It’s easy to get stuck in the day-to-day at the office and there’s never time to upskill or even think about career development. However, to really grow and develop your organisation, it’s important to grow and develop your team.
While there are many ways to develop teams, including training and providing time to complete personal (and relevant) projects, conferences provide a range of benefits.
Spark innovation
Some of the best in the business present their projects, ideas and solutions at EARL each year. It’s the perfect opportunity to see what’s trending and what’s really working. Topics at EARL Conferences have included, best practice SAS to R; Shiny applications; using social media data; web scraping, plus presentations on R in marketing, healthcare, finance, insurance and transport.
A cross-sector conference like EARL can help your organisation think outside the box because learnings are transferable, regardless of industry.
Imbue knowledge
This brings us to knowledge. Learning from the best in the business will help employees expand their knowledge base. This can keep them motivated and engaged in what they’re doing, and a wider knowledge base can also inform their everyday tasks enabling them to advance the way they do their job.
When employees feel like you want to invest in them, they stay engaged and are more likely to remain in the same organisation for longer.
Encourage networking
EARL attracts R users from all levels and industries and not just to speak. The agenda offers plenty of opportunities to network with some of the industry’s most engaged R users. This is beneficial for a number of reasons, including knowledge exchange and sharing your organisation’s values.
Boost inspiration
We often see delegates who have come to an EARL Conference with a specific business challenge in mind. By attending, they get access to the current innovations, knowledge and networking mentioned above, and can return to their team —post-conference— with a renewed vigour to solve those problems using their new-found knowledge.
Making the most out of attending EARL
After all of that, the next step is making sure your organisation makes the most out of attending EARL. We recommend:
Setting goals
Do you have a specific challenge you’re trying to solve in your organisation? Going with a set challenge in mind means your team can plan which sessions to sit in and who they should talk to during the networking sessions.
De-briefing
This is two-fold:
1) Writing a post-conference report will help your team put what they have learnt at EARL into action.
2) Not everyone can attend, so those who do can share their new-found knowledge with their peers who can learn second-hand from their colleague’s experience.
Following up
We’re all guilty of going to a conference, coming back inspired and then getting lost in the day-to-day. Assuming you’ve set goals and de-briefed, it should be easy to develop a follow-up plan.
You can make the most of inspired team members to put in place new strategies, technologies and innovations through further training, contact follow-ups and new procedure development.
EARL Conference can offer a deal for organisations looking to send more than 5 delegates.