Almost 2 years ago Rand Fishkin and I announced that we were going to try a little experiment, swapping CEO roles and running each other’s company for a week - see how tired I am every time they cut to me? It wasn’t an easy task.

Anyway, I wanted to say thank you Rand & Moz & Moz’s investors  & Seer Execs for letting us do the swap, here we are 2 years later (My 3 week old son, Rio is literally crying as I write this on my last day, so expect typos) and I can see things at Seer that we are doing, that have impacted our company in big and small ways.

Hey Moz, Rio is wondering if there are onsies out there somewhere? :)

Ok, on to the changes we’ve made…

Moz vs Seer - Maternity Leave & Paternity Leave

In one of my conversations it came to my attention that Moz has equal maternity and paternity leave, I believe its 4 months, paid at 100%.  While I couldn’t match that (Seer was 3 months, at like 70%-90% pay), but we didn’t have paternity leave for the dads.  Me being the kind of guy I am, I said, we should do that too, and we did.  By implementing that company wide, I was just able to spend 6 weeks working an extremely reduced schedule (I was probably at 10-15 hours a week vs my typical 55-60 ish) and spend time with my new son, Rio and my wife. I am also easing back over the next 2 weeks.  I don’t know if I would have had a facility to do that w/o the swap, b/c I might not have ever been challenged on that.  

As such, I have gotten to spend SO much time with my son, and be an equal partner with my wife. It feels good to have done that and invested this time, it feels GREAT to have made it a part of Seer that every mother and father have equal access to, it costs us a lot of money, its some of the best spent money in our budget.

Moz vs Seer - Nursing Rooms

Newsflash, I don’t nurse babies as a result I didn’t know much about the process.  

During the swap Rand dropped the idea of building a room for mothers under our stairs…for Crystal and any other mothers (we’ve had a ton of babies born since Crystal’s little one). Now moms don’t have to try to book a conference room, look for a room with locks, etc.

I’m glad to say Rand, we have space for 3 stations for mothers in our new office. Without the swap, that may have never happened, and my lack of exposure would have made a lot of people at Seer’s lives a bit tougher.

Guess what Rand?  When one of our folks (Charlotte) who interviewed us both after the swap had her little one, Ryan who runs the San Diego office, rallied the team and somehow they turned a closet into a pump room, that was all them, they saw what we did in Philly and found a way in a cramped office to make a nursing area a priority.

Moz vs Seer - Google Groups

I remember when I was answering emails, that one day a Moz LGBT list popped into my inbox (as I understand it its for anyone who wants to keep on top of issues / support, etc, so its all inclusive).  I had no idea you all had such an active list, and while Seer has had a couple openly LGBT folks, if we do today they are not open.  But if we ever have a few, a group will be made if they want it.  I am pretty sure, that you also had a group for parents. Seer now does too, as a result of me seeing how you all use groups at Moz.  That list provides us parents with anything from a “here’s where to save money” to a “OMG what did you do” to a place to share pictures with one another.

Its a support system, and I never thought of creating groups like that within a company.

Thanks again Rand, you might not know if the impact was felt - I hope this post shows you that a year and a half later, not only have I made some changes (more to come in part II), but Seer has made institutional changes, we’ve learned and put things in action.