Explore & Engage: Build Your People Analytics Community

Actions to Build Your Network

Before you can have a community, you need to actually know people. So a simple first step in building your community is going to include building a network and connections with others. Here are some great ways to build your network:

• Shared Learning Experiences: Take courses or attend workshops alongside others. There are plenty of asynchronous ways to learn, but if you are looking to learn and build your community, sign up for something that happens live and with other people. In these settings, you are sure to find people who share your desire for self-development and share the same topic of interest. You’ll also have the benefit of already having something to talk about – you have the course/session/learning topic as a basis for starting a deep meaningful discussion.
• Attend Industry Conferences and Events: Search for upcoming people analytics events and sign up. You’ll be surprised how many happen regularly both in-person and online. If you can’t find one, consider creating a meetup or event and inviting people in your area. This is a fantastic way to learn about trends, share your knowledge, and expand your professional circle. [Hint: The Society for People Analytics (societyforpeopleanalytics.org) has a lot of meetup groups and encourages any member to start a community meetup group if you can’t find one near you – this group can help you discover other individuals who may want to join you.]
• Volunteer Your Expertise: Share your skills by volunteering within or outside your organization. Contribute to open-source projects or offer free consulting/internships to gain experience and build your network. This not only benefits your own skill development, it also allows you to build valuable connections with like-minded individuals while applying your skills in new contexts.
• Connect Online: Join online communities and connect with other people analytics professionals online. The internet provides so many opportunities to meet a variety of people, and also for you to be as interactive and intimate (or not!) as you are comfortable. Building a community online isn’t about the number of connections or likes. And there isn’t only one way to connect or interact. You don’t have to limit yourself to ‘normal’ ways of using a social platform; use them to support the kinds of interactions you are most comfortable with. For example, many people turn to X (Twitter) or Bluesky to have open dialogue and debate in comments, but it’s okay if you prefer to stay more anonymous; if you see a post that inspires you, you could send a private message thanking that person for their insights. Or, maybe you see someone’s request for help on a discussion forum, but you don’t feel comfortable leaving your reply publicly; you can let them know you’d be available for a one-on-one chat. I encourage you to actively engage with the community by asking insightful questions, sharing your expertise, and following relevant individuals and organizations. Participate in discussions, share your knowledge, and learn from others in the field. LinkedIn is a great resource to find pre-existing groups interested in people analytics conversations. For those who’d like to start forming connections with others on this same people analytics career journey, I’ve created a LinkedIn group for anyone reading this book. Please join and start a dialogue! Group link: linkedin.com/groups/14487429
• Public Content Creation: You can share your thoughts and ideas publicly online to attract others with similar interests, leading to potential connections. There are many ways to do this: blog posts, articles, books, case studies, podcasts, webinars, conference presentations, news interviews, research studies, a portfolio of your work, or whatever else you can think of. Get out there, share your knowledge, and let others know how they can contact you. For example, I am sharing this book and I would love to have you as part of my network. You can find more about me at heatherwhiteman.com or connect with me on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/heatherwhiteman). My contact information is also in the last section of this book, please reach out and say hello!)

Actions to Deepen Connections Within Your Network

The people you meet at school, work, in community groups, or through networking activities will form your broad network. To start, everyone is only an acquaintance until you interact and build a relationship. When looking to build connections with people in your network for the purposes of your career growth, aim for opportunities that allow for more work and content-heavy interactions. There’s nothing wrong with nurturing personal relationships that are for fun and personal fulfillment, but since this is a career-focused book, I’m going to skip over those.

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.

In most companies, the number of individuals who are solely focused on people analytics may be small relative to the total number of people working at the organizations. As a result, you will want to build a community with other people analytics enthusiasts outside of your immediate place of work or personal communities. 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. 

one most aligned with your career aspiration , initiate or participate in cross-functional projects to broaden your perspective and contribute your expertise. If you’re initiating a project, try to build cross-functional “dream teams” by identifying key stakeholders from different departments—HR, business strategy, legal, data science, IT, employees, and more. Be clear about the roles you envision for each person. For example, are you asking them to be a team member (who actively contributes), a mentor (who expertly guides you), an advisor (who ensures you don’t overlook key considerations), an ally (who provides support or serves as an early adopter), or something else? You can also organize knowledge-sharing sessions and team-building activities to foster connections and informal collaboration. Fostering collaborative teamwork doesn’t always have to require that you initiate an activity either – simply being a champion for open communication and diverse perspectives when you are working with groups of others can create a safe space for everyone’s voice to be heard allowing you to learn from and connect with more people than before.

Here are some actions that can help you foster more collaborative teamwork:

• Collaborative Teamwork: Working with colleagues or members of the communities to which you belong on projects is one of the best ways to build deeper, stronger connections with people who are already in your network because you already have shared interests or a common goal. Never do alone what you can do collaboratively.
• Initiate or participate in cross-functional projects. Offer your expertise to teams outside of your immediate work area and learn from their perspectives. This cross-pollination of ideas can lead to innovative solutions and a more complete understanding of business challenges.
• Build cross-functional “dream teams.” Identify key stakeholders from different departments—HR, business strategy, legal, data science, data engineering, IT, compliance, security, finance, and more. Building cross-functional teams can be difficult. When members do not all work in the same area they may not share the same immediate work goals and not everyone will have the time or skills to be a core working member of the team. However, if you are flexible, you can usually find alternate arrangements to still include different people. For example, if someone has the skills but limited time, consider asking them to be a mentor who provides only periodic feedback. For individuals with critical expertise (e.g., data privacy or legal) but limited time or passion for the project, reduce your requested involvement to only an advisory role aimed at helping ensure you didn’t miss any glaring problems. If someone has the passion and time but not currently the skills, they can be an ally who provides value as a sounding board for ideas, practice sessions for presentations, and an early adopter of outcomes. When asking people to be part of your dream team, make sure to be clear about what kind of role you are asking them to play, here are some ideas of the roles you might want others to play on your team.
  • Team Members—individuals who will be part of the work and share aligned goals.
  • Mentors—experts who provide periodic guidance.
  • Advisors—specialists (e.g., legal, compliance) who ensure key considerations aren’t overlooked.
  • Allies—passionate supporters who can be sounding boards for ideas and early adopters of outcomes.
• Organize knowledge-sharing sessions and team-building activities. Share your insights and learnings with others in the community through workshops, presentations, or newsletters/blogs. Foster connections and informal collaboration through social events or team-building exercises. For example, consider starting a monthly knowledge-sharing session where people can share ongoing analytics projects or celebrate completed ones. This fosters a sense of community and excitement around common goals.
• Champion open communication and diverse perspectives. Not all relationship-building efforts need to involve you initiating activities. Sometimes simply encouraging respectful debate and actively soliciting feedback on ideas and initiatives creates the safe space needed for everyone’s voice to be heard, leading to more opportunities for you to hear from and build relationships with others. Actively listening, asking questions, and engaging meaningfully with others is always a powerful set of actions that will deepen your relationship with those you interact with.

The actions you take to build a community may be similar to those you could do while networking. The difference is the depth and quality of the interactions and the resulting relationships. To build a community start with your broad network and continue the same network-building activities, but prioritize deeper, quality interactions and genuine connections with people that motivate, challenge, inspire, and grow you. Community building is about fostering mutually beneficial relationships, offering support, and leveraging your network to achieve common objectives. So look for opportunities where you can also help and provide value to those you are connecting with. Here are some actions you can take to begin to build longer relationships with people in your broad network:

• Repeat: Find opportunities to continue working with individuals you’ve had successful collaborative teamwork with in the past.
• Celebrate: At the end of a successful project, bring the team back together to celebrate – this will help solidify your connections and positive relationships while giving you another chance to interact and bond. Also, discuss opportunities for doing more work together in the future.
• Reconnect: Schedule time to reconnect with individuals you met at a conference, training, meeting, or other event in which you shared a passionate dialogue. Tip: Schedule this immediately when you meet someone new that you “click” with.
• Mentoring: Ask to be mentored or be a mentor to others.
• Feedback: Ask for feedback or offer to provide feedback on other’s work.
  • Introvert Tip: Asking for feedback on your work (or asking someone else’s opinion on a method or idea you are considering) is a great way to start a more meaningful dialogue on a shared topic of interest. It takes away the pressure of needing to come up with small talk. Moments of silence are natural and expected since you need to give that person time to think and process their thoughts. Just don’t forget to engage fully with their responses; ask follow-up questions and provide your own views on the topic. The goal is to have a dialogue, not for them to feel like they are being grilled in an interview.
• Support: Follow, continually engage with, and support the work of others you admire.
• Reply: When others engage with you online don’t forget to reply and respond.

As you have continued interactions and deeper relationships with members of your network, you will start to form a group of individuals with whom you share common interests, goals, or values, and together you can build a sense of belonging and mutual support.

The ways to build meaningful relationships with others are limitless and will be unique to you. Each person builds relationships and trust in unique ways. I encourage you to take a moment to reflect and consider more ways you can meet new people, build trust, deepen relationships, and have collaborative working relationships. Spend extra time thinking about how your own specific strengths and personality style may influence the best community-building methods for you. For example, some introverts may build stronger, more collaborative relationships through one-on-one interactions rather than team settings. Or, maybe you are the kind of person who loves to celebrate the strengths and accomplishments of others, so you focus on ways of building a network that centers around showcasing the excellence of others. You could even try to leverage your strengths to build community and trust at the same time by offering your time and expertise to others which builds a relationship and allows them to see and build trust in your work. The ways to build relationships and trust are just as varied and unique as the individuals involved in those relationships.