We recently published Seer’s revamped company values and figured that it was the perfect opportunity to showcase how these principles serve as a guiding light to our organization.
“By working to uplift others, we challenge egos and open ourselves to hearing new voices and fresh perspectives. This helps us stay committed to the truth, no matter what story it tells - keeping us in a relentless pursuit of knowledge so we can be better than yesterday.”
Does this rollout mean that we’ve fundamentally changed as an organization? No, we still prioritize the same things that were important to us before such as volunteering, employee well-being, and continuous improvement. The world has evolved tremendously over the past 2 decades and, especially, within the last 5 years from a technology perspective. We believe that these values more accurately represent the organization that Seer is today.
Seer’s Values are Embedded Into Everything That We Do
Small Improvements Praise Badges
Small Improvements is the platform we use for performance reviews & giving feedback. When employees go to document praise for a colleague in SI, there is an option to add a badge that corresponds to the Seer value that they’re embodying.
Performance Reviews and Universal Role Expectations
Every performance review cycle, there is an explicit question regarding how consistently each individual team member lives into Seer’s values’.
Implementing Volunteer and Charitable Giving Goals
Seer has always offered unlimited PTO for everything from vacations to volunteering. The importance of giving back is emphasized throughout employee onboarding but, in 2021 we noticed that our charitable donations were dwindling and our team’s volunteering hours had started to taper off. Of course, it was tough to confront the fact that we’d fallen behind with our community impact efforts but, rather than make excuses, we opted to take action. In January 2022, Seer formally committed to donating $15MM to our communities by 2030.
We also established annual volunteering hours goals at the company-wide level and started covering Community Impact data during our monthly All Hands meetings.
Hiring Decisions & Seer’s interview process
When it comes to interviewing, Seer doesn’t want to hire a team full of carbon-copy clones with identical life experiences.
Our intention is to cultivate a diverse team with unique backgrounds, we consider Seer values alignment to be a must-have when we’re hiring for any role, ranging from Intern to VP. We’re constantly evaluating candidates through the lens of our values and we even incorporated required questions into our vetting processes that are intended to screen for values alignment. (ex: Required question on the Seer job application “What community service organizations are you involved in, if any”)
Organization-wide commitment to transparency
We’re proud to stand behind Seer’s Compensation Strategy, which has included Salary Transparency for nearly half a decade. That being said, our commitment to transparency goes well beyond the realm of compensation. We share detailed company financials with the entire Seer team during our monthly All Hands Meetings. Additionally, whenever we’ve gone through periods of turbulence as a business, we’ve preemptively shared our phased approach to improving profit margins with the entire company. In other words, we strive to put employees’ minds at ease, as it pertains to job security, by clearly listing out the other employee programs/perks that are being temporarily rolled back, in an effort to avoid staff reductions.
Allocation of Funds
100% of proceeds from Seer events go to charity and whenever a new client onboards with Seer, we give them $250 to make a charitable donation to the organization of their choice. Additionally, we’ve committed to giving back $15MM to our communities by 2030.
How We Define Our Values and Put Them Into Practice
Uplift Others
How we define it: Our heart sets us apart. We uplift our clients, community, and each other by always spearheading with kindness and collaboration.
How we put it into action: Seer’s commitment to Community Impact is the cornerstone of our company culture. In 2022 alone, Seer contributed $670,619 to the community through philanthropic giving and team volunteer hours. In fact, the Seer team logged a whopping 5,075 volunteer hours in 2022, which was a 501% increase in volunteering YOY.
Challenge Your Ego
How we define it: We honor all perspectives and expertise. Our commitment to the greater good means we're not afraid to challenge our own ideas.
How we put it into action: We’re always evolving and evaluating our processes at Seer. Our Founder, Wil, has even spoken at industry conferences regarding how Seer’s approach has drastically evolved over the years and how he had to come to grips with the fact that the advice he provided to digital marketing professionals in the past would no longer be valid. (i.e. Our shift to leveraging Power BI for cross-channel analyses)
Seer had the same branding in-place for nearly 2 decades so, while the idea of doing a full-scale rebrand and website relaunch sounded daunting, we knew that the benefits would significantly outweigh the costs. In fact, by migrating our CMS from WordPress to HubSpot, we were able to leverage significantly more automation and connect Seer’s data across website, content, and campaigns. In other words, we improved the efficiency of our process and the quality of the insights that we gleaned.
Commit to the Truth
How we define it: We let the data speak no matter what. We strive to be authentic and transparent in everything we do - even when it’s hard.
How we put it into action: Seer’s formalized Compensation Strategy was rolled out in 2018 and it included Salary Transparency across all roles within the organization. In fact, we’ve helped to pioneer pay transparency in the digital marketing space by being an industry leader. Additionally, we began including salary-ranges in all of our Seer job postings back in 2021, in an effort to manage candidate expectations and demystify the interview process.
Be Better Than Yesterday
How we define it: We never settle or accept the status quo. We strive to pioneer - bring new ideas to the table, share what we know, and push norms.
How we put it into action: You’ll never catch us resting on our laurels! Our team of intellectually curious strategists are committed to continued learning. In fact, when it comes time for the Seer team to create professional goals, folks will frequently aim to obtain certain industry certifications within a specific time-frame. Our Analytics Developer, Sasha Helms was praised with the ‘Be Better Than Yesterday’ badge because she recently completed 2 professional certifications, including Google Analytics and OneTrust Cookie Consent Expert. 
Conclusion
Seer’s revamped company values accurately represent the characteristics that we strive to embody at both the individual and organizational level. As a company, we are committed to uplifting others, challenging our ego, committing to truth and striving to be better than yesterday. The examples that we highlighted are just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of how we put these principles into practice.
Did these company values resonate with you? If so, consider throwing your hat in the ring and applying to a role on our Careers page.
