When Crystal joined Seer Interactive, there were five people. Now there are 220. Retention sits around 90%. One policy stands out from everything else they do.
"We make people take that time off" Crystal says. "Their first week at Seer is paid time off. They don't show up. They don't log in. They can do whatever they want."
The idea came in 2022. Crystal noticed new hires were ending one job on a Friday and starting at Seer the following Monday, still processing whatever they'd left behind. "You can't possibly show up ready to go fresh," she explains. The recharge week became standard. People use it to travel, catch up on life, or do nothing. It also signals something about the culture before anyone has written a line of work: when Seer says take time off, they mean it.
That same year, Crystal introduced a three-week minimum holiday alongside unlimited PTO. Before the minimum existed, around 60% of the team took three weeks. After it was introduced, 90% took more than four. Seer even sends automated reminders telling people they haven't taken enough time off.
On AI, Seer moved early. Their policy asks clients to allow AI across engagements, broadly. "It's binary," Crystal says. "You either accept it and benefit from the innovations we're doing, or you don't." Internally, AI adoption feeds directly into profit share. "If somebody is fantastic at their job but has not contributed, they will get nothing for that share."
Listen to the full conversation with Crystal on the Happy Teams podcast.
