Late last year we surveyed the industry to gather feedback on our areas of focus, our strengths and weaknesses and any gaps our stakeholders felt we needed to fill in our work to support the sector.
Feedback was sought from both members and non-members as a way of better understanding the wider needs of industry and to gain a broader view of how the EEA is perceived.
We had 78 members and 141 non-members respond, providing a wealth of information that has been used to help shape our plans for the future.
Our thanks to everyone who contributed! It was great to receive endorsement for the work we do, and encouragement to be more ambitious!
There is clearly a desire to see the EEA providing support for a wider group of people – especially trade staff – and to focus on the whole sector, not just the ‘engineering’ component. You also want us to offer more networking opportunities, especially for those in the regions and for young people.
You also want to see us putting more effort into leadership around standardisation and pan-sector efficiencies.
The EEA activities most highly valued were:
- sharing best practice and industry learnings;
- advocating for effective standards, technical rules and practices;
- being a trusted source of data, information and resources;
- ensuring government policies reflect electricity sector needs and practices;
- providing members with up-to-date knowledge in engineering and technical, asset management, health and safety;
- developing and publishing the technical and H&S rules and guidelines for the sector, and
- maintaining the Safety Manual – Electricity Industry (SM-EI)
The least valued EEA activities were:
- leading sector thinking on connecting with consumers’ needs and future roles;
- offering micro-credentials, and
- leading industry projects.
You told us we are strongest in:
- Supporting technical best practice for the industry and developing guidelines and documentation
- Leadership on safety
- Sharing knowledge and learnings
- Delivering conference and webinars and
- Being the link for the industry / focal point / collective voice for the industry
Areas for improvement include:
- Lead more advocacy for the industry
- Providing more training on the use of best practice guides
- Enhancing the working groups
Where to from here?
The information gleaned was invaluable and laid down a challenge for us to show more ambitious leadership for our sector.
We’ve already used the feedback to refresh our strategy which we plan to launch in combination with an event to celebrate our new office and our first networking event for 2025!
You can also expect to see a roadmap for the coming year that will include a refresh of our brand and membership, ways to improve our communication, more networking opportunities, and more advocacy for our sector alongside our current, unwavering commitment to quality.
Thank you again to everyone who contributed both through the survey and providing direct feedback to the team. This year will be one of change for the sector and for the EEA and we intend to grab the opportunity with both hands!
