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 a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it 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, was really challenging. You know, I think the only constant has been change. And 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 we all found, leaders, no matter what company you were … responsible for, was you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment the things around you. And so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. do we stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate real time and keep people informed as we try and move things? And then, also just how do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of things I’ve really learned over the last few years is we each the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, are literally at war. On the other hand, you have people different parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it really just — the hardest part was not being to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to more trust, because 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 more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications build trust or create a greater sense of community or to communicate that there is no certainty, that is muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in the far into the future?
AS: There’s a couple of that we did. One — and we are a video platform, so I have to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — one of hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is you context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And 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 your face, and your and your body and your emotions. And we did that through live a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … record my screen and just send a note out to people. Every new hire does video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and context to come through and I think that helped a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, I think, creating mechanisms to make it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, because critical part of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so of the things that we do at Vimeo is try — I do this in all of my town halls, we do it in a lot of — 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 sort of the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And when you make that and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed to be more open, as an organization, about what do we need change, what do we need to pivot. And both those, being more video-first in our communication and being transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has been helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I that advice about being video-first. So many of our members of workforce live in a video world. They’re used to video 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 young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one the things that we think about at Vimeo a is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re antiquated. They were designed for a totally different environment and a totally generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the line your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you about your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if then have to come to work and to be on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And I think that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the way … we communicate and interact in our lives is going to translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s an area opportunity.
The other thing I see from 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 understand the “why” behind things. And one of our mantras is we never talk about the “what” without “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss me that this is what we’re going to do” — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t want to do something because someone with 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 more of the “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So those two 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 younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and 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 be committed to things, but also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can share a few examples of ways that you at have tried to really be proactive when it comes to or understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want, either terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there programs processes you’ve put in place that really speak to this big sea change we’re seeing terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? And I think, many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things that. And some of the things that we’ve done, we a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have for 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 … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look at it all in totality try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” what you actually — when you really dig into and truly listen and do focus groups and talk to people — you’ll find 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 then resist the urge to pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind figuring it out, but I will tell you, some of things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. So think it’s more just like I said, that agile listening, really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we offices and teams in so many different countries and differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the way 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 to be more localized. We really do. We have to mechanisms to support our teams in a very different way, because their experiences and world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s been one, and I will tell you, it has a lot of — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s a lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a great example is Q and A. I feel like every leader I know a perspective on whether they do open Q and or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach 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 diverse workforce.
SM: I to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just moment, because another thing I hear from CEOs of my and older is a concern about making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for many more years. What is philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think about that the time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. have people in over eight countries. My executive team entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a of 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 taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it the top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, and development for a whole set of new executives who have just joined. We sort of changed up the executive team almost entirely the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call it our system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as an executive team, how we’re going to work together in that environment. do we share real-time feedback? How do we create right communication loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s we have to be able to do it ourselves and it and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for people. I will say, like many companies … I do believe 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 and spend time in room with their team, do social activities, all of things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do I think should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t think we’ve figured out perfectly and I think it’s really critical that leaders, we do that, so that this next generation is able to get the growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that you mentioned at the very beginning of conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of having go out and find the information they need. And then, because we have tools available to us now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their with a large group of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and the research, and sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a bit about mental illness and the different things that people are to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, feeling really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you share a little bit about how you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader is to empower people to do best work and the responsibility of a company is to our people to 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 sought to do that was more, you know, you’re a problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources support or time off. And, I think — and empathy, empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, to many of our managers … just care. If we just care, a lot things 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 we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we can control at — the root cause of a lot of stress burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do 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 prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root there that’s a “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, you know, one our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: the economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you that there are going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My on this — and it hasn’t changed — I the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will better results. And so, you know, for me, I think what I observed the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times when companies, did things because maybe it was lip service or felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, you know, sort of see it as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees how you are empathetic, always should be in service helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for the line. And you have to believe that. You have be committed to that and if you use that in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are not mutually things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care of yourself this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, 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 a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I 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 last year, market volatility has tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going 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, it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort acknowledging both of those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has — it’s always been this way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what is doing is important and matters for the world. And if I passion, I have energy and then I will — I can of move through anything. I have to find joy my 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 group of people together all on team, and so I think that’s been, you know, really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. think I have a great support network around me and I do … My and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I disappear and I walk around the city and I 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 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 bit more about what you could potentially see that into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as time and place completely goes away. And I think it’s going to be people are going to want to work from anywhere, in the world. Even the concept of where you’re located going to change. And then the idea of like “I’m to work on this time zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s on this date” — I think that’s going to go away. And think what you’re going to find is more and work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will be using and technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — basically enable that 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 set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what will require now — I think in the future … the set is going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences employees across time zones in a way that is effective, provides context and alignment at scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. But think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time place or budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are to go away. And the promise is that if we are and smart and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you energy to that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This great.