Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, have technologists. So I’m going to start with a really easy question: what it like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it really challenging. You know, I think the only constant has change. And as a leader, you obviously — you have workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to what’s happening around them. And I think what we all found, as leaders, matter what company you were … responsible for, was that couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and the things you. And 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 people informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is we each experience the 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 world who are experiencing mental-health or burnout, and so I think it was really just — the hardest part was being able to give everyone certainty, not being able just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately it forced us, as a company, to build more trust, because to be agile and flexible, and to with humanity, you have to trust each other. And so, I’m of optimistic that actually we’re emerging from this time with a culture that is flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to communications or build trust or create a greater sense of community or to communicate that there is no certainty, that is a muscle that think you’ll continue to use in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things we did. One — and we are a video platform, so I obviously have talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all of disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did a concerted effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, particularly our leadership team, when we were communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands and 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 I … I record my screen and just send a note out to people. 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 the context to come through and I think that helped us a lot to, of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really 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 the that we do at Vimeo is we try — do this in all of my town halls, we do it in a lot meetings — is always talk about what’s working, what are our top three things, what isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind of created, I think, framework that sort of takes the stigma away from about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to be more open, as an organization, what do we need to change, what do we to pivot. And both of those, being 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 advice about being video-first. So many of our of our 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 how the organization has changed. How do you see the workforce changing? is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s different. And, you know, one of the things that we think about at a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They designed for a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But see a lot of differences. One 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. This is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they then have come to work and 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 the Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s not going to happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort of this — know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy 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 I see from sort of the generation, the newest coming into the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really the “why” behind things. And one of our communication is we never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this is what we’re going do” or — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, people, they don’t just want to do something because someone with formal authority told 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 communicate and motivate people.
So those are of the things I see, and then, you know, third I think is just flexibility. I think — this is true of all of us, but particularly the generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they want and choices. And it’s not always easy and 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, but know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that at Vimeo have tried 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 place that really speak to this big sea change we’re in terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, course, it’s all about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As engagement surveys, and things like that. And some of things that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net score, the same way we have for our users, for our internal teams. I would say one of the things that we’ve really tried to do appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t at the averages. You can’t look at it all in and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you actually — when you really into it and truly listen and do focus groups and talk people — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different experiences and desires your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really just tried do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind figuring it out, but I will tell you, some the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach to or our approach to 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 or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because have offices and teams in so many different countries the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the way we solve different things. we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have be more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our teams in very different way, because their experiences and the world around is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, I will tell you, it has involved a lot of — as executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it not working, and them. And a great example is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I know a perspective on whether they do open Q and A or Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our there multiple times, and I know we will again, because we’re figuring out the right way to listen and have a dialogue with a very workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just moment, because another thing I hear from CEOs of generation and older is a concern about making sure that are not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the that they need, but also the training and the wisdom comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s done 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 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 in over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have a workforce and being able to attract talent and just more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort of nice, we’re modeling it at the top. So if my entire executive is distributed, that means I have to learn how to real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set of new who have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team 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 work together in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How we create the right communication loops? And so I think, 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 young people. I will say, like many companies … do believe that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We do have — we people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come in spend time in a room with their team, do 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 that I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, so this next generation is able to get the same growth opportunities that all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the that you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, can really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that have 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 to us now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas with large group of people, but first, kind of going the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and the things that people are bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how you with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader is to empower to do their best work and the responsibility of a company is empower our people to do their best work. And so, of course, we have real role to play in supporting things like mental-health or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like companies, the way we initially probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health or support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. I always say, to so many of our managers … just care. If we just care, a lot things get easier. You don’t have to design a mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care. At same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach actually the root cause — that we can control Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout is people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in those things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be spending 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 “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too much on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get the “What is the detail there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, know, one of our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that are 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. think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work SAS, software as a service, so we already went from “growth all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, 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 maybe it was service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of see as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees how you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping do their best work, which will deliver results, which be good for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You to be committed to that and if you use that consistently your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking of yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting the balance you need to be most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot to is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I say this lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This job 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 going a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through war — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s a job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to of lead, has been — it’s always been this way, which is, for me, it’s I to have passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply what Vimeo is doing is important and matters for world. And if I have passion, I have energy then I will — I can kind of move through anything. I to find joy in my team. I feel like, in hard times, I look back at my career and actually, some my most fulfilling times in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s it brought 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 little sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have great support network around me and I do … husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and listen to my music and do whatever I need to do, and that’s important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work going to look very different in the future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a of days, work from home a couple of other days. Tell us a little more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: think the idea of an office as a time and completely 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” “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I that’s going to go away. And I think what you’re to find is more and more work, particularly from workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and technology — it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, are going to look different. Because I think it’s going require — if 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, provides context and alignment at scale? How do you programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place or budget, in cases. And I think those constraints are going to away. And the promise is that if we are flexible and smart we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually away a much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This great.