Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re here with today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great to here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, have technologists. So I’m going to start with a really question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through 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 think the constant has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to what’s happening around them. And I think what we all found, as leaders, no matter what company you … responsible 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 was really about agility. How do stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real time and keep informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how do we lead with 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 have 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 who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I it was really just — the hardest part was being able to give everyone certainty, not being able to just a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think it forced us, as company, to build more trust, because to be agile 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 a culture that is more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense of community or even communicate that there is no certainty, that is a that you think you’ll continue to use in the organization into the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. One — and we a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I mean this sincerely — of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is lose context and you lose nuance when you communicate. we did make a concerted effort to move away from 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 through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record my 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 quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and context to come through and I think that helped us lot to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier talk about when 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 that do at Vimeo is we try — I do this in all of my town halls, we it in a lot of meetings — is always talk what’s working, what are our top three things, and 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 not working. when you make that normalized and comfortable for people, feel like it’s allowed us to be more open, as organization, about what do we need to change, what we need to pivot. And both of those, being more video-first in our and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, I has been really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. many of our members of our workforce live in a video world. They’re to video as a means of communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve about how the organization has changed. How do you the workforce changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one of 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 a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, the line between your personal life and work life is blending. … If you think about your personal life — look at TikTok. generation is used to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very way. And if they then have to come to work and to be on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch the Zoom of a three-hour meeting — that’s just not going to happen. And so I that there is definitely sort of this — you know, talk about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words saying the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going to to work. And so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The thing I see from sort of the generation, the generation coming into the workforce, is sort of, of mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really the “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is we talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a desire — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss me that this is what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want do something because someone with formal authority told them do it. They want to do it because they understand why matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into how we communicate and people.
So those are two of the things I see, and then, know, the third I think is just flexibility. I — and this is true of all of us, particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility they want options and choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and orient it more to agility. can we have approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few of ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really be 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 terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in place that really speak to this sea change we’re seeing in terms of values from workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and like that. And some of the things that we’ve done, we have people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same we have for our users, for our internal teams. But I would say one of the that we’ve really tried to do is appreciate that when we get from our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at the averages. You can’t look at it in totality and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it and truly and do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is actually there’s very experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really just tried 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 just do this thing as action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will tell you, of the things that we’ve heard from employees have changed approach to hybrid work or travel or even things 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 for us, it’s been particularly stark because have offices and teams in so many different countries the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the we solve different things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach the name of consistency and fairness, and what we found is we have be more localized. We really do. We have to design to support our teams in a very different way, their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So I that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, has involved a lot of — as an executive team and team — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And 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, or real-time and A. We’ve changed our approach there multiple times, and I know we again, because we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and have a dialogue a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers to the workplace for just 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 with the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but the training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close to a mentor or to somebody who’s done the job for many more years. is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that will sort of have a solution for. I think about all the time. We have a very distributed workforce Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and able to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of the same kinds learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that 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 for a whole set of new executives who have just joined. have sort 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 to literally — we call it our operating system — we’ve had to an operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work together in environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How do create the right communication loops? And so I think, my perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it ourselves and model it and then, think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration really important for learning. We do have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we folks to come in and spend time in a room with their team, social activities, all of those things. I don’t think they go away, nor do I think they should. But, you know, candidly, it’s an that I don’t think we’ve really figured out perfectly I think it’s really critical that as leaders, we 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 mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, around video, be really helpful there. I’ve heard of a number of that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of to go out and find the information they need. And then, because we have video tools to us now, you know, they have an opportunity to share ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind of going 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, you know, exhaustion, burnout. the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a lot people coming to 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, bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: … I’ve always thought the responsibility of a leader is to empower to do their best work and the responsibility of a company is to our people to do their best work. And so, of course, have a real role to play in supporting things mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, many companies, the way we initially probably 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. think that’s really important. And I always say, to so many of managers … just care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right in place who care. At the same time, I will what we’re realizing now, in sort of this next phase, that that’s a reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we can at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of and burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing those things. And that, I think, is actually we should be 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 feel equipped to it.” Then, we should get into the “What is the detail there, and we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one 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 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, pendulum swing. My perspective on — and it hasn’t changed — I think the best and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, if you people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, me, I think what I observed over the last years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times when companies, we things because maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of it as — the way you channel how you are towards your employees and how you are empathetic, always should be in service of people do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be for the bottom line. And you have to believe that. You have to be committed to that if you use that consistently in your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These not mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you taking care of yourself during this period of tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You you just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting balance you need to be the most effective leader you be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot to myself is “two things be true, both can be true.” I say this a lot. And for me, I of it as, like, “This job is hard, and it’s gotten harder.” We went public at height of the pandemic and last year, market volatility has been tremendous. 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, and it’s an 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 have to have passion. I have to have passion. I have to believe so deeply what Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world. And I have passion, I have energy and then I will — I can of move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. I feel like, especially hard times, I look back at my career and actually, of my most fulfilling times in work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s it brought a group of people together all on one team, so I think that’s been, you know, a really big part it. And then, yeah, like, you have to be little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And am really fortunate. I think I have a great support network around me and I … My husband and I have a deal, where Sundays, I disappear for a couple of hours. I disappear and I walk around the city and I listen to my and do whatever I need to do, and that’s important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work is going look very different in the future than how we describe today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, from home a couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I the idea of an office as a time and completely goes away. And I think it’s really going be people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. the concept of where you’re located is going to change. And then the idea like “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m to attend this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I that’s going to go away. And I think what you’re to find is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to be anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and technology — it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale among many people, anywhere in world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you think about the set to be a global CEO 30 years ago what that will require now — I think in the … the skill set is going to be like, “How do you with diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in a that is effective, that provides context and alignment at scale? How do organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of that is to look very different. But I think the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was or place or budget, in some cases. And I think constraints are going to go away. And the promise is that if we are and smart and we use technology in the right way, we’ll actually come away a much more evolved and 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 great.