So far, this book has focused on building your skills. But, your career in people analytics will also depend on your ability to build and nurture relationships with others. People analytics is all about transforming insights into action – you can’t do that alone. Meaningful impact requires collaboration, trust, and a strong network of allies. Plus, a supportive community can challenge your thinking, amplify your insights, and help you drive real results. Building a community is essential for success in this field.

While some are lucky enough to join established people analytics teams or communities of practice, most people will need to actively build, expand, or strengthen their own community. And, even within existing communities, it’s up to you to engage, contribute, and put in the effort to become a true member of the community. Community building is not just networking; it’s about forming genuine connections with individuals and groups who share your interests and/or goals. It’s about fostering mutually beneficial relationships, offering support and expertise, and working with your network to drive shared success.

Within your community, people will take on different roles for you—teammates, mentors, advisors, colleagues, peers, acquaintances, and allies. You can find them in many ways: within your workplace or academic setting, at conferences or meetups, through online communities, or by bonding over content that attracts like-minded professionals. Thriving communities rely on active participation. That means sharing knowledge, providing feedback on others’ work, and being a reliable source of insight.

Keys to Community Building: Trust, Meaningful Relationships, and Collaborative Teamwork

Trust is the cornerstone of just about everything and is absolutely essential for effective collaboration, successful analytics projects, and building a strong, engaged community. When it comes to people analytics work there are multiple types of trust at play, there is trust in you as a person (your interpersonal trustworthiness), trust in your ability as a people analytics professional (trust in your expertise and knowledge), and also trust in the analytics themselves (trust in the data, the outcomes, and its applicability). You will need all three to succeed.

People trust others who act with integrity, transparency, and consistency. Personal credibility is important but won’t be enough on its own. Others will need to trust you as a person, but then also trust your expertise and the work itself. Even if you’re highly respected, your analytics work must be rigorous, ethical, and unbiased for others to rely on it. You can build that trust by ensuring your methodologies are sound, interpretations are fair, and that your findings are communicated with clarity. Beyond a person and their work, the data itself must be trustworthy. You might be trustworthy and your methods might be good, but if others don’t trust the data, they won’t act on the insights. Establishing trust in data requires transparency about sources, methodologies, and limitations. People analytics often deals with complex, ambiguous, and sometimes sensitive information, and acknowledging these nuances—rather than overstating certainty—reinforces credibility. Strong data governance, ethical data practices, and clear explanations of how data was collected and validated can help others feel more confident in it for decision-making. Transparency is key—it should always be clear where data comes from, how it has been processed, and any limitations that may exist. Showing your work helps establish credibility, as does involving others early in the process to build shared ownership and alignment.

You can’t conduct every step required in the people analytics process alone. At some point you will need to rely on others to give data, collect data, store data, analyze data, provide access or tools, or take action based on the insights people analytics produces. But the good news is that you don’t need to be an expert in every single aspect of people analytics; if you are adept at reaching out and leveraging the knowledge, tools, and resources available within your broader community to achieve success. We can only accomplish people analytics with others. But to do things with others, we do have to actually know people. So a simple first step in building your community is going to include getting to know people.

Community starts by first building a network and then fostering and nurturing select relationships so that those connections go from just people you know into people who enable, support, inspire, and empower you. Some network connections will be given to you such as your work colleagues or school classmates. Others you will need to build through networking. Networking is not just a social activity for extroverts. It’s a starting point for meeting new people who share your passions and interests, or those with complementary knowledge and skills to your own. A strong network can provide access to valuable insights, support your career advancement, and open doors to new collaborations. There is an erroneous belief that networking is mostly chatting it up at a happy hour, clicking ‘connect’ on the social media profile of someone you’ve never met, or asking people for jobs. That’s the kind of behavior that gives networking a bad reputation. Instead, networking is a way to identify more people with whom you might find genuine connections and meaningful relationships. 

Collaborative teamwork with current colleagues or members of our existing community groups is an easily accessible and powerful way to build your network that also provides a lot of easy opportunities for deepening connections with those individuals. Collaborative teamwork isn’t the same as just working with other people. It’s about actively seeking diverse perspectives, communicating effectively, navigating conflicts constructively, and sharing ownership of goals and outcomes. It’s about creating synergy where your combined effort as a group will be greater than what any of you could have accomplished individually. And remember, your opportunities for collaborative teamwork are not limited to the workplace, you should look for opportunities in any communities you are already a part of whether they be faith-based, school-related, charitable, professional associations, or recreational. These are all great spaces for building relationships and working together and you’d be surprised how you will likely be able to apply and build your people analytics skills while working within those communities.

Since you are focusing on a career in people analytics, I recommend building a wider community outside of your immediate place of work or personal communities specifically focused on people analytics. Attend industry conferences and events to learn about trends and expand your circle of people analytics enthusiasts. Volunteer your expertise to contribute to open-source people analytics projects or offer consulting/internships. Connect online through professional platforms like LinkedIn that have a lot of groups specific to people analytics (there’s even a LinkedIn group created for readers of this book: linkedin.com/groups/14487429). Or through professional associations like the Society for People Analytics or others related to your specific industry or educational background. Create public content—blog posts, articles, podcasts, or presentations—to attract like-minded individuals to you. Shared learning experiences, like courses and workshops, can provide a place to meet people and common ground for discussion. 

As you connect with others, you’ll form bonds ranging from casual to deep and your community will evolve over time. Focus on building genuine connections with people who motivate, challenge, inspire, and empower you. Seek out people with complementary skills, spark meaningful conversations with new individuals, and embrace diverse perspectives. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in community building is to focus less on job titles or formal credentials and more on ideas and perspectives. If you’re the sole analyst at a small nonprofit, you can still learn from a data engineer on a large team at a multinational corporation—and they can learn a lot from you, too. A senior people data scientist working on cutting-edge projects still has plenty to gain from a relationship with an intern in a different team who is just starting out. When searching for community, look for passion, not position.