Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is to be 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 with a really easy question: what was it like to manage diverse workforce through a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very return to office?
AS: Oh, it was a breeze, Stephanie. No, was really challenging. You know, I think the only has been change. And as a leader, you obviously — you a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and 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 certainty, and you couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. so, you know, for me, it was really about agility. How do we stay as a team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people as we try and move through things? And then, just how do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one the things I’ve really learned over the last few is we each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who on the front lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, have people in different parts of the world who experiencing mental-health challenges or burnout, and so I think it was just — the hardest part was not being able to everyone certainty, not being able to just apply a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. I ultimately think it forced us, as a company, to more trust, because to be agile and flexible, and lead with humanity, you have to trust each other. so, I’m sort of optimistic that actually we’re emerging this time with 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, perhaps during pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a greater sense of or even to communicate that there is no certainty, is a muscle that you think you’ll continue to in the organization far into the future?
AS: There’s couple of things that we did. One — and we a video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, I mean this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re all sort of disparate, is you context and you lose nuance when you communicate. And we did make a 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 and your body and your emotions. And we did that through live streaming lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So send … I record my screen and just send a out to people. Every new hire does a video to welcome introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve actually replaced with just quick video presentations. And actually, what really did was allow the humanity and the context to through and I think that helped us a lot to, kind of, close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make easier to talk about when things aren’t working, because a critical part of being agile is recognizing have an area that isn’t working. And so one the things that we do at Vimeo is we try — do this in all of my town halls, we do it in a lot of meetings — always talk about what’s working, what are our top things, and what isn’t working — yet. And we’ve of created, I think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma from talking about what’s not working. And when you make that and comfortable 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 our and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, think has been really helpful, and certainly something we’re carrying forward.
SM: I love 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 communication. Which brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How do you the workforce changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the wave of Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, one the things that we think about at Vimeo a is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally environment and 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 definitely blending. … If you think your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And they then have to come to work and to be trained a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? 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 think that there is sort of this — you know, we talk 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 from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming the workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s a desire to really understand “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 — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this is we’re going to do” or — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t want to do something because someone with formal authority told to do it. They want to do it because they why it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that forces leaders to really bring more of the “why” into 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 — and this is true of all of us, but the younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility they want options and choices. And it’s not always easy and to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try orient it more to agility. How can we have approaches and and be committed to things, but also know when to question, and to actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive when comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation of employees going to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there programs processes you’ve put in place that really speak to this big sea we’re seeing in terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q and As engagement surveys, and things like that. And some of things that we’ve done, we have a people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the way we have for our users, for our internal teams. But I would one of the things that we’ve really tried to do appreciate that when we get inputs from our employees, 1,300 employees … can’t look at the averages. You can’t look at it all in and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it truly listen and do 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, we’ve really just tried to do is have a bunch different listening mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, we’re still kind of figuring it out, but I will you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even things like approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. I think it’s more just like I said, that listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but not treating everything as, like, an average the same. And for us, it’s been particularly stark because we have offices and teams in so different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the we solve different things. And we used to have very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global approach in the name of consistency fairness, and what we found is we have to be more localized. really do. We have to design mechanisms to support our teams in a different way, because their experiences and the world around is quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it has involved lot of — as an executive team and leadership — it’s involved a lot of trying things, it working, and changing them. And a great example is our Q and A. feel like 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 multiple times, I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right way 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 and older is a concern making sure that we are not just providing our youngest employees with the flexibility and the 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 many more years. What is your philosophy and take on making sure that knowledge transfer happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of have solution for. I think about that all the time. We a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people over eight countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve realized the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract and just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, for the youngest folks that are entering the workforce. So I it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve been taking, what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it at top. So if my entire executive team is distributed, that I have to learn how to provide real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a set of new executives who have just joined. We have sort changed up the executive team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to deal with the same challenges. we’ve had to literally — we call it our operating system — we’ve to design an operating system, as an executive team, for how we’re going to work together that environment. How do we 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 it’s a more proven mechanism for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do that in-person collaboration is really important for learning. We do have — we bring people into office. If you’re remote, we ask folks to come and spend time in a room with their team, do activities, all of those things. I don’t think they 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 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 — the tools that you mentioned at the very beginning 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 way having to go out and find the information they need. And then, because have video tools available to us now, you know, they have an opportunity to share their ideas with 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 and the different things people are bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we had lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a bit about how you deal with this increasing personal — know, when people bring their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they 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 is to empower our people to do their best work. so, of course, we have a real role to play in things like mental-health issues or burnout. And, you know, the way think, like many companies, the way we initially probably to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing a and 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 say, to so many of our managers … just care. If we care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have design a hundred mechanisms if you just have the right people in who care. At the same time, I will say what we’re now, in sort of this next phase, is that that’s reactive approach and actually the root cause — that we can at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re supported in doing things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be spending more time — is how we actually set the right prioritization and focus. There’s some there, right? There’s a 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, we get into the “What is the detail there, and do we need to things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at Vimeo this year “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, sideways, do you think that there are going to be stakeholders say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, the workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. think the pendulum has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, software a service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think best leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And I actually think, you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get better results. And so, you know, for me, I what I observed over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t changed shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times companies, we did things because maybe it was lip service or we felt pressured. that’s not going to be sustainable. But that’s not — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, know, I sort of see it as — the way channel how 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 good the bottom line. And you have to believe that. have to be committed to that and if you use that consistently your decision-making, it should not be a trade-off. These are mutually exclusive things.
SM: Anjali, how have you been taking care of yourself during this period tremendous turmoil and change, but also growth? You mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a on your shoulders. How, as a leader, do you practice self-care or how do you make sure that you’re the balance you need to be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: think — recently, the phrase I use a lot to myself “two things 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 last year, market volatility has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously through a ton with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine through a war — all these things 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 of those things has helped me a lot. The way I’ve tried to 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 have to believe so deeply that Vimeo is doing is important and matters for the world. And if 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, in hard times, I look back at my career actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a group of people together all on team, and so I think that’s been, you know, a really big 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 a great network around me and I do … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, disappear for a couple of hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city I listen to my music and do whatever I need to do, that’s really important.
SM: So you talked about how work is 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 more about what you could potentially see that evolving into.
AS: I think idea of an office as a time and place completely goes away. And think it’s really going to be people are going to to work from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even concept of where you’re located is going to change. And then idea of like “I’m going to work on this time zone” or “I’m going to this meeting 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, particularly from knowledge workers, is to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and we will using tools and technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that at scale many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders going to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — you think about the skill set to be a global CEO 30 ago versus what that will require now — I in the future … the skill set is going be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees time zones in a way that is effective, that provides context and alignment scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, whether it’s, know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. But I the ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time or place or budget, in some cases. And I those constraints are going to go away. And the is that if we are flexible and smart and we technology in the right way, that we’ll actually come away a much more evolved efficient workforce.
SM: Well, I think you just showed some of the passion that you’ve talked about as being the thing that gives you to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, you so much for being here today.
AS: Thank you. was great.