Frenem Pulse · Relational Diagnostics
See how your people actually work together.
Engagement surveys measure how people feel. Pulse measures how they work together: the friction, energy, and hidden connections between the people doing the work.
Four lenses. One diagnostic.
Self
How individuals see their own behaviour, habits, and self-regulation at work.
Subject
How colleagues actually experience working with a person: the mirror held up to self-perception.
System
The conditions people work inside: workload, autonomy, clarity, and whether it feels safe to speak up.
Dyad
The energy or friction inside specific working relationships. The lens that makes the invisible network visible.
The signals standard tools can't see.
Exit risk, visible early
Strain, silence, and isolation rarely appear alone. Pulse cross-references them to flag likely departures while there is still time to act.
Hidden brokers, surfaced
The people quietly holding your network together, trusted across teams, absent from every succession plan. Pulse names the single points of failure.
The manager effect, isolated
When a team struggles, Pulse separates the workload from the manager. So you fix the actual problem, not the visible one.
Cross-functional friction, mapped
Where collaboration between departments creates energy, and where it drains it. Silos stop being a feeling and become a map.
Surveys measure mood. Pulse measures the machine.
| Engagement survey | Frenem Pulse | |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | How individuals feel | How people work together |
| Unit of analysis | The individual | The working relationship |
| What it finds | Morale trends and engagement scores | Exit risk, hidden brokers, the manager effect, silos |
| Output | A dashboard score | Three report cuts, each with a next action |
| Privacy model | Anonymous averages | Enforced response thresholds; leadership never sees names |
| Time to signal | Quarterly trend lines | A four-week pilot |
Not a replacement for listening to your people. A different instrument. Surveys ask how everyone feels. Pulse shows where the work itself creates energy, friction, and risk.
Ingest. Route. Protect. Deliver.
A standard pilot runs four weeks, boundary to reports. Your part: one file from HR, and a few minutes from each person.
Ingest
One export from your HR system: reporting lines, teams, tenure. Plus a short intake on what's changing in the business.
Route & Collect
Every person inside the boundary receives a secure link. Each pulse is tailored to who they actually work with.
Protect & Process
The engine calculates gaps, thresholds, and confidence, and withholds anything that could identify an individual.
Deliver
Three report cuts land: private coaching guides, a systemic view for leadership, and the relational network map.
Three cuts. Three audiences.
The Individual Report
A confidential coaching guide: where self-perception and colleagues' experience align, the one blind spot that matters most, and a single habit to practise next. Developmental, never evaluation.
The Org Pulse Report
A systemic, top-down read: heatmaps of strain, trust, and culture by department and layer. The top risks, their trajectory if unaddressed, and one intervention you actually control.
The Relational Network Map
The map itself: structural silos, hidden brokers, bottleneck managers, and an isolation watchlist. Leading indicators of attrition, visible weeks before a notice period.
Safe to answer honestly.
Honest answers are the whole product. Pulse only works if every person trusts where their words go, so the guarantees are structural, not policy.
No surveillance
Pulse never reads email, calendars, or chat. Every data point is a question someone chose to answer.
Thresholds, enforced
Team and relationship data stays hidden unless enough people respond. Below the threshold, it is not shown to anyone.
Reports stay in their lane
Individual reports go to the individual alone. Leadership sees systems and patterns, never names.
Asked before every pilot.
Can leadership see individual answers?
No. Individual reports go to the individual alone. Leadership sees patterns at team level and above, protected by response thresholds, never names.
How much time does it ask of each person?
About fifteen questions, roughly five minutes, answered on a phone through one secure link. No login, no app, no survey fatigue.
What do we need to provide?
One export from your HR system (reporting lines, teams, tenure), plus a short intake about what's changing in the business. That's the whole ask.
Is there a minimum team size?
Pulse enforces response thresholds, so relationship and team views only appear when enough people take part. On the intro call we'll confirm whether your headcount and structure will produce a useful read.
Is this monitoring or surveillance?
No. Pulse never reads email, calendars, or chat. Every data point is an answer someone chose to give, and the privacy rules are structural, not policy.
See your organisation as it really works.
One link, one short pulse, three report cuts. Friction, energy, and risk, visible while you can still act on them.