Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here with 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 people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start with a easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through a pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, think the only constant has been change. And as a leader, obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening them. And I think what we all found, as leaders, no matter company you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and 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 keep people informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one the things I’ve really learned over the last few years is we each experience world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an incredible in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who are at war. On the other hand, you have people in different parts the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, so I think it was really just — the hardest part was not able to give everyone certainty, not being able to apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to more trust, because to be agile and flexible, and to with humanity, you have to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to communications or build trust or create a greater sense of or even to communicate that there is no certainty, is a muscle that you think you’ll continue to in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a of things that we did. One — and we a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, I mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. we did make a concerted effort to move away email and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to do it with face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And we did through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record screen and just send a note out to people. Every new hire a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did allow the humanity and the context to come through I think that helped us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, 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 critical part of agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so one of things that we do at Vimeo is we try — I do this in all my town halls, we do it in a lot of meetings — 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 framework that sort takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And you make that normalized and comfortable for people, I like it’s allowed us to be more open, as organization, about what do we need to change, what do we need to pivot. both of those, being more video-first in our communication 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 being video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live a video world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. Which brings me to my question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How 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: I it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the things that think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One them, I think, is the line between your personal life and work is definitely blending. … If you think about your personal life — look at TikTok. This is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a specific way. And if they then have to come 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 have to watch the Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just going 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 … we communicate and interact in personal lives is going to translate to work. And I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing see from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, of mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really understand “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And think there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do something someone with formal authority told them to do it. They want to do it because they why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we and motivate people.
So those are two of the things I see, and then, know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this is true all of us, but particularly the younger generation — think they’re looking for flexibility and they want options 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 when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, you share a few examples 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 in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are programs or processes you’ve put in place that really speak to big sea change we’re seeing in terms of values from workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? And think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And of the things that we’ve done, we have a people culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we for our users, for our internal teams. But I would say one the things that we’ve really tried to do is that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at averages. You can’t look at it all in totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really into it and truly listen and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really 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 just do 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 our approach to hybrid work or 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 agile listening, constantly really what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an average or the same. 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 way we solve different things. And we used to a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to be 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 quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, I will tell you, it has involved a lot — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, 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 they do open 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 a 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 is a concern about making sure that we are not just our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and the that 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 take on making sure knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think about that the time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just 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 at the top. So if my entire team is distributed, that means I have to learn to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of changed the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with the same challenges. we’ve had to literally — we call it our operating system — we’ve to design an operating system, as an executive team, for we’re going to work together in that environment. How do we real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And I 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 that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time a room with their team, do social activities, all of things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do I 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 as leaders, we do that, so that this next generation is to get the same growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present, as way of having to go out and find the information they need. then, because we have video tools available to us now, know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas with a group of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, talked a little bit about mental illness and the things that people are bringing to work, whether it is, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling personal issues bubble 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 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 a leader is to empower people to do their best work and the responsibility of a company to empower our people to do their best work. And so, of course, have a real role to play in supporting things mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, many companies, the way we initially probably sought to do was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, to so of our managers … just care. If we just care, a lot of get easier. You don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the people in place who care. At the same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, 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 stress and 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 doing things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is how we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s issue 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 the “What the detail there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, you 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. I the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, work in SAS, software as a service, so we already went “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures results and treat people well. And I actually think, you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. so, you know, for me, I think what I observed over the last few years — that part, I think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, lot of times when companies, we did things because it was lip 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 as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your and how you are empathetic, always should be in service helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for 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 care of yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, a leader, do you practice some self-care or how do you make sure you’re getting the balance you need to be the most effective you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot myself is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I this a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This job is hard, it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a ton post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s a hard job, and it’s an privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to 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 doing is and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and I will — I can kind of move through anything. have to find joy in my team. I feel like, especially in hard times, look back at my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it 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 a selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. I I have a great support network around me and I do … My husband and I a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just and I walk around the city and I listen my music and do whatever I need to do, that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how work is 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 a couple of other days. Tell a little bit more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: think the idea of an office as a time place completely goes away. And I think it’s really to be people are going to want to work anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of 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 that’s going to go away. And I think what you’re going find is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going be done anywhere, anytime. Communication 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 among many people, anywhere the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going look different. Because I think it’s going to require — you think about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus that will require now — I think in the … the skill set is going to be like, “How do communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a way that effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do you organize programs, it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time place or budget, in some cases. And I think constraints are going to go away. And the promise 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 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.