Why you should consider joining a people analytics peer group.

Earlier this year I joined one of The Learning Forum's workforce analytics peer groups. I wanted to share my experience in attendance and why I came away thinking these groups are a great idea and should be considered by every people analytics (PA) practitioner.  

There are a number of groups that you can take a look at joining, including Insight 222 and The Conference Board.

Brian Hackett from The Learning Forum had asked me earlier this year to come and present to their group about what we were doing at One Model.  We had come up in their conversations and peer group emails where members had been asking about different technologies to help them in building their HR analytics capabilities.  The Learning Forum is a group of mostly Fortune 2000 companies with a sizeable proportion being Fortune 500 organizations, so, of course I accepted.

Our presentation went well. We had some great questions from the group around how we would tackle existing challenges today and where the platform is heading for their future projects.  While it was a great session for us, the real value I took away was in staying for the rest of the day to be a fly on the wall for how the group worked and what they shared with each other.   

Brian had tabled on the agenda some pre-scheduled discussions on what the attendees were interested in learning about and discussing with their peers, which was definitely helpful to have an attendee curated agenda to work through.

Following that, there was time for members to present on any recent projects, work they had been conducting in their teams, and any valuable insights, outcomes, and advice they could share with the group.

This by far was awesome to sit in on and listen to how others in our space are working, what their challenges are, how they fared, and to do so in an environment of open, confidential sharing. It's the spirit of confidentiality and sharing between peers that I felt most made this group able to help and learn from each other that you just don't receive from a run of the mill conference.  Practitioner's were here to share, to learn, and openly seek advice from their more experienced colleagues.   

Presentations ranged from experience using different vendors, to cobbled together projects using spit, glue, and anything else hands could be laid on. The cobbled together solutions were the ones I found the most innovative, even where a company of the practitioner's size has resources the insight's came from innovative thinking and making use of tools that every company has access to.  It's these projects of working smart, not hard that make me smile the most. The best part is that it could be shared in a manner of truthfulness that couldn't have occurred at a conference or a public LinkedIn post.   

Peer forums provide an educational opportunity that you won't get elsewhere; I highly recommend all people analytics practitioners look into finding a community near you.  

Thanks Brian Hackett at the Learning Forum for letting me present and learn about how your members are learning from each other.