Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m glad you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start with a really easy question: what was like to manage this diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was challenging. You know, I think the only constant has been change. And 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 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 do we in real time and keep people informed as we try and move things? And then, also just how do we lead more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve really learned over the last years is we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an team in Ukraine … employees who are on the lines, who 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 was really just — the hardest part was not being able give everyone certainty, not being able to just apply one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it 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 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 give an example of something that you put into place, during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense community or even to communicate that there is no certainty, that is a that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far into future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — we are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk 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 away from email and chat, text-based communication, as much possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we were communicating, do it with your face, and your hands and your body your emotions. And we did that through live streaming a of communications, recording a lot of 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 to welcome introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just video presentations. And actually, what that really did was the humanity and the context to come through and I that helped us a lot to, kind of, stay close. that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating to make it easier to talk about when things aren’t working, a critical part of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. so one of the things that we do at Vimeo is we — I do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always about what’s working, what are our top three things, and 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 and 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 pivot. And both of those, being more video-first in communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I think has been really helpful, and something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice being video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live a video world. They’re used to video as a means communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization changed. How do you see the workforce changing? What different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, know, one of the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They designed for a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But I a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is line between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you think your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they then have to come to work to be trained 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 to happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort this — you know, we talk about the “consumerization enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for saying the … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s area of opportunity.
The other thing I see from sort of the generation, newest generation coming into 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 communication 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 told me that this what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want to do something someone with formal authority told them to do it. They want to do because they understand why it matters, why it ties to mission. And I think that that forces leaders to really bring more of “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of things I see, and then, you know, the third I think is just flexibility. I think — and is true of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they options and choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, this is where I try and orient it more to agility. How can we approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also know to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can share a few examples of ways that you at Vimeo have 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 terms of flexibility? Are there or processes you’ve put in 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, 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 some of the things we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, promoter score, the same way we have for our users, for internal teams. But I would say one of the things that we’ve really to do is appreciate that when we get inputs our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look it all in totality and try and pull out obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you — when you really dig into it and truly and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll is actually there’s very different experiences and desires among employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really just tried to do is have a of different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to pull, like, “Oh, this is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do 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 travel or even things our approach to compensation or our approach to DE I. So I think it’s more just like I said, that listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not treating as, like, an average or the same. And for us, it’s particularly stark because we have offices and teams in so many different countries and differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the way we solve different things. And used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and we found is we have to be more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms to our teams in a very different way, because their and the world around them is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will you, it has involved a lot of — as an executive and leadership team — it’s involved a lot 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 on whether they do open Q and A or anonymous Q and A, or real-time and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right to listen and have a dialogue with a very diverse workforce.
SM: want to stay on newcomers to the workplace for another moment, because another thing I hear from CEOs of my generation older is a concern about making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with the and the purpose that they need, but also 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 making sure that knowledge transfer happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that don’t know that everyone will sort of have a for. I think about that all the time. We have a very distributed at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive team is distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, think, a lack of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly the youngest folks that 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 at the top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that means I have to learn how provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole of new executives who have just joined. We have of changed up the executive team almost entirely in last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with the same challenges. And we’ve had literally — we call it our operating system — we’ve had to an operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re to work together in that environment. How do we real-time feedback? How do we create the right communication loops? And so I think, from my perspective, it’s more have to be able to do it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s a more mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person is really important for learning. We do have — bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come and spend time in a room with their team, do social activities, of those things. I don’t think they will go away, do I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s area that I don’t think we’ve really figured out and I think it’s really critical that as leaders, we 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 of a number of that have really encouraged their young people to present, a way of having to go out and find the they need. And then, because we have video tools available to us now, you know, they have opportunity to share their ideas with a large group people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and research, and then sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you talked a little bit about illness and the different things that people are bringing work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal issues bubble to surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about you deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people bring their whole selves the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader to empower people to do their best work and the responsibility 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 many companies, the way we initially 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 important. And I always say, to so many of our … just care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in 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 Vimeo — the root of a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have … focus, we’re asking people to do too many things or they don’t like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, think, is 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 cause there that’s a “Oh, I feel like I’m because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel equipped solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the there, and do we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As economy starts to, maybe, move sideways, do you think there are going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. mean, I work in SAS, software as a service, so already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will 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, 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, I of see it as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your and how you are empathetic, always should be in of helping people do their best work, which will results, which will be good for the bottom line. 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, have you been taking care of yourself during this period of turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, you practice some self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting the balance you to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things can be true, both be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I think of as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re going through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a war — these things that have happened. And so, it’s a job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I for me, it’s sort of acknowledging both of those 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 have passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is 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, look back at my career and actually, some of my most times in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s 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 have to a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support around me and I do … My husband and I a deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and I 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 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 you could see that evolving into.
AS: I think the idea of office as a time and place completely goes away. And 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 then idea of like “I’m going to work on this 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 more work, particularly from 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 that at scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if think about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 years versus what that will require now — I think the future … the skill set is going to be like, “How do communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a that is effective, that 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 look very different. I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve with, whether it was time or place or budget, in cases. And I think those constraints are going to go away. the promise is that if we are flexible and smart and use technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much evolved and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some of passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you energy lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.