainty, that is a muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in the far into the 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, but I mean this — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. we 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 with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So send … I record my screen and just send note out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and the to come through and I think that helped us lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make easier to talk about when things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have area that isn’t working. And so one of the things that we do at Vimeo we try — I do this in all of my town halls, do it in a lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, what are top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that of takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And you make that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed to be more open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, what we need to pivot. And both of those, being video-first in our communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I that advice about being video-first. So many of our members of our live in a video world. They’re used to video as means of communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve about how the organization has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What is different with the young millennials, even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, know, one of the things that we think about Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a different environment and a totally different generation. But I see lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you think your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used to content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they have to come to work and to be trained on a job, a 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 three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I think there is definitely sort of this — you know, talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the way … we and interact in our personal lives is going to translate to work. And I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The thing I 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 desire to really understand “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is we never talk about “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss me that this is what we’re going to do” or — that, think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do something because someone formal 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 really bring more of the “why” how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the things see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this 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 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 things, but also know when to question, and when to pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have to really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation employees are going to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there programs or you’ve put in place that really speak to this big sea we’re seeing in terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? And I think, like organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And of the things that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same we have for our users, for our internal teams. But I would say one the things that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t at the averages. You can’t look at it all totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it and listen and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll is actually there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. so, I think for us, what we’ve really just tried to is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and resist 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 kind of figuring out, but I will tell you, some of the that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach compensation or our approach to DE and I. So think it’s more just like I said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but treating everything as, like, an average or the same. And us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices and in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, the way we solve different things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global in the name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our teams in a different way, because their experiences and the world around them is different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I tell you, it has involved a lot of — an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And 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 approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because another I hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern making sure that we are not just providing our youngest with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and the wisdom comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a or to somebody who’s done the job for many years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of a solution for. I think about that all the time. have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in 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 attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and 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 how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for whole set of new executives who have just joined. We have of changed up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to 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 that environment. How do we real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And so think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to able to do it ourselves and model it and then, think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. will say, like many companies … I do believe 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 time in room with their team, do social activities, all of those things. I don’t think they will away, nor do I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, that this next generation is able to get the same growth opportunities we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can be helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that really encouraged their young people to present, as a of having to go out and find the information need. And then, because 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, of going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about illness and the different things that people are bringing work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to the feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how you deal with this increasing personal — know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a is to empower people to do their best work the responsibility of a company is to empower our people do their best work. And so, of course, we have a real role to in supporting things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, know, the way I think, like many companies, the way we initially probably 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 — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And 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 in who care. At the same time, I will say what we’re now, in sort of this next phase, is that that’s a approach and actually the root cause — that we can control at Vimeo — root cause of a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too many things or don’t feel like they’re supported in doing those things. that, I think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is how do actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some 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 to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the 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 think that there are going to be stakeholders who say, 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, I work in SAS, software a service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and 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, know, for me, I think what I observed over the few years is — 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 lip service or felt pressured. And that’s not going 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 channel how you are caring towards your employees and how you are empathetic, should be in service of helping people do their 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 not 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, a leader, do you practice some self-care or how you make sure that you’re getting the balance you need to be the most effective leader you be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot to is “two things can be true, both can be true.” say this a lot. And for me, I think of as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” went public at the height of the pandemic and year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in going through a war — all these things that happened. And so, it’s a hard job, and it’s incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of 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 passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is is important and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and I will — I can kind of move through anything. I have to find in my team. I feel like, especially in hard times, I look back at my career actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s it brought a group of people together all on one team, so I think that’s been, you know, a really big of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to a 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, where on Sundays, I disappear for a 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 about how work is going to look very different in the future than how describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, work from home a of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what you potentially 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 people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. the concept of where you’re located is going to change. then the idea of like “I’m going to work on time zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on 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. Communication and will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and technology — it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable at scale among many people, anywhere in the world. 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 in the future … the skill set is going to 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, whether it’s, know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place or budget, in some cases. I think those constraints are going to go away. And promise is that if we are flexible and smart and use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much more evolved efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed some of the passion that you’ve talked about as the thing that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.