Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so glad you’re with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, it is great be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead a workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you creatives, you have finance people, you have technologists. So I’m going to start with a easy question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce through global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, was a breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I think the constant has been change. And as a leader, you — 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 company you were … responsible for, that you couldn’t offer certainty, and you couldn’t always the environment and the things around you. And so, know, for me, it was really about agility. How do we stay flexible a team? How do we communicate in real time and keep people informed we try and move through things? And then, also just how do we with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is we each experience the world differently. We have employees who are remote. We have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are the front lines, who are literally at war. On the other hand, you have in different parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health or burnout, and so I think it was really — the hardest part was not being able to give 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 and flexible, and to lead with humanity, you have to each other. And so, I’m sort of optimistic that we’re emerging from this time with a culture that more flexible and nimble, and also, hopefully, has more trust.
SM: you give an example of something that you put into place, perhaps the pandemic, to enhance communications or build trust or create a sense of community or even to communicate that there no certainty, that 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 are a video platform, so I obviously have to talk video, but I mean this sincerely — one of the 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 and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, particularly for our team, when we were communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands and your body and emotions. And we did that through live streaming a lot of communications, recording a lot videos. We sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … record my screen 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 with just quick video presentations. And actually, what that really did was allow the humanity and the context come through and I think that helped us a to, kind of, stay close. So that was one, I think, really important thing.
Another important is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it easier talk about when things aren’t working, because a critical part being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so of the things that we do at Vimeo is we try — do this in all of my town halls, we do it in lot of meetings — is always talk about what’s working, are our top three things, and what isn’t working — yet. we’ve kind of created, I think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma away from about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized and comfortable people, I feel like it’s allowed us to be more open, an organization, about what do we need to change, what do we need to pivot. And both those, being more video-first in our communication and being more transparent and what’s not working, I 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 our workforce live in video world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. Which brings me to my question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How do see the workforce changing? What is different with the millennials, and even, now, the first wave of Gen Z coming the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, know, one of the things that we think about at Vimeo lot is a lot of the mechanisms and communication modes that we use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed for a totally different environment and a totally generation. But I see a lot of differences. One of them, I think, is line between your personal life and work life is definitely blending. … If you about your personal life — look at TikTok. This generation is used consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very specific way. And if they then to come to work and to be trained on a job, read 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or if you miss the meeting, and have to watch the Zoom recording of a three-hour — 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 for saying way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is to translate 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 course mission-driven, but I think there’s a to really understand the “why” behind things. And one of our communication mantras is we never about the “what” without the “why.” And I think there’s a to — the idea that, well, there’s a hierarchy, “My boss told 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 it matters, why it ties to the mission. And I think that that forces to really bring more of the “why” into how communicate and motivate people.
So those are two of the things see, and then, you know, the third I think just flexibility. I think — and this is true of all of us, but particularly younger generation — I think they’re looking for flexibility and they want options and choices. it’s not always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but is where I try and orient it more to agility. How can have approaches and principles and be committed to things, but also know when to question, and when actually pivot?
SM: Yeah. Anjali, can you share a few examples of ways that you at have tried to really be proactive when it comes to or understanding what your next generation of employees are to want, either in terms of purpose or in terms of benefits or in terms flexibility? Are there programs or processes you’ve put in place really speak to this big sea change we’re seeing in terms values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s all listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the way we’ve to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s Q As and engagement surveys, and things like that. And of the things that we’ve done, we have a and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we for our users, for our internal teams. But I would one of the 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 and try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because what you — 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 just tried to do is have a bunch of different mechanisms and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, this what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing as the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still of figuring it out, but I will tell you, some of things that we’ve heard from employees have changed our approach hybrid work or travel or even things like our approach to compensation our approach to DE and I. So I think it’s more like I said, that agile listening, constantly really understanding what’s happening, but treating everything as, like, an average or the same. And 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, the way we solve different things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” approach in the name of consistency and fairness, and what we is we have to be more localized. We really do. have to design mechanisms to support our teams in a different way, because their experiences and the world around them quite different.
So I think that’s definitely been one, and I will tell you, it has a lot of — as an executive team and leadership team — it’s involved lot of trying things, it not working, and changing them. And a great is our Q and A. I feel like every I know has a perspective on whether they do open Q and or anonymous Q and A, or real-time Q and A. We’ve our approach there multiple times, and I know we will again, because we’re still figuring out the right to listen and have a dialogue with a very workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers to the workplace for another moment, because another thing I hear from CEOs my generation and 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 also the training and the that comes, oftentimes, from being in close proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s the job for many more years. What is your philosophy and take on making that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a major challenge that don’t know that everyone will sort of have a solution for. think about that all the 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 the benefits of being able to have a distributed workforce and being able to attract talent just be more inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, a of the same kinds of learning opportunities and mentorship, particularly for the youngest folks that are the workforce. So I think it’s a challenge. One of the approaches that we’ve been taking, and what’s of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. if 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. We have sort of changed up the team almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — 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 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 it and then, I 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. you’re remote, we ask folks to come in and spend time a room with their team, do social activities, all of things. I don’t think they will go away, nor do I think they should. But, know, candidly, it’s an area that I don’t think we’ve really figured out and I think it’s really critical that as leaders, we do that, so that this generation is able to get the same growth opportunities 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 a number 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 we have video tools available us now, you know, they have an opportunity to share ideas with a large group of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding 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 Lives Matter protests, we had a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and really personal issues bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how deal with this increasing personal — you know, when people their whole selves to the office, which we encourage, sometimes, they bring things, parts of themselves that challenging.
AS: Yeah … I’ve always thought the responsibility a leader is to empower people to do their best work and the of a company is to empower our people to their best work. And so, of course, we have real role to play in supporting things like mental-health or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, 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 resources or support or time off. And, I — and empathy, just empathy. I think that’s really important. And I always say, to so many our managers … just care. If we just 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. At same time, I will say what we’re realizing now, sort of this next phase, is that that’s a reactive approach actually the root cause — that we can control Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress and burnout sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking people to too many things or they don’t feel like they’re in doing those things. And that, I think, is actually where should be spending more time — is how do we actually set the right prioritization 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 is the detail there, and do need to do things differently?” And, you know, one our themes at Vimeo this year was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy to, maybe, move sideways, do you think that there going to be stakeholders who say, you know, “Out with all of this touchy-feely, workplace-as-a-family stuff. Where are my results?”
AS: Absolutely. I think the has already swung pretty clearly. I mean, I work in SAS, as a service, so we already went from “growth at all cost” “profitability,” you know, pendulum swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t changed — I think the leaders and cultures deliver results and treat people well. And actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness and empathy, you will get results. And so, you know, for me, I think what I over the last few years is — that part, I think, hasn’t and shouldn’t change. There were, I think, a lot of times when companies, we did things because maybe was lip service or we felt pressured. And that’s not to be sustainable. But that’s not what — ultimately, that’s not what people need, in any case. So, know, I sort of see it as — the way you channel how you are caring towards your and how you are empathetic, always should be in service helping people do their 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 consistently in your decision-making, it should not be 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 also growth? mentioned you just had a baby. There’s a lot on your shoulders. How, as leader, do you practice some self-care or how do you sure that you’re getting the balance you need to be most effective leader you can be?
AS: I think — recently, the phrase I use a lot to is “two things can be true, both can be true.” I say a lot. And for me, I think of it as, like, “This job is hard, it’s gotten harder.” We went public at the height of the pandemic and last year, market has been tremendous. You know, we’re obviously going through a with post-pandemic, we have a team in Ukraine going through a — all these things that have happened. And so, it’s a hard job, and it’s incredibly privileged job. It’s a gift, right? And so, I think for me, it’s sort acknowledging both of those things has helped me a lot. way I’ve tried to kind of lead, has been — it’s always been way, which is, for me, it’s I have to have passion. I have have passion. I have to believe so deeply that what Vimeo is doing is important and matters the world. And if I have passion, I have and then I will — I can kind of through anything. I have to find joy in my team. feel like, especially in hard times, I look back at my and actually, some of my most fulfilling times in work were — in the hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought group of people together all on one team, and so think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. And then, yeah, like, you have be a little selfish sometimes, and take care of yourself. And I really fortunate. I think I have a great support around me and I do … My husband and I have a deal, where on Sundays, I 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, and that’s important.
SM: So you talked about how hybrid work is going to look very in the future than how we describe it today. It’s basically in office couple of days, work from home a couple of other days. Tell us little bit 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. I think it’s really going to be people are going to want to from anywhere, anywhere in the world. Even the concept 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 scheduled on this date” — I think that’s going go away. And I think what you’re going to is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is to be done anywhere, anytime. Communication and collaboration will happen asynchronously and will be using tools and technology — whether it’s video, whether it’s AI — to basically enable that scale among many people, anywhere in the world. And then I think leadership, leaders going to look different. Because I think it’s going to require — if you think about the set to be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what that will now — I think in the future … the skill set going to be like, “How do you communicate with diverse, global audiences and employees across time 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 think the thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, it was time or place or budget, in some cases. I think those constraints are going to go away. And the promise is that if we flexible and smart and we use technology in the right way, that we’ll come away a much more evolved and 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 energy lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.