Building the HR Community I Have Always Wished For

This year, I stepped into the role of Community Manager for both The Circle Back Initiative and humaneer

I expected activity. I expected questions. I expected a learning curve.

What I didn't quite expect was how deeply human the experience would feel, so quickly.

Not in a glossy, highlight-reel way. In the everyday ways that quietly restore your faith in what professional communities can be when they're built with intention. I have spent the summer reading books, doing research and rethinking how I can build strong community.

I have been in HR since the 1990s. I love to talk about when we did everything on paper and had no internet. Were they the good old days?

Not when you see what a global online community can do when all we can do is connect globally.

When People Actually Show Up For Each Other

People are generous. With their time, experience and attention. It can be as simple as sharing information or offering to speak in detail to answer their questions. One member recently offered to get a coffee to coach someone through a challenge. There is a quiet ‘pay it forward’ spirit that connects us. Introductions to others are being made simply because they believe, ‘these two people should know each other,’ or they are inviting their peers into the community.

When you look at the metrics, we have grown so fast in 12 months from humble beginnings, but what the metrics don’t show is whether that community has a heartbeat. And we are finding more and more that our heartbeat is strong.

There's a maturity and generosity that I have not seen in other communities. The conversations can feel transactional - quick information, a quick share. It's less transactional, more conversational. Less performative expertise, more practical help.

You can feel the difference when people aren't trying to build a personal brand- they're trying to build each other.

Led By Practitioners, For Practitioners

humaneer isn't run by a single voice or personality. It was created by senior HRDs and we have an ambassador group who actively shape what we focus on, how we grow, and what matters most to our members. One of my biggest joys was joining this group and now working closely with them. The passion they have for creating a community that serves HR is inspiring. There are about 25 of us globally committed to humaneer - voluntarily because we believe in what we are doing.

This means our direction comes from lived experience in real operating environments - the strategic challenges, the daily pressures, the innovations that actually work versus the ones that sound good in theory.

We're global from day one, not aspiring to be. Members across multiple countries, learning from how HR challenges show up in different regulatory contexts, cultural environments, and business models.

Kindness as Design, Not Accident

The kindness in humaneer has been striking. From warm welcome messages to me as I took over the community. To the way new members are encouraged to participate, we are working to create a genuine sense of inclusion.

And that's not something you can assume will just happen.

Every community runs the risk of unintentionally creating insiders and outsiders. Familiar voices dominate. Newcomers wonder where they fit. Quiet members drift away unseen. We're very conscious of that risk. Which is why we're actively designing ways for people to connect in different formats and at different comfort levels.

Online conversations. Local coffee meetups. In-person gatherings through the House of Talent are expanding into more Australian cities this year. Because connection shouldn't require extroversion, confidence, or knowing the right people already. It should be supported, invited, and continually reshaped with member input.

Community isn't a platform feature. It's an ongoing design responsibility.

From a Pledge to a Practice

The Circle Back Initiative has always stood for something powerful - recruitment teams pledging to respond to every candidate. A simple commitment that quietly pushes the industry toward more humane hiring practices.

But what had been missing was a way for those teams to truly connect, learn from each other, and evolve the practice together.

That's where humaneer came in. The founders invited me to bring the Circle Back community into its ecosystem, creating a shared home where members can ask questions, share wins, get support, and build a living resource library of candidate communications and initiatives.

It transforms Circle Back from a pledge into a practice community, with its own training and access to the wider humaneer initiatives and training.

We have also created a space for fractional HR and adjacent solo consultants to work together and help each other grow their businesses. All we ask is that they are generous in sharing their knowledge and insight.

And for our members, it means access to a range of consultants who have amazing knowledge.

Building Local and Global Belonging

One of my favourite moments came from a conversation with a standalone HR professional in Adelaide who shared how disconnected she'd been feeling professionally and how much she wanted local, in-person connection again.

I connected her with Jeannette Borg from the Adelaide Talent Meetup while we built a larger Adelaide community online because I am a mad supporter of all the meetups around Australia. But it also sparked something bigger - a reminder of how many HR practitioners are quietly craving local community again after years of distributed work and digital overload.

At the same time, our audience is beautifully global. We now host a global online catch-up facilitated by one of our ambassadors in the USA. There's nothing quite like hearing how HR challenges and innovations show up in different contexts and cultures, even if the Australians turn up in their PJs.

Local roots. Global perspective. Both matter.

Learning That Doesn't End When the Workshop Does

We're investing heavily in meaningful learning.

Our first major training program, soon to be released, focuses on People Experience, Product Thinking and Design, delivered by two exceptionally sharp HR and design practitioners and priced deliberately to be accessible, with discounts for humaneer members.

But the real magic happens after the training.

Participants join their PX Dojo to continue learning together, applying ideas in real workplaces, sharing experiments, and building confidence over time. Learning as a living practice, not a one-off event.

Making Knowledge Findable, Not Fleeting

Another thing we're building deliberately is structure around shared knowledge.

So many communities rely on fast-moving feeds where great advice, templates and insights get posted once and then vanish into a black hole. In our Hub, we are creating a resource and template library, and along with the work MAK does, life for HR will be less about googling and more about working with templates and resources that have worked for other members. .

This resource library will be a collective wisdom that doesn't evaporate. Members can actually find what the community already knows, contribute back, and build momentum rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

Small infrastructure. Big impact.

Why We Invite Vendors In (And How We Do It Differently)

Some communities proudly exclude all vendors to protect member experience. We respect that approach, but we've chosen a different path. My experience with including vendors has always been positive if you put a human-first approach in place.

Here's why: HR professionals need to understand the tools reshaping their work. But they need to understand them critically, contextually, and without the sales pressure.

So we invite HR tech vendors in - but under a fundamentally different model:

They participate as community members first, contributors second, never as sponsors

• No pitches. No product demos in community spaces. No vendor-driven narratives.
• They share thinking, perspective, and practical insights about industry trends
• They learn from our members just as much as they contribute
• Trust is earned through consistent value, not bought through sponsorship dollars

The result? Our members get direct access to the people building HR tech, can ask tough questions, understand what's actually possible versus what's marketing, and make smarter decisions about their own tech stacks.

And vendors get something more valuable than a captive audience- they get honest feedback from experienced practitioners who will push their thinking.

It's about creating an ecosystem where learning flows in all directions, not just one.

Welcoming Smart Friends Into the Room

This year we also welcomed a new member, Ask Mak - an AI HR assistant helping practitioners stay compliant, save time, and streamline HR documents, policies, processes and meeting workflows. Developed by the humaneer founders, Mak will contribute to the community with advice and learning mainly for Australia first but as MAK develops for other countries, we will make it work.

A reminder that technology works best when it amplifies human capability rather than replacing it.

What Makes This Different

We're not against other communities. The HR world is big enough for many approaches. But here's what we're deliberately building:

Structured knowledge, not just conversations. Great insights shouldn't disappear into chat history. We're building infrastructure so collective wisdom actually compounds.

Multiple ways to connect. Not everyone processes through online discussion. We offer local meetups, global catch-ups, intensive training cohorts, and quiet resource access. Connection on your terms.

Practice communities, not just networking groups. Circle Back isn't just a pledge- it's an active community of recruitment teams learning together, sharing templates, workshopping challenges, evolving the practice over time. And we are excited for what shilol have planned for the community.

Learning that continues. Our training programs don't end when the workshop does. Participants join ongoing practice groups (like our PX Dojo) where real application happens.

Deliberately accessible. Training priced for accessibility, with member discounts. No gatekeeping based on seniority or company size.

Practitioner-led governance. Direction comes from a council of senior HR leaders, not a single personality or commercial agenda.

I'm Excited and I'm Optimistic

What I'm seeing gives me quiet optimism about what professional communities can be when they're built with intention.

Not transactional. Not performative. Not extractive.

But generous. Human. Curious. Designed with care.

It feels like we're building something people can genuinely belong to, not just subscribe to.

Who This Is For

This community is for HR professionals who:

• Want to build capability, not just consume content
• Value diverse perspectives over single-voice thought leadership
• Need both local roots and global perspective
• Want honest conversations about what's working and what's not, including with the vendors building our tools
• Believe the future of HR is collaborative, not competitive

Whether you're a standalone practitioner craving connection, part of a team looking to level up together, a consultant wanting to contribute to the field, or a thoughtful vendor committed to learning alongside us—there's space here.

If you're in HR, Talent Acquisition, Reward, Learning, People Analytics—any part of the HR ecosystem and you're craving smarter conversation, real connection, and a community that actually shows up for each other, this is your invitation.

• Come learn with us.
• Come build with us.
• Come share what's working and what's not.
• Come be part of shaping how people experience work and hiring in the years ahead.

The future of HR won't be built in isolation. It will be built in community.

Pull up a chair. The conversation's already underway.