Stephanie Mehta: Welcome, Anjali. I’m so you’re here with us today.
Anjali Sud: Thank you, is great to be here.
SM: At Vimeo, you lead workforce of 1,300 people worldwide — you have creatives, you have finance people, you technologists. So I’m going to start with a really question: what was it like to manage this diverse workforce a global pandemic, a racial reckoning and a very fraught return to office?
AS: Oh, it was breeze, Stephanie. No, it was really challenging. You know, I the only constant has been change. And as a leader, obviously — you have a workforce that’s looking for certainty, and they’re looking to control what’s around them. And I think what we all found, as leaders, no what company you were … responsible for, was that you couldn’t offer certainty, and couldn’t always control the environment and the things around you. And so, you know, me, it was really about agility. How do we flexible as a team? How do we communicate in real and keep people informed as we try and move things? And then, also just how do we lead with more humanity? You know, for Vimeo, one of things I’ve really learned over the last few years is each experience the world so differently. We have employees who are remote. have an incredible team in Ukraine … employees who are on the front lines, who are at war. On the other hand, you have people different parts of the world who are experiencing mental-health challenges burnout, and so I think it was really just — the part was not 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, because to be agile flexible, and to 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, more trust.
SM: Can you give an example of something that put into place, perhaps during the pandemic, to enhance or build trust or create a greater sense of 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 — and we are video platform, so I obviously have to talk about video, but I this sincerely — one of the hardest parts, when you’re sort of disparate, is you lose context and you nuance when you communicate. And we did make a concerted effort to move away from and chat, text-based communication, as much as possible, and actually try, particularly for our leadership team, when were communicating, to do it with your face, and your hands and your and your emotions. And we did that through live a lot of communications, recording a lot of videos. sent asynchronous video messages. So I send … I record my and just send a note out to people. Every new does a video to welcome and introduce themselves. A lot of our meetings we’ve replaced 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 lot to, kind of, stay close. So that one, I think, really important thing.
Another important thing is, I think, just creating mechanisms to make it to talk about when things aren’t working, because a part of being agile is recognizing we have an area that isn’t working. And so of the things that we do at Vimeo is try — I do this 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 of created, I think, a framework that sort of takes the stigma from talking about what’s not working. And when you make that normalized comfortable for people, I feel like it’s allowed us to be open, as an organization, about what do we need to change, what do we to pivot. And both of those, being more video-first our communication and being more transparent and normalizing what’s not working, think has been really helpful, and certainly something we’re forward.
SM: I love that advice about being video-first. many of our members of our workforce live in a world. They’re used to video as a means of communication. brings me to my next question. You’ve talked about how the organization has changed. How do see the workforce changing? What is different with the young millennials, and even, now, the first wave Gen Z coming into the workplace?
AS: I think it’s incredibly different. And, you know, of the things that we think about at Vimeo a lot is a of the mechanisms and communication modes that we still use today, they’re really antiquated. They were designed a totally different environment and a totally different generation. But 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 to consuming content, learning, engaging, in a very way. And if they then have to come to work and be trained on a job, read a 300-page manual? Like, it’s not going to happen, right? Or you miss the meeting, and you 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, we talk the “consumerization of enterprise.” Those are just fancy words for the way … we communicate and interact in our personal lives is going translate to work. And so I definitely think that’s an area of opportunity.
The other thing I from sort of the generation, the newest generation coming into workforce, is sort of, of course mission-driven, but I think there’s desire to really understand the “why” behind things. And one our communication mantras is we never talk about the “what” without the “why.” And I there’s a desire to — the idea that, well, there’s hierarchy, or “My boss told me that this is what we’re going to do” — that, I think, is increasingly moving away, and people, they don’t just want do something because someone with formal authority told them to it. They want to do it because they understand why it matters, it ties to the mission. And I think that that forces leaders to really bring of the “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 — this is true of all of us, but particularly the younger generation — think they’re looking for flexibility and they want options choices. And it’s not always easy and feasible to provide ultimate flexibility, but this is where I try and it more to agility. How 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 examples ways that you at Vimeo have tried to really be proactive it comes to addressing or understanding what your next generation employees are going to want, either in terms of or in terms of benefits or in terms of flexibility? Are there or processes you’ve put in place that really speak this big sea change we’re seeing in terms of values from the workforce?
AS: Firstly, of course, it’s about listening, right? And I think, like many organizations, the we’ve tried to listen and understand our workforce is very similar: it’s and As and engagement surveys, and things like that. some of the things that we’ve done, we have people and culture NPS, net promoter score, the same way we have 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 inputs our employees, 1,300 employees … you can’t look at averages. You can’t look at it all in totality try and pull out an obvious “Oh, this is how everybody’s feeling.” Because you actually — when you really dig into it and truly listen and focus groups and talk to people — what you’ll find is there’s very different experiences and desires among your employees. And so, I for us, what we’ve really just tried to do is have a bunch of different listening and then resist the urge to conveniently pull, like, “Oh, is what everyone’s feeling, let’s just do this thing the action.” And it’s hard, and we’re still kind of figuring it out, but will tell you, some of the things that we’ve heard from employees changed our approach to hybrid work or travel or even like our approach to compensation or our approach to DE and I. So I think it’s more just I said, that agile 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 in so many different countries and the differences, they’re substantial. They’re really substantial, about the way we different things. And we used to have a very, sort of, “One Vimeo” global in the name of consistency and fairness, and what found is we have to be more localized. We really do. We have design mechanisms to support our teams in a very way, because their experiences and the world around them is quite different.
So 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 not working, changing them. And a great example is our Q and A. I feel like every leader I 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 again, because we’re still figuring out the right way to listen and have a dialogue with very diverse workforce.
SM: I want to stay on newcomers to the for just 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 flexibility and the purpose that they need, but also training and the wisdom that comes, oftentimes, from being in proximity to a mentor or to somebody who’s done job for many more years. What is your philosophy and on making sure that knowledge transfer is happening?
AS: I think it’s a challenge that I don’t know that everyone will sort of a solution for. I think about that all the time. We a very distributed workforce at Vimeo. We have people in over countries. My executive team is entirely distributed. So I’ve really realized the benefits of being able to have distributed workforce and being able to attract talent and just be inclusive. On the flip side, there’s definitely, I think, lack 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 taking, and what’s sort of nice, is we’re modeling it at the top. So if my entire executive team distributed, that means I have to learn how to real-time feedback, mentorship and development for a whole set of new who have just joined. We have sort of changed up the executive almost entirely in the last twelve months. So I’ve had to with the same challenges. And we’ve had to literally — we call our operating system — we’ve had to design an operating system, an executive team, for how we’re going to work in that environment. How do we share real-time feedback? How we create the right communication loops? And so I think, my perspective, it’s more we have to be able to do it and model it and then, I think it’s a more proven for young people. I will say, like many companies … I do believe that in-person collaboration is really 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 those things. I don’t think they will go away, do I think they should. But, you 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, do 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 of a of organizations that have really encouraged their young people to present, as a way of having go out and find the information they need. And then, we have video tools available to us now, you know, have an opportunity to share their ideas with a group of people, but first, kind of going through the fact-finding and research, and then sharing their ideas. In an earlier comment, you a little bit about mental illness and the different that people are bringing to work, whether it is, you know, exhaustion, burnout. During the Black Lives Matter protests, we a lot of people coming to the office feeling trauma, and feeling really personal bubble to the surface. I’m wondering if you can share little bit about how you deal 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 people to do their best work and the responsibility of company is to empower our people to do their best work. so, of course, we have a real role to play in supporting things like mental-health or burnout. And, you know, the way I think, like many companies, the way we initially probably to do that was more, you know, you’re seeing problem and you’re reacting by trying to provide mental-health resources 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 managers … care. If we just care, a lot of things get easier. You don’t have to design a 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 can control at Vimeo — the root cause of a lot of stress burnout is sometimes people either don’t have enough … focus, we’re asking to do too many things or they don’t feel like they’re in doing those things. And that, I think, is actually where we should be more time — is how do we actually set the prioritization and focus. There’s some issue there, right? There’s a root cause 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, should get into the “What is the detail there, do we need to do things differently?” And, you know, one of our themes at Vimeo this was “Do less, better.”
SM: As the economy starts to, maybe, sideways, do you think that there are going to be who 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, work in SAS, software as a service, so we already from “growth at all cost” to “profitability,” you know, swing. My perspective on this — and it hasn’t — I think the best leaders and cultures deliver results treat people well. And I actually think, if you treat people well, with kindness empathy, you will get 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. There were, 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 what people need, in any case. So, you know, I sort of see it — the way you channel how you are caring towards your employees and you are empathetic, always should be in service of helping people their best work, which will deliver results, which will be good for the bottom line. And you have believe that. You 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 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, a leader, do you practice some self-care or how you make sure that you’re getting the balance you need be the most effective leader you can be?
AS: think — recently, the 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 last year, market volatility 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, 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 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 have passion, I have energy then I will — I can kind of move through anything. I have to joy in my team. I feel like, especially in times, I look back at my career and actually, of my most fulfilling times in work were when — in hardest business situations. But it’s because it brought a group of people all on one team, and so I think that’s been, you know, a really big part of it. then, yeah, like, you have to be a little selfish sometimes, and take care yourself. And I am really fortunate. I think I have a great support around me and I do … My husband and I have deal, where on Sundays, I disappear for a couple hours. I just disappear and I walk around the city and I listen to music and do whatever I need to do, and that’s really important.
SM: you talked about how hybrid work is going to look very in the future than how we describe it today. It’s in office a couple of days, work from home couple of other days. Tell us a little bit more about what you could potentially see that into.
AS: I think the idea of an office as a time place completely goes away. And I think it’s really going to people are going to want to work from anywhere, anywhere 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 time zone” or “I’m going to this meeting that’s scheduled on this date” — I that’s going to go away. And I think what you’re going to is more and more work, particularly from knowledge workers, is going to 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 enable that at scale among many people, anywhere in world. And then I think leadership, leaders are going to look different. Because I it’s going to require — if you think about the skill set be a global CEO 30 years ago versus what that require now — I think in the future … the set is going to be like, “How do you communicate diverse, global audiences and employees across time zones in way that is effective, that provides context and alignment scale? How do you organize programs, whether it’s compensation, it’s, you know, training?” All of that is going to look very different. But I think ultimate thing you’ll see is just … there were these constraints that we’ve lived with, whether it was time place or budget, in some cases. And I think those constraints are to go away. And the promise is that if are flexible and smart and we 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 the that you’ve talked about as being the thing that you energy to lead that organization of 1,300 people worldwide. Anjali, thank you so much being here today.
AS: Thank you. This was great.