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 worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you technologists. So I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was it like to this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I the 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 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 and things around 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 and keep people informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how do 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 so 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. the other hand, you have people in different parts of world who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and I think it was really just — the hardest part was not being to give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, a company, to build more trust, because to be agile flexible, and to lead with humanity, you have to each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging from this time with a culture is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something you put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications build trust or create a greater sense of community even to communicate that there is no certainty, that a muscle that you think you’ll continue to use in organization far into the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — we are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I mean sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort disparate, is you lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as much possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, to it with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And we did through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I my screen and just send a note out to people. new 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 that really did was allow the humanity and 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 easier to talk about things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have area that isn’t working. And so one of the things we do at Vimeo is we try — I do this 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. And we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that sort takes the stigma away from talking about what’s not working. And when you make normalized and comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to more open, as an 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 more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live 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 workforce changing? is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of the that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a lot the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But I a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is the line between your personal and work life is definitely blending. … If you about your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, 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 not to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, 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 definitely sort of — you know, we talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to translate work. And so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I there’s a desire to really understand the “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a desire to — idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me this is what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do because someone with formal authority told them to do it. They want to it because they understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I that that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we communicate motivate people.
So those are 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 feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and orient it more to agility. can we have approaches and principles and be committed things, but also know when to question, and when to 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 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 or you’ve put in place that really speak to this big sea change we’re in terms of 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 is similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And some the things that we’ve done, we have a people and NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have for our users, our internal teams. But I would say one of things that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we get from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look the averages. You can’t look at it all in totality and and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what actually — when you really dig into it and truly listen and focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is actually there’s very different experiences desires among your employees. And so, I 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 do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still of figuring it out, but I will tell you, some the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even like our approach to compensation or our approach to DE I. So I think it’s more just like I said, 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 in many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, the way we solve different things. And we used to a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have to more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms support our teams in a very different way, because their experiences the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s been one, and I will tell you, it has involved a lot — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved a lot trying things, it not working, and changing them. And great example is our Q and A. I feel like leader I know has a perspective on whether they do Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve changed our approach there times, and I know we will again, because we’re still figuring 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 another moment, because another thing I hear CEOs of my generation and older is a concern about sure that we are not just providing our youngest with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity a mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for many years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will of have a solution for. I think about that all time. We have a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have in over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds of opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are entering the workforce. So think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling at the top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that means have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set new executives who have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive team almost entirely in last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with the challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call it our operating system — we’ve had design an operating system, as an executive team, for we’re going to work together in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? do we create the right communication loops? And so think, from my perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it ourselves and model and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for 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 in and spend time in a room with their team, do social activities, all of things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do I they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t think we’ve really figured perfectly and I think 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, video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of number of organizations that have really encouraged their young people present, as a way of having to go out and the information they need. And then, because we have tools available to us now, you know, they have opportunity to share their ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind going through the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and the different that people are bringing to work, whether it is, know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues 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 whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always the responsibility of a leader is to empower people to do their best work the responsibility of a company is to empower our people to do their best work. And so, course, we have a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health issues 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 trying to provide mental-health resources or support or time off. And, I think — empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, so many of our managers … just care. If we care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t to design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in place who care. the same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, is that’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — we can control at Vimeo — the root cause of a of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is do we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s root cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too going on. I don’t feel equipped to solve it.” Then, should get into the “What is the detail there, and we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver and treat people 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 I observed over the last 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 because maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not people need, in any case. So, you know, I of see it as — the way you channel you are caring towards your employees and how you empathetic, always should be in service of helping people do best work, which will deliver results, which will be for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You to be committed 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, have you been taking care of 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 you’re getting the balance you need to be the most effective leader 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, I think it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a ton post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a — 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 has me a lot. The 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 have passion. I to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world. And if I passion, I have energy and then I will — can kind of move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. feel like, especially in hard times, I look back my career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because brought a group of people together all on one team, and I think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And am really fortunate. I think I have a great network around me and I do … My husband and I a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the and I listen to my music and do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: you talked about how hybrid work is going to look very different in the future how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, work home a couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what 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 want work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of where you’re located is going to change. And the idea of like “I’m going to work on this zone” or “I’m going to attend this meeting that’s scheduled this date” — I think that’s going to go away. And I what you’re going to find is more and more work, particularly knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale among many people, in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you think the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years versus what that will require now — I think in the future … the skill set is to 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 is … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or or budget, in some cases. And I think those are going to go away. And the promise is that if we are flexible and and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a more evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think just showed us some of the passion that you’ve talked 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.