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 have creatives, you finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start with a easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think only constant 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 we all found, as leaders, no matter what company you were … for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment the things around you. And so, you know, for me, it really about agility. How do we stay flexible as a team? How we communicate in real time and keep people informed we try and move through things? And then, also just do 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 world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on front lines, who are literally at war. On the hand, you have people in different parts of the world are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it was really — the hardest part was not being able to give everyone certainty, not being to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to build 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 time with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you an example of something that you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance or build trust or create a greater sense of community or to communicate that there is no certainty, that is a muscle that you think you’ll continue use in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s couple of things that we did. One — and we are a video platform, so I obviously to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — one the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is you lose context 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 for leadership team, when we were communicating, to do it with your face, and hands and your body and your emotions. And we did through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. I send … I record my screen and just send a note out to people. Every hire does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what really did was allow the humanity and the context 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 it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have an area isn’t working. And so one of the things that we do at Vimeo we try — I do this in all of my halls, we do it in a lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, are our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. And we’ve kind of created, think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma away from talking about what’s working. And when you make that normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us 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 more 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 means of communication. Which brings me my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How do you see the changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s different. And, you know, one of the things that we think about Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. were designed for a totally different environment and a different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One them, I think, is the line between your personal and work life is definitely blending. … If you think your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, a 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 to happen, right? Or you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom 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 about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words saying the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is to translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s area of opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort of the generation, the newest generation into the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire really understand the “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 to do” — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do because someone with formal authority told them to do it. They want do it because they understand why it matters, why ties to the mission. And I think that that forces leaders to really bring more the “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the I see, and then, you know, the third I is just flexibility. I think — and this is of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility they want options and choices. And it’s not always and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where try and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches principles and be committed to things, but also know when to question, when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have tried really be proactive when it comes to addressing or understanding what next generation of employees are going to want, either in of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? there programs or processes you’ve put in place that speak to this big sea change we’re seeing in terms values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And of the things that we’ve done, we have a people and NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have our users, for our internal teams. But I would say one of the things we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we get inputs our employees, 1,300 employees … 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 very different experiences and desires among your employees. so, I think for us, what we’ve really just 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 do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will tell you, some the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid or travel or even things like our approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. 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 we have 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 we have to be more localized. We really do. have to design mechanisms to support our teams in very different way, because their experiences and the world around them quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, I will tell you, it has involved a lot of — as an executive and leadership team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it not working, changing them. And a great example is our Q and A. I feel every leader I know has a perspective on whether do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach there times, and I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out right way to listen and have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, another thing I hear from CEOs of my generation and is a concern about making sure that we are not providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from in close proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for more years. What is your philosophy and take on sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. I think that all the time. We have a very distributed workforce Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of able to have a distributed workforce and being able to talent and just be more inclusive. On 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. One the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it at top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, means I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for whole set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort of up the executive team almost entirely in the last months. So I’ve had to deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had to — we call it our operating system — we’ve to design an operating system, as an executive team, 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 think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to able to do it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s 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 room with their team, do social 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 area I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly and I think it’s really critical that as leaders, do that, so that this next generation is able to get the same growth opportunities we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — the tools that you mentioned at very beginning of our conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard a number of organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a of having to go out and find the information need. And then, because we have video tools available to now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas a large group of people, but first, kind of going through fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness the different things that people are bringing to work, whether it is, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you share a little bit about how you deal with this personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves to office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves that 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 to do their best work. And so, of course, we a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the way we probably sought to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem and you’re reacting trying to provide mental-health resources or support or time off. And, think — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, to so of our managers … just care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people 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 actually root cause — that we can control at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re people to do too many things or they don’t like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, I think, actually where we should be spending more time — is how do we actually set right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root cause that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t equipped to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What the detail there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, you know, of 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 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, I in SAS, software as a service, so we already went “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 well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, for me, I think I observed over the last few years is — that part, think, hasn’t changed and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of when companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service we 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, know, I sort of see it as — the way you channel how you are caring your employees and how you are empathetic, always should be in of helping people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You have to be to that and if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not a trade-off. These are not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how you been taking care of yourself during this period tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as leader, do you practice some self-care or how do you sure that you’re getting the balance you need to be the most effective you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a to myself is “two things can be true, both be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, think of it as, like, “This job is hard, it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a war — all these that have happened. And so, it’s a hard job, it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? so, I think for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those things has helped me a lot. way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has been — it’s always been this way, is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have to passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo doing is important and matters for the world. And if I have passion, I have energy and I will — I can kind of move through anything. I have to find joy in team. I feel like, especially in hard times, I back at my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a group of together all on one team, and so I think that’s been, you know, really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support network around and I do … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear a couple of hours. I just disappear and I around the city and I listen to my music do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how work is going to look very different in the future than how we describe it today. It’s in office a couple of days, work from home a of other days. Tell us a little bit more about you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think idea of an office as a time and place completely away. And I think it’s really going to be people are going to want to work anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of you’re located is going to change. And then the of like “I’m going to work on this time zone” “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going go away. And I think what you’re going to find more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that at among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I leadership, leaders 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 ago versus that will require now — I think in the future … the skill set is going be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, know, training?” All of that is going to look different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or or budget, in some 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 in the way, that we’ll actually come away a much more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, think you just showed us some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being thing that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: you. This was great.