Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to be here.
SM: Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m to start with a really easy question: what was it to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think the constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. I think what we all found, as leaders, no matter what you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How do we stay flexible as team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed as we try move through things? And then, also just how do lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of things I’ve really learned over the last few years we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are the front lines, who are literally at war. On the 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 everyone certainty, being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, a company, to build more trust, because to be 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 that is more flexible 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 trust or create a 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 couple of things that we did. One — and are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but mean this sincerely — 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 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 and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record my screen just send a note out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome and themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was the humanity and the context to come through and I think that us a lot to, kind of, stay close. So was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to talk when things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we an area that isn’t working. And so one of the things we do at Vimeo is we try — I do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always about what’s working, what are our top three things, and isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind of created, I think, framework that sort of takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. when you make that normalized and comfortable for people, feel like it’s allowed us to be more open, an organization, about what do we need to change, what 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, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I that advice about being video-first. So many of our members our 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 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 think it’s incredibly different. And, know, one of the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of mechanisms and communication modes that we 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 life definitely blending. … If you think about your personal life — at TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in very specific way. And if they then have to come to work to be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s going to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so think that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we talk the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to translate to work. And I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other I see from sort of the generation, the newest generation into the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I there’s a desire to really understand the “why” behind things. one of our communication mantras is we never talk about “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — the that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that 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 with formal authority told them to do it. They want to do it because understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. I think that that forces leaders to really bring more the “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are of the things I see, and then, you know, the I think is just flexibility. I think — and this is of all of us, but particularly 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 try and orient it more to agility. How can have approaches and principles and be committed to things, also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive when it to addressing or understanding what your next generation of 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 in place that really speak to big sea change we’re seeing in terms of values the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. some of the things that we’ve done, we have people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way have for our users, for our internal teams. But I say one of the things that we’ve really tried do is appreciate that when we get inputs from employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. can’t look at it all in totality and try and pull an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really into it and truly listen and do focus groups talk to people — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, think for us, what we’ve really just tried to do have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind figuring it out, but I will tell you, some of the things that we’ve from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even like our approach to compensation or our approach to and I. So I think it’s more just like said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not everything as, like, an average or the same. And us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices and teams so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re substantial, about the way we solve different things. And we to 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. really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our in a very different way, because their experiences and the world around is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it involved a lot of — as an executive team and team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, not working, and changing them. And a great example is our Q and A. I like every leader I know has a perspective on they do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, we’re still figuring out the right way to listen have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers the workplace for just another moment, because another thing hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and the wisdom comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or somebody who’s done the job for many more years. is your philosophy and take on making sure that transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major that I don’t know that everyone will sort of a solution for. I think about that all the time. We have a distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent 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 are the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So if my entire team is distributed, that means I have to learn how to real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set of new executives who just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to with the same 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. How do share real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And so I think, from perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it and model it and then, I think it’s a proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I 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 time in a room with their team, do social activities, all of 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 we’ve really figured out perfectly and I think it’s critical that as leaders, we do that, so that this generation is able to get the same growth opportunities that we had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of having to go and find the information they need. And then, because we have video tools available to now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas with a large group people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and different things that people are bringing to work, whether is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how you deal with this personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the of a leader is to empower people to do their best work and the responsibility a company is to empower our people to do their 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 was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources or support or off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And I say, to so many of our managers … just care. we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care. At the same time, I say what we’re realizing now, in 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 don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too many 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 do we actually 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 equipped to it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the detail there, and we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with all of touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — and hasn’t changed — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat 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 think what I observed over the few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. were, I think, a lot of times when companies, we did things maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, you know, sort of see it as — the way you how you are caring towards your employees and how you are empathetic, should be in service of helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, will be good for the bottom line. And you have to that. You have to be committed to that and if you use consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are not mutually things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but growth? You mentioned you just had a baby. There’s lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do practice some self-care or how do you make sure that you’re the balance you need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: 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 it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went at the height of the pandemic and last year, 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 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 been — it’s always been this way, which is, me, it’s I have to have passion. I have to 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 team. I feel like, especially in hard times, I look at my career and 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 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 support network around me and I do … My and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and I listen to my and do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about hybrid work is going to look very different in future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, from home a couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think idea of an office as a time and place goes away. And I think it’s really going to be people are going to to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the of where 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 to attend this that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going to go away. And think what you’re going to find is more and more work, particularly from workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen and we will be using tools and technology — whether it’s video, it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, 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 ago versus what that will require now — I in the future … the skill set is going be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and across time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” of that is going to look very different. But think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether was time or place or budget, in some cases. And I those constraints are going to go away. And the promise is that if are flexible and smart and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some 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.