Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re with us 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 easy question: what was it like to manage this workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it really challenging. You know, I think the only constant has been change. And as leader, you obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, they’re looking to control what’s happening around them. And I what we all found, as leaders, no matter what you were … 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 we stay flexible as a team? How do we communicate in time and keep people informed as we try and move through things? And then, also just how we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one the things I’ve really learned over the last few years we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who remote. We have 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 who are experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so think it was really just — the hardest part was being able to give everyone certainty, not being able just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. But I ultimately think forced us, as a company, to build more trust, to be agile and flexible, and to lead with humanity, have to trust each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging from this with a culture that is more flexible and nimble, also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something that you put place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust create a greater sense of community or even to that there is no certainty, that is a muscle you think you’ll continue to use in the organization far the future?
AS: There’s a couple of things that we did. — and 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 did make a concerted effort to move away from email and chat, text-based communication, as as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when we communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands and your body and your emotions. And did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent video messages. So I send … I record my screen and just send a out to people. Every new hire does a video welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was the humanity and the 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 important thing is, think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier to about when things aren’t working, because a critical part of agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so one of things that we do at Vimeo is we try — I do in all of my town halls, we do it 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, I think, framework that sort of takes the stigma away from talking what’s not working. And when you make that normalized and comfortable 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 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 video-first. So many of our members of our workforce live in a video world. They’re used to as a means of communication. Which brings me to my 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 things that we about at Vimeo a lot is a lot of the mechanisms and modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different and a totally different generation. But I see a lot of differences. of them, I think, is the line between your personal and work life is definitely blending. … If you think about your life — look at TikTok. This generation is used consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. if they then have to come to work and to be trained on job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? if you miss the meeting, and you have to watch Zoom recording of a three-hour meeting — that’s just going to happen. And so I think that there is definitely sort of this — you know, we about the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy for saying the way … we communicate and interact in personal lives is going to translate to work. And so I think that’s an 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 think there’s 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 there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My told me that this is what we’re going to do” or — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, people, they don’t just want to do something because someone formal authority told them to do it. They want to do it because understand why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And think that that forces leaders to really bring more the “why” into how we communicate and motivate people.
So are two of the things I see, and then, you know, the third think is just flexibility. I think — and this true of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — I think they’re looking for and they want options and choices. And it’s not easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this where I try and orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and principles be committed to things, but also know when to question, and when to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, you share a few examples of ways that you at have tried to really be proactive when it comes to addressing understanding what your next generation of employees are going to want, either terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or terms of flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put place that really speak to this big sea change we’re seeing terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce very similar: it’s Q and As and engagement surveys, and like that. And some of the things that we’ve done, we have a people culture 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 from our employees, 1,300 employees … 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.” what you actually — when you really dig into it and truly listen do focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find actually there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I think for us, what we’ve really just to do is have a bunch of different listening mechanisms and resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing as the action.” it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring it out, I will tell you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees have 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, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but treating everything as, like, an average or the same. for us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices teams in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about way we solve different things. And we used to a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of and fairness, and what we found is we have be more localized. We really do. We have to design mechanisms 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 an executive team and leadership team — it’s a lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a great example is our and A. I feel like every leader I know a perspective on whether 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 figuring out the right way to listen and have a with a very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to on newcomers to the workplace for just another moment, because thing I hear from CEOs of my generation and is a concern about making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees the flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also the training and wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or to who’s done the job for many more years. What is 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 solution for. I think about that all the time. We a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over eight countries. My executive is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits being able to have a distributed workforce and being to attract talent and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a lack of same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest that are entering the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s sort nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So if entire executive team is distributed, that means I have to how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for whole set of new executives who have just joined. We sort of changed up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call it our system — we’ve had to design an operating system, as an team, for how 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 I think, my perspective, it’s more we have to be able to it ourselves and model it and then, I think it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. will say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really important learning. We do have — we bring people into an office. If you’re remote, we ask folks come in and spend time in a room with team, do social activities, all of those things. I don’t they will go away, nor 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, do that, so that this next generation is able to the same growth opportunities that we all had.
SM: Well, and it’s interesting — tools that you mentioned at the very beginning of conversation, around video, can be really helpful there. I’ve heard of number of organizations that have really encouraged their young to present, as a way of having to go out and the information they 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 the fact-finding and the research, and then sharing their ideas. In an comment, you talked a little bit about mental illness and different things that people are bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives protests, we had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, feeling really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can a little bit about how you deal with this increasing personal — know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, which encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves that are challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always the responsibility of a leader is to empower people do their best work and the responsibility of a company to empower our people to do their best work. And so, of course, 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 probably sought do that was more, you know, you’re seeing a problem you’re reacting by 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, so many of our managers … just care. If we just care, a of things get easier. You don’t have to design 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 of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach and the root cause — that we can control at Vimeo — root cause of a lot of stress and burnout is sometimes people either don’t enough … focus, we’re asking people to do too many or they don’t feel 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 the prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root cause there that’s “Oh, I feel like I’m stressed because there’s too much going on. I don’t feel to solve it.” Then, we should get into the “What the detail there, and do we need to do differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there are going to be stakeholders who say, 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. I mean, work in SAS, software as a service, so we 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 treat people well, with and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, me, I think what I observed over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot times when companies, we did things because maybe it was service or we felt pressured. And that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, you know, I of see it as — the way you channel how are caring towards your employees and how you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping do their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for the line. And you have to believe that. You have to be to that and if you use that consistently in decision-making, it should not be 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 you just a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you some self-care or how do you make sure that you’re getting the balance need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, phrase I use a lot to myself is “two can be true, both can be true.” I say a 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 pandemic and last year, volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team Ukraine going through a war — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s hard job, and it’s an incredibly privileged job. It’s gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort of both of those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve to kind of lead, has been — it’s always been this way, is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo doing is important and matters for the world. And if I passion, I have energy and then I will — I can kind move through anything. I have to find joy in my team. I like, especially in hard times, I look back at career and actually, some of my most fulfilling times work were when — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because brought a group of people together all on one team, and so I that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have to be little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have great support network around me and I do … My and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk the city and I listen to my music and do whatever I need do, and that’s really important.
SM: So you talked how hybrid work is going to look very different in future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office a couple of days, from home a couple of other days. Tell us a little bit about what 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 want to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept of you’re located is going to change. And then the idea of “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m going to attend this that’s scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going go away. And I think what you’re going to find is more and more work, from knowledge workers, is going to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration happen asynchronously and we will be using tools and technology — it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you think the skill set to be a global CEO 30 ago versus what that will require now — I think in the … the skill set is going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, audiences and employees across time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context alignment at scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, you know, training?” All of is going to look very 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 place budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are going 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 much more and efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed us some of the passion you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.