Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to here.
SM: At 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, racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. know, I think the only constant has been change. as a leader, you obviously — you have a workforce that’s for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. I think what we all found, as leaders, no what company you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, you couldn’t always control the environment and the things you. And so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How we stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed 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 really over the last few years is we each experience the world differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … who are on the front lines, who are literally at war. On other hand, you have people in different parts of 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 one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, a company, to build more trust, because to be agile and flexible, and to lead humanity, you have to trust each other. And so, I’m sort 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 place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or trust or create a greater sense of community or even 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 things that did. One — and we are a video platform, so I obviously have to about video, but I mean this sincerely — one of hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted effort move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to do with your face, and your hands and your body your emotions. And we did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record screen and just send a note out to people. Every new hire does a video welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity the context to come through and I think that helped a lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to talk about things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so one the things that we do at Vimeo is we — I do this in all of my town halls, we do in a lot of meetings — is always talk what’s working, what are our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. And we’ve 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 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 and being transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, and certainly we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. So many of our members of workforce live in a video world. They’re used to video as a 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 the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the things we think about at Vimeo a lot is a of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. 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 between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you think about your personal life — look TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And they then have to come to work and to be trained on a job, a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or if you the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not to happen. And so I think that there is sort of this — you know, we talk about “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying way … we communicate and interact in our personal is going to translate to work. And so I think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort of generation, the newest generation coming into the workforce, is of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really understand “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is we never about the “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 this is what we’re going do” or — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, don’t just want to do something because someone with formal authority told to do it. They want to do it because they understand why it matters, why it to the mission. And I think that that forces to really bring more of the “why” into how communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the things see, and then, you know, the third I think is 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 to provide ultimate flexibility, this is where I try and orient it more agility. How can we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also know to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want, in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there or 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 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 and engagement surveys, and things that. And some 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 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 at it all in totality and try and pull out 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 different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I for us, what we’ve really just tried to do have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this what everyone’s feeling, let’s just 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 the things that we’ve 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 said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, average or the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices and in so many different countries and the 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” approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and what we is we have to be more localized. We really do. We to design mechanisms to support our teams in a very different way, because experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I 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 is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I know has a perspective on they do open Q and A or anonymous Q A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our there multiple times, and I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right way to and have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because thing I hear from CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about making sure that are not just providing our youngest employees with the and the purpose that they need, but also the and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a or to somebody who’s done the job for many years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have solution for. I think about that all the time. have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks are entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So my entire executive team is distributed, that means I to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set new executives who have just joined. We have sort changed up the executive team almost entirely in the 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 had to design an system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do create the right communication loops? And so I think, from perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it ourselves and model it and then, I it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We do — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask to come in and spend time in a room their team, do social activities, all of those things. I don’t think they will go away, nor I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s area that I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I think it’s really critical that leaders, we do that, so that this next generation is to get the same growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, it’s interesting — the tools that you mentioned at very beginning of our conversation, around video, can be really there. I’ve heard of a number of organizations that have really encouraged their people to present, as a way of having to out and find the information they need. And then, because we have video tools available to now, you know, they have an opportunity to share ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, talked a little bit about mental illness and the different that people are bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m if you can share a little bit about how deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves to 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 the responsibility of a company is to empower our people to their best work. And so, of course, we have a role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, many companies, the way we initially probably sought to do that more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting by trying provide mental-health resources or support or time off. And, think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s important. And I always say, to so many of our managers … just care. we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design a hundred mechanisms if just have the right people in place who care. At the same time, I will say what we’re 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 either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re in doing those things. And that, I think, is actually where we should spending more time — is how do we actually set the right and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, know, one of our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with all this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — think the best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, will get better results. And so, you know, for me, I think I observed over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times when companies, did things because 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, know, I sort of see it as — the you channel how you are caring towards your employees how you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping people do their best work, will deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. you have to believe that. You have to be committed to that if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not a trade-off. These are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have been taking care of yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil change, but also 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 getting balance you need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things be true, both can be true.” I say this lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height of the and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine through 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 me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to kind lead, has been — it’s always been this way, is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important matters for the world. And if I have passion, 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 back at career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were — in 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 a little sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am fortunate. I think I have a great support network around me and I … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk the city and I listen to my music and do whatever need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you about how hybrid work is going to look very different in the than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, work from home couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as a time place 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 concept of you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of like “I’m going work on this time zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled this date” — I think that’s going to go away. I think what you’re going to find is more more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and technology — whether it’s video, it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale among many people, in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 ago versus what that will require now — I think in the future … the set is going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and across time zones in a way that is effective, 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 very different. But 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 go away. And promise is that if we are flexible and smart and we use technology the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much more evolved and workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you energy to lead that of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.