Honesty-Humility
Sincerity, fairness, and modesty. How genuinely someone treats the people around them.
The Science
Compatibility science is transforming
how people connect at work.
Rivet helps coworkers build stronger working relationships using validated personality science, not shared job titles or surface traits. Here is the model we use, how the methodology was shaped, and the evidence behind it.
The experts bringing the model to work
Ryan Jenkins and Steven Van Cohen have spent years on one question: what creates connection at work.
Ryan and Steven are Wall Street Journal bestselling authors of Connectable and the workplace connection experts behind SyncLX. Rivet applies a research-backed compatibility methodology to their practical work helping organizations reduce isolation, strengthen belonging, and build teams that collaborate better.
Workplace loneliness is not the absence of people. It is the absence of meaningful connection. Rivet is designed to make those connections intentional, measurable, and repeatable.
Ryan Jenkins & Steven Van Cohen
WSJ bestselling authors of Connectable
WSJ
Bestselling authors of Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In
Keynote
Ryan Jenkins is an in-demand keynote speaker on connection, generations, and the future of work
12+ yrs
Steven Van Cohen has coached leaders and organizations on belonging, well-being, and team connection
Research
Initial Rivet methodology was informed by compatibility work Dr. Galen Buckwalter helped create
The model
HEXACO measures personality on six dimensions.
HEXACO is a modern, peer-reviewed model of personality developed by psychologists Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton and replicated across cultures and languages. It describes people on six continuous traits—not a type, not a colour—which is exactly what you need to reason about who works well together.
Emotionality
Sensitivity, empathy, and how much reassurance and closeness a person tends to seek.
eXtraversion
Social energy and confidence. Whether someone is energised or drained by being around others.
Agreeableness
Patience, tolerance, and willingness to compromise when there is friction to work through.
Conscientiousness
Organisation, diligence, and how much structure someone brings to getting things done.
Openness
Curiosity, imagination, and appetite for new ideas, perspectives, and ways of working.
Because each trait is a continuum, two people are never simply a yes or a no. Rivet reasons about the shape of two profiles together—where similarity helps, where difference complements, and where a gap is worth a gentle heads-up.
Why this is different
Why random pairings and surface traits fail.
Most connection tools pair people on things that are easy to collect—department, seniority, hobbies—or on nothing at all. Those signals feel relevant. They rarely predict whether two people will actually work well together.
Surface-trait tools
Pairs on what is easy to see
- Same team, same title, or same office — proximity, not fit.
- Shared hobbies and interests that may never come up at work.
- Random draws — a coin flip dressed up as culture work.
- No theory of why a pairing should work, so no way to improve it.
Compatibility science
Pairs on what predicts a good relationship
- Validated HEXACO traits measured directly, the same way for everyone.
- Reasoning about where similarity and difference each help a pair.
- Built on compatibility research, not a random-pairing script.
- Testable and improvable — we learn from how real pairs connect.
Surface-trait tools answer “who is nearby?” Compatibility science answers “who can this person build a strong working relationship with?” Only the second question is worth building a company relationship on.
From science to real relationship development
A model only matters if it becomes a habit.
Insight without action is just a report. Rivet closes the last mile: it turns compatibility science into scheduled, low-friction activities that people actually keep.
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1
Ten minutes, once
An employee completes the HEXACO assessment—short, plain-language statements, no trick questions. Their profile is theirs to keep and read.
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2
Rivet finds the fit
Our compatibility logic reasons across profiles to find colleagues who can build strong working relationships—across teams and levels, not just the desk next door.
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A guided activity
Instead of a name in a directory, teammates get a short, human activity explaining why the relationship is worth building.
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Auto-scheduled to happen
Rivet handles the back-and-forth and books the time, so compatibility becomes a real conversation—then a relationship.
A guided activity, auto-scheduled
Research & validation
The evidence this is built on.
HEXACO and the psychology of compatibility are established, peer-reviewed fields. The selected references below point to the kind of research that underpins Rivet's approach.
- Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(2), 329–358.
- Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150–166.
- Buckwalter, J. G., et al. (2004). Predicting relationship satisfaction from personality: A compatibility approach. Journal of Personality Assessment, 82(3), 288–301.
- Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2018). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO-100. Assessment, 25(5), 543–556.
- Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.
- Chiaburu, D. S., & Harrison, D. A. (2008). Do peers make the place? Coworker effects on job attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(5), 1082–1103.
- Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2020). Objections to the HEXACO model of personality structure—and why those objections fail. European Journal of Personality, 34(4), 492–510.
References show the literature Rivet draws on and are provided for context, not as a complete bibliography. We are happy to walk security and people-science teams through our methodology in detail.
Common questions
What leaders and employees ask us.
Yes. Rivet is built on HEXACO, a six-factor model of personality developed by academic psychologists Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton and validated across dozens of languages and cultures. The initial methodology was informed by compatibility work Dr. Galen Buckwalter helped create, and Rivet applies that research lineage to workplace connection. We treat validation as ongoing: we monitor how working relationships develop and refine the model against real outcomes rather than assumptions.
Your assessment results are used for one thing: helping you build stronger working relationships with compatible colleagues. Individual responses are never shown to managers, never used in performance reviews, and never sold. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and employees can request deletion at any time.
About ten minutes, once. It is a set of short, plain-language statements you rate on a simple scale. There are no trick questions and no right answers, and most people finish in a single sitting on their phone or laptop.
HEXACO is a dimensional model: it places you on six continuous traits rather than sorting you into a type or a colour. That matters for compatibility, because real people are not four or sixteen boxes. HEXACO also adds a sixth factor, Honesty-Humility, that older frameworks miss and that turns out to predict how people treat one another at work. It is peer-reviewed and reproducible, which type-based instruments generally are not.
Yes. Every employee gets a private, readable summary of their own profile written in plain English, plus context on why a given relationship-building activity was suggested. The goal is insight people can use, not a score that gets filed away. What no one else sees is another person's raw results.
See the science
work on your team.
Book a walkthrough and we will show you exactly how Rivet turns validated personality data into real, scheduled connections.
Book a Demo