Participation Requirements
What participation in an UPWARD Rooted pilot cohort involves.
UPWARD Rooted is designed to be light-touch for organizations and meaningful for participants. The following outlines what we look for and what to expect across the 8-week H2 2026 founding cohorts.
The cohort is designed around low-pressure interactions and meaningful local attachment rather than transactional networking or performative socializing.
Rooted supports meaningful, naturally developing connections — not simply more introductions.
01 · Organizational Eligibility
Who fits as a pilot partner organization.
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Helsinki-based (for Cohort 1)
Organizations must have employees based in or relocating to the Helsinki metropolitan area during the cohort period.
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Internationally-oriented workforce
Organizations should employ internationally mobile professionals, international hires, relocatees, or globally distributed teams.
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Commitment to sustainable integration
Participating organizations should view social integration and meaningful local attachment as genuine contributors to long-term employee sustainability.
02 · Organizational Expectations
What participating organizations are asked to do.
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Nominate appropriate participants
Organizations are responsible for nominating participants likely to benefit from stronger local integration and recurring support systems — international hires, globally mobile employees, newcomers, returning professionals, and optionally partners or spouses.
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Encourage genuine participation
Organizations are encouraged to support participation as a meaningful part of employee sustainability and integration, rather than as purely extracurricular activity. We want participants to attend by interest, not obligation.
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Minimal coordination commitment
UPWARD Rooted manages onboarding, coordination, facilitation, and the participant experience externally. Organizational coordination requirements are intentionally lightweight.
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Consent to feedback & observational learning
Participating organizations agree to contribute lightweight feedback and observational learning to support future refinement of the cohort model.
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Optional case-study participation
Organizations may optionally participate in anonymized or attributed case-study documentation and future research outputs. This is not a requirement.
03 · Participant Expectations
What's asked of cohort participants.
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Willingness to participate intentionally
Participants should be open to recurring interaction, thoughtful conversation, and gradual relationship-building across the cohort.
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Respectful, inclusion-informed participation
Cohorts are warm, considerate environments. Participants are expected to engage respectfully with peers across backgrounds, cultures, and life stages, and to help maintain a safe and welcoming space for everyone involved.
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Reasonable availability
Across the 8-week period, participants should reasonably expect: two or more in-person gatherings, recurring small-group interaction opportunities, and occasional asynchronous communication.
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English-language participation
Cohort interaction will primarily take place in English.
04 · Cohort Structure
How cohorts are composed and run.
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Seat caps per organization
To preserve ecosystem diversity, a maximum of 40 seats per organization applies. No single organization dominates a cohort.
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Cross-company by design
UPWARD Rooted cohorts are intentionally cross-company to support broader local ecosystem integration beyond immediate workplace circles.
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Partner / spouse inclusion
Organizations may optionally sponsor participation for employee partners or spouses where relevant to relocation and integration stability.
05 · Practical & Administrative Terms
Operational framing for the H2 2026 pilots.
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Cohort size flexibility
Cohort launch depends on achieving viable participant density across participating organizations. Exact composition may flex as partner intake develops.
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Pilot framing
The H2 2026 cohorts are exploratory founding cohorts intended to refine and evaluate the long-term Rooted model. Organizations participating now help shape how Rooted develops.
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Privacy & participant respect
Participant information and interaction data are handled thoughtfully and respectfully. Rooted is not designed as surveillance, performance evaluation, or employee assessment infrastructure.
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Light coordination, again
To reiterate: the operational load on participating organizations is intentionally kept small. Rooted runs the cohort; the organization nominates and supports.