Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going start with a really easy question: what was it like to manage diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, was really challenging. You know, I think the only has been 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 all found, as leaders, no matter what company you were … responsible for, that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment the things around you. And so, you know, for me, was really about agility. How do we stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real time keep people informed as we try and move through things? And then, just how do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really learned over the few years is we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … 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 think it really just — the hardest part was not being able to give certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to build more trust, because to agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you have trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging this time with a culture that is more flexible nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create greater sense of community or even to communicate that there is certainty, that 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 are video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, you’re all sort of disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance when communicate. And we did make a concerted effort to move from email and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to it with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. we did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record screen and just send a note out to people. Every new does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow humanity and the context to come through and I that helped us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to talk about when aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have an that isn’t working. And so one of the things that we at Vimeo is we try — I do this in all my town halls, we do it in a lot of meetings — is always about what’s working, what are our top three things, what isn’t working — 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 normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us be more open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, do we need to pivot. And both of those, more video-first in our communication and being more transparent and what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that 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 talked about how the has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What is different with the millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming into workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the and communication modes that we still use today, they’re antiquated. They were designed for a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But I see lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the line between your personal life and life is definitely blending. … If you think about your personal — look at TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in very specific way. And if they then have to come to and to be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have watch the Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I think there is definitely sort of this — you know, we talk about “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the way … we communicate and in our personal lives is going to translate to work. And so I 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 the “why.” And think there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told that this is what we’re going 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 do it because understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we communicate and people.
So those are two of the things I see, and then, you know, third I think is just flexibility. I think — and this is true of all of us, but particularly the generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and want options and choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and it more 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, can share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have to really be proactive when it comes to addressing or what your next generation of employees are going to want, in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in place that speak to this 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 understand our is very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And some the things that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, same way we have for our users, for our internal teams. But would say one of the things that we’ve really tried to do 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 obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really dig into and truly listen and do focus groups and talk to — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different experiences desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, we’ve really just tried to do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still of figuring it out, but I will tell you, of the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach compensation or our approach to DE and I. So I it’s more just like I said, that agile listening, really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an average or the same. And us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices teams in so 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 of consistency 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 very way, because their experiences and the world around them is different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and will tell you, it has involved a lot of — as executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a great example is Q and A. I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on they do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because another thing I from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with the 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 on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that will sort of have a solution for. I think that all the time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest that are entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort 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 a set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of changed up executive team almost entirely 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 operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work together in that environment. How do share real-time feedback? How do we create the right loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s we have to be able to do it ourselves model it and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I believe that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. do have — we bring people into an office. you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time in a room with their team, social activities, all of those things. I don’t think will go away, nor do I think they should. But, know, candidly, it’s an area that I 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 opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the that you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of number of organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of to go out and find the information they need. And then, because have video tools available to us now, you know, they have an opportunity to their ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and the different that people are bringing to work, whether it is, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can a little bit about how you deal with this increasing — you know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader is to empower people to their best work and the responsibility of a company is to our people 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, you know, way I think, like many companies, the way we initially probably sought do that 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 — empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, so many of our managers … just care. If just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design 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’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — we can control at Vimeo — the root cause of a of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have … focus, we’re asking people to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing things. And that, I think, is actually where we be spending more time — is how do we actually set the right prioritization 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. don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, we should into the “What is the detail there, and do we to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be stakeholders say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, 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 went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you get better results. And so, you know, for me, I what I observed over the last few years is — part, I think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, lot of times when companies, we did things because maybe it was lip or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in 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 best work, which deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. have to be committed to 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 you been taking care of yourself during this period of tremendous and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a lot your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice some self-care or how you make sure that you’re getting the balance you need to the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I think it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going a war — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s a hard job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging 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 have passion. I have have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is is important and matters for the world. And if I passion, I have energy and then I will — I kind of move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. feel like, especially in hard times, I look back at my career actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were when — the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a of people together all on one team, and so think that’s been, you know, a really big part it. And then, yeah, like, you have to be little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have a great network around me and I do … My husband and I a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I just disappear and walk around the city and I listen to my music and do whatever I to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work is going to 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 other days. Tell us a 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 going be people are going to want to work from anywhere, in the world. Even the concept of where you’re is going to change. And then the idea of “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — think that’s going to go away. And I think you’re going to find is more and more work, from knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will 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. And then think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — you think about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years versus what 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 is effective, that provides and alignment at scale? How do you organize programs, it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to very different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place or budget, in cases. And I think those constraints are going to go away. And promise is that if we are flexible and smart we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come a much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just 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 for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.