RiseGuide Hires Small Talk Officers to Test Soft Skills
The company is testing if social skills are trainable, offering a model for addressing communication gaps in your workforce.
Updated on Oct. 27, 2026 in Remote Work
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RiseGuide is hiring up to three candidates to work as chief small talk officers, paying $2,000 for 30 days of conversation-focused fieldwork. The initiative aims to develop communication lessons for the company's mobile app by documenting interactions with strangers in public settings.
Why it matters
The company is testing if social skills are trainable, responding to broader workplace data suggesting a decline in interpersonal confidence among younger workers. Businesses currently navigating onboarding challenges for Gen Z hires may find this experiment relevant as they address gaps in professional communication.
RiseGuide is offering $2,000 for a 30-day assignment to up to three contractors, who must document their social interactions. This initiative follows a 2024 Harris Poll finding that 53% of hiring managers view Gen Z communication skills as poor, with 44% of that cohort spending six or more hours on phones daily.
The players
RiseGuide
A developer of mobile applications focused on creating social and communication-based digital content.
The details
Selected contractors will receive a budget to visit cafes, bookstores, and parks to engage with strangers, recording their experiences through notes and videos. This field data will be synthesized to create a ranking of social-friendly locations and a comprehensive communication training module for the app. The company specifically targets the intersection of the loneliness epidemic and perceived professional skill gaps to determine if confidence can be systematically improved.
Timeline
2024: The Harris Poll study on Gen Z workplace communication skills was conducted.
October 2026: RiseGuide released the job posting for chief small talk officers.
Market Landscape
This move follows a documented trend from the 2024 Harris Poll indicating a widening gap in soft skills within the modern workforce. RiseGuide is positioning itself to capitalize on this deficit by attempting to productize communication training in a way that traditional corporate onboarding programs have not yet fully addressed.
Operators facing persistent communication bottlenecks in their own teams should monitor whether this trial successfully produces actionable training materials. While the role is niche, the broader effort to quantify and train 'small talk' serves as an industry signal that soft skills are increasingly being treated as measurable, technical competencies.
The takeaway
The experiment highlights a growing corporate recognition that interpersonal confidence is no longer an assumed baseline but a potential training liability. Business owners should track the outcome of these communication modules to see if similar curricula could be integrated into their own internal talent development frameworks.
Further reading
For more on how shifts in physical presence and technology are impacting professional development, read our coverage on Remote Work.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Fast Company.
Live Poll
Do you believe face-to-face communication skills are declining due to our constant phone usage?
