The Kindred 60
A four-week pilot to test whether deliberate relationship formation can strengthen the human network across your organisation.
No organisation-wide rollout. No new permanent employee social network. No access to employees’ private conversations.
Just a controlled programme with a defined question and a measurable outcome.
60
employees
10
circles
6
colleagues
4
weeks
The question we’re testing
Can Kindred create meaningful cross-organisational relationships that would not otherwise have existed?
This is the hypothesis the pilot is designed to test. It is not a result or a claim about what has already happened.
Aoife
Risk
Circle member 1 of six
Daniel
Technology
Circle member 2 of six
Priya
Marketing
Circle member 3 of six
Seán
Operations
Circle member 4 of six
Lena
Finance
Circle member 5 of six
Tom
People
Circle member 6 of six
One circle. Six colleagues. Six functions that would rarely meet.
What exactly happens to an employee?
One invitation, a short work-context onboarding, then four guided weeks with the same five colleagues. Nothing to install and nothing to keep using afterwards.
- 01
Invitation
An employee receives a personal invitation link for the programme. Participation is voluntary.
- 02
Work context
A short onboarding captures function, location, tenure and a few work interests. No personal life details.
- 03
Matched
They are placed in one circle with five colleagues from other parts of the organisation.
- 04
Week 1
Meet the humans behind the job titles.
- 05
Week 2
Find what you have in common.
- 06
Week 3
Move beyond surface-level introductions.
- 07
Week 4
Take the circle beyond Kindred and prepare to continue independently.
- 08
Kindred ends
The programme closes. Any relationships formed continue through normal work channels.
The same six people, week after week.
The circle does not change. Familiarity is what turns an introduction into a relationship, so the same six colleagues move through all four weeks together.
Aoife
Risk
Daniel
Technology
Priya
Marketing
Seán
Operations
Lena
Finance
Tom
People
What is a piece of work you are proud of that most people here never saw?
Designed for busy employees.
Kindred asks for participation for four weeks, not another platform to maintain indefinitely.
- AsynchronousNo meetings to schedule. People respond when it suits them during the week.
- One small circleSix people, not an open network. Nobody has to introduce themselves repeatedly.
- Guided promptsA single prompt each week, rather than unstructured networking.
- Text or voiceWritten responses, with voice notes where supported.
- Submit to unlockYou share yours before you see the other five. Reciprocity is built in.
- Deliberately finiteFour weeks, then Kindred stops. There is nothing to keep logging into.
How the six are chosen.
Circles are composed by the Kindred team using the work information you provide. It is a set of deliberate principles, not a black box — and you can review or override any circle before it starts.
Connection Circles
Circles are formed deliberately across existing organisational boundaries, considering factors such as function, location and tenure, with enough shared work interests for an easy first conversation.
New Starter Circles
Circles combine new starters with established colleagues from different parts of the organisation, so a new employee gains familiar faces well beyond their immediate team.
Example circle
Aoife
Risk
Circle member 1 of six
Daniel
Technology
Circle member 2 of six
Priya
Marketing
Circle member 3 of six
Seán
Operations
Circle member 4 of six
Lena
Finance
Circle member 5 of six
Tom
People
Circle member 6 of six
Where relevant data is available, Kindred avoids obvious reporting-line conflicts such as directly matching managers with their reports.
Privacy
Measure whether relationships form. Don’t monitor the relationships themselves.
Kindred measures whether relationships form. It does not monitor the relationships themselves.
Private to the circle
- Circle responses
- Voice notes
- Individual reactions
- Anything colleagues say to each other
Never available to the employer.
Employer reporting
- Participation
- Aggregate programme outcomes
- Baseline and post-programme comparison
- 30-day follow-up
Aggregate only, with small response groups withheld.
Example reporting view
Kindred 60 · Programme report
Aggregate figures only. Groups with too few responses are withheld.
Baseline
—
Before Week 1
Immediate post
—
Awaiting responses
30-day follow-up
—
Awaiting responses
- Invited · started · completed—
- Baseline responses recorded—
- Met someone they would not otherwise have known—
- Comfortable contacting a circle member directly—
- Intends to stay in contact—
- Relationship Formation Threshold reached—
- Day-30 eligible participants—
- Day-30 still in contact—
What are we actually measuring?
At the end of the programme a participant reaches the Relationship Formation Threshold only when all three of these are true.
- 01They met someone they would not otherwise have known.
- 02They feel comfortable contacting at least one circle member directly.
- 03They intend to stay in contact.
This is a participant-level threshold. It reports how many participants met all three conditions — it is not a count of individual relationships between pairs of people.
Measurement sequence
- BaselineBefore Week 1, so there is a starting point to compare against.
- Week 4 / immediate postThe threshold questions, asked as the programme closes.
- Day 30Thirty days after the programme ends, to test whether contact continued once Kindred stopped facilitating the circle.
We are not trying to prove that Kindred increases retention or productivity in a four-week pilot. The first question is simpler: did meaningful new cross-organisational relationships form?
How much work is this for your People team?
What we need from you
- An agreed eligible population of roughly 60 participants.
- Basic employee information for invitations and matching: name and work email, plus function or department, location, tenure and any useful matching context where you have it.
- One internal People or HR sponsor.
- Agreement on how the pilot is introduced internally.
What Kindred handles
- Programme setup
- Participant onboarding
- Circle formation
- The four-week guided experience
- Programme progression week by week
- Measurement at baseline, post-programme and day 30
- Aggregate reporting
Kindred generates a secure personal invitation link for every participant. Automated outbound email is not part of the pilot today, so invitation links are issued for your team to distribute through your normal internal channel, or sent by the Kindred team by arrangement.
Making the case internally.
A short summary you can paste into an email or a paper for your leadership team.
- The problem
- Employees naturally build relationships within immediate teams. Relationships across functions, locations and tenure groups are harder to form deliberately.
- The hypothesis
- A structured small-group experience can create meaningful relationships across those boundaries.
- The test
- 60 employees. 10 circles. 4 weeks.
- The decision
- Measure whether meaningful relationships formed before considering a wider programme.
Six creates enough possible relationships to find real common ground, while staying small enough that everyone is recognisable and nobody can quietly disappear.
Four weeks is long enough to build familiarity and short enough to have a clear end. Kindred is not another permanent platform for employees to adopt.
What happens if it works?
- 01Run the pilot60 employees, 10 circles, four weeks.
- 02EvaluateReview the aggregate outcomes at post-programme and at day 30.
- 03DecideIf the organisation sees enough value, consider further circles — new starters, graduates, hybrid or multi-location employees, or broader cross-functional groups.
The next question is not whether Kindred should become another company-wide social network. It is whether the organisation should run the next 100 circles.
Discuss a Kindred 60 pilot.
Tell us a little about your organisation and where stronger cross-organisational relationships would matter most.
Every company has an organisational chart. Kindred builds the human network underneath it.