Frequently Asked Questions

The technical installation is simple and takes a few minutes to set up. We then pull in two weeks of historical data so that Indie can start analysing and set a baseline. You will begin seeing custom insights in your dashboard within a few hours after connecting with Indie.

In the 1-2 weeks before your organisation rolls out Indie, we work closely with upper management to map out where Indie will sit in the company-wide strategy and what the critical success factors will be to integrate the solution within the broader company culture. Training templates and comms are included, so managers have all the necessary tools. 

We want you to be able to properly brief your team members on the purpose of Indie and the importance of wellbeing to your organisation.

Indie is currently able to connect with Slack and Microsoft Outlook. 

Indie will be enabled within Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace very soon. If you want to be kept in the loop of these releases, email us at indie@pioneera.com and we’ll contact you for our beta rollout!

Only a company admin can set up Indie and select users. As Indie connects to your company’s comms tools, the person installing Indie needs to have admin access to your Slack or Microsoft environments.

We keep your data secure using the latest cloud technologies and security principles, and we are heading towards ISO27001 standards compliance. We aim to be more secure than any business we serve. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest, with strict user-level access control as to who in our or your organisation can see what data. We only store the absolute minimum data we need to provide insights for you and your team, and we are fanatical about ensuring privacy for the individual above all else.  

For more information, check out our Privacy Policy page.

You can get started with Indie without providing any credit card information. It's important to note that you must be an organisation's admin to roll out Indie.

Once you've connected to Indie, one of our admins will be in touch to set up your recurring billing. You can choose whether you would like to be invoiced monthly or annually (payments are required in advance of each billing cycle).

As a company admin, you can change or cancel your subscription whenever you like; however, we do not offer refunds for a billing period you’ve already paid for. Indie will remain available to you and your teams until the end of your billing period.

Indie uses AI and machine learning to identify the early warning signs of stress and wellness and to provide proactive, preventative support. 

Indie provides individual stress patterns, trends and recommendations as tips to help you reduce stress. There is no need to search for help - it's all in one spot. If stress is identified and addressed early, it's much easier to manage and maintain wellness.

Follow the tips that Indie sends you. You can access them in 2 ways:

1. They’ll be a direct message to you from Indie in your company’s communication system [Slack/Microsoft/Google];
2. They will be in a real-time dashboard that you can access anytime. Go to https://app.pioneera.com and access everything you need.

When in your dashboard, take note of your stress and wellness trends - particularly the best and most challenging days and consider what happens on those days. 

Potential triggers for work stress could be: 

• Particular or regular meetings or events; 
• Certain situations or people;
• Changing job roles;
• Tight deadlines requiring overtime and weekend work;
• Return-to-the-office announcements;
• Internal restructures;
• And so on.

Observing these trends can provide insight into triggers of stress/wellness, and Indie’s recommendations will help address this. Keep implementing the tips, and you will notice improvements in your health!

Individual privacy is Indie’s No 1 focus. We have built the system from the ground up to maintain personal privacy. We did lots of user testing before we built the product so people could trust it and tell us what they found most important. 

Here is how your data is managed by Pioneera:

1. Individual data is only accessible by the individual. Nobody else - none of their managers, peers, HR or other parts of the organisation can see personal data and insights;
2. Team data is ONLY available in groups of 7 and above. That way no individual can ever be identified or targeted in the data;
3. The system is transparent, so as soon as Indie is added to the company she says “Hi”. That way she can’t be in the background without users knowing it;
4. We hold all the insights in our cloud system - it's not held in the company/customer system. Pioneera has significant high-grade encryption to protect each individual;
5. Indie assesses and scores language using our proprietary scoring system. No humans see or score the data.

Indie uses both linguistic and behavioural analysis. This includes sentiment analysis, specific words used in the workplace context and a range of linguistic cues. 

This is evidence-based and grounded in science. We undertake continual research to improve Indie. We’ve been testing this for more than 4 years now and focus on continual improvement.  Research with the University of Sydney and the University of Newcastle to understand the link between stress/wellness and productivity is regularly conducted so that Indie can help you be at your most productive and your best self at the same time!

Your manager cannot identify you in the data. We ensure all data is in groups of 7 and above. Group data is unavailable for teams of less than 7 people.

Indie provides your manager with expert leadership tips to help them support you and your team to reduce stress, promote wellness and create a great place to work. Indie knows that managers are often juggling a lot, so she helps your manager quickly identify and do things to help the team. We’ve had great success with managers changing things that were causing stress, such as the timing and structure of team meetings!

We provide broad, aggregated trends to your company, so they know what to do to help you without you having to constantly ask. Your company cannot see your data or how you are tracking, that is only available to you. We keep your data safe and private.

Nobody. We will start to look at the industry and social trends over time, and we’ll aggregate the data so you are never identified in it.

No. Never.

That is for your company to decide, as they have bought the product from us.

Yes. We hope you do use the platform and you can choose how you engage with the platform, insights and recommendations. Your company may choose to have you as part of the aggregated and anonymised team data - that is something you will need to discuss with your manager if you are concerned.

No, Indie is here to complement and support your company programs, like training and EAP. In the future Indie will connect to EAP programs in an automated way, so you can easily and seamlessly flow from one to the other.

Indie works when you do, inside your company’s communication systems (email or chat). We plan to enable Indie so you can choose to connect to your personal email/chat etc and get support both inside and outside of work. 

Indie’s coaching is built to help you create awareness around your stress and wellness triggers - nothing is stopping you from applying this knowledge to your personal life!

Open and transparent communication is the key to supporting people to build trust and feel safe using Indie. That’s why the very first step in implementing Indie within an organisation is for senior leadership to brief all managers and team members that will be using Indie. 

This happens before Indie gets connected to any company collaboration systems (email or chat).

We have a range of communication materials we can share with you, and our user experience includes onboarding emails from Pioneera introducing the key benefits and value of using Indie.

Privacy is our No 1 focus. We have built the system from the ground up to maintain privacy and confidentiality. We did lots of user testing before we built the product so people could trust it and tell us what they found most important.

Here is how data is managed by Pioneera:

1. Individual data is only accessible by that person. Nobody else - their manager, peers, HR - or even us - can see the raw data;
2. The team data is ONLY available in groups of 7 and above. That way no individual can ever be identified in the data;
3. The system is transparent, so as soon as Indie is added to your company she says “Hi” to everyone. That way she can’t be in the background without employees knowing about her;
4. We hold all the insights in our cloud system using military-grade encryption;
5. Indie assesses and scores language using our proprietary scoring system. No humans ever see or score the data.

We also recommend you use the group data regularly - discuss the patterns and trends with the team to see if there are ways you can address them together. It’s a great collaboration tool and collaboration is a great way to build mental wellness and resilience!

Indie does not use surveys! We use passive language analysis, which is as close to real-life as you can get. Indie gives you the insight to help you help your team better. 

As Indie sits “passively” in the background, she’s running all the time and does all the work for you. This is why it’s real-time understanding. 

In our experience, the teams with the greatest success rate after implementing Indie, have identified one or more champions. This could be wellness or engagement or a data champion, and they take carriage of the data and the system. They use the data, implement the tips and generate collaboration. This is when we see the best results! If you choose the pro or enterprise plan, our expert team at Pioneera works with those champions to embed Indie in your company for the greatest wins.

No, you cannot see individuals, just like your manager can’t see your data. This is critical to keep individuals safe and enable them to thrive. You can see patterns and trends in the team and collaborate with the team to find solutions.

We have seen a manager from one of our clients change the timing and structure of their team meeting after Indie helped them identify that it was causing stress, and as a result, the stress dissipated. 

Another CEO was led to understand the value of an “all-hands” meeting to engage their team. Another company gained incredible wellness results after an emotional intelligence workshop. 

We have also witnessed a technology leader obtain increased wellness after a hackathon, so she ran it again to quantify the value to the team. 

Other challenges to employee mental health and wellbeing have been:

• the stress related to return-to-the-office briefings after Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdown;
• the impact of poorly run workshops on the team;
• the effect a stressed CEO had on their team at 7 pm through their communication. 

All of these leaders used the data to repeat the things that were working well or to change what wasn’t. 

We are proud to say that all teams have significantly improved their workplace wellness as a result! Here are two case studies from ANZ and Lotus People if you’d like to learn more best practices and read some practical examples.

You choose how you use your team’s data. We would recommend you’re clear with your team as to how you’ll use it. A great way to share your team’s data is in team meetings and 1-1s so that your team members can see how leadership is utilising the data to make positive changes!

You can create as many sub-groups as you wish, as long as the group size is 7 or above. We have seen customers create groups to support new employees, different functional areas/project teams, different geographies or a range of areas. Essentially you can look at your data in multiple ways that serve you and your team best!

Admin Guide

User Guide