How Kindred Helped AssemblyAI Go Beyond Cohort-Based Learning for Manager Development.
Manager enablement is vital for our team’s success and retention at AssemblyAI. The partnership with Kindred Minds has exceeded our expectations, delivering tangible improvements, making our managers feel supported and fostering a motivated, cohesive team.
Summary
AssemblyAI is a remote-first AI company building a platform of APIs to transcribe and understand audio data that has raised over $115M from investors such as Accel, Y Combinator, and Insight Partners. The organization has 100+ employees across the world with 20+ managers.
The team at AssemblyAI had existing documentation and self-serve resources for manager enablement in place, but these solutions had low utilization.
Since launching Kindred Minds, every single AssemblyAI manager has been using their AI coach regularly and 85% of these managers report that they've improved as leaders because of Kindred.
Metrics
Snapshot
of managers used and engaged with Kindred's nudges frequently.
of managers report that Kindred made them better managers within 6 weeks.
of 1:1s were attended and summarized by Kindred.
About AssemblyAI
AssemblyAI is a leading provider of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, offering an API that transforms spoken language into accurate text transcription. Founded in 2017, AssemblyAI has garnered recognition for its high-accuracy models that cater to a diverse range of industries, from meetings and customer service calls to podcasts and educational content.
The company is remote-first with an office in New York City and employs team members all over the world.
The Challenge
The AssemblyAI People team's most important priorities are maintaining high retention and engagement across the organization, and especially for their experienced and high performing team members. Following an engagement survey earlier this year, it became clear that manager development and enablement was one of the top areas to drive improvements.
Despite existing documentation and self-serve resources for manager effectiveness, managers were often unable to engage proactively due to other priorities. To add to that, a globally spread group with little availability for large group trainings reflected a need for more personalized and integrated solutions that fit seamlessly into managers' workflows.
With a small People team and limited bandwidth, AssemblyAI sought AI-driven software solutions to create leverage and achieve a higher return on investment in manager development, aiming to enhance overall team effectiveness and retention outcomes.
The post-meeting nudges from Kindred Minds have been transformative. The real-time feedback allows me to immediately understand how I performed as a manager, making it easier to adjust and improve my approach in future interactions.
Outcomes
During their engagement with Kindred, AssemblyAI achieved significant outcomes that surpassed their expectations and previous efforts in manager development:
- 100% Utilization: Kindred's solution achieved full utilization, far exceeding their original target and surpassing any other manager enablement solutions previously tried by AssemblyAI.
- Automated Meeting Summaries: Over 76% of meetings were automatically summarized, providing managers with real-time feedback and actionable insights, enhancing decision-making and team alignment.
- Improved Manager Effectiveness: Within just 6 weeks, 85% of managers reported becoming better leaders as a result of Kindred's personalized and integrated approach to manager development.
These outcomes demonstrated a clear and substantial return on investment for AssemblyAI, not only in terms of higher utilization rates but also in tangible improvements in manager performance and team effectiveness.
Looking forward
Impressed by the impactful results achieved during their initial engagement, AssemblyAI has chosen to expand their partnership with Kindred. They will be offering personalized AI coaching to all managers within the organization.
Building on the success of the initial engagement, AssemblyAI intends to integrate Kindred as a fundamental component of their overarching manager enablement strategy. By providing every manager with personalized leadership coaching, AssemblyAI aims to further enhance managerial effectiveness, improve retention, foster professional growth, and sustain high levels of team performance across the organization.
"Kindred has been an unexpectedly useful tool for my 1-1s. Before my 1-1s Kindred pings me on Slack with reminders for discussion points. It builds on points I share from past 1-1s. I'm looking forward to continuing to use Kindred in the months to come."