One of our strategic outcomes is an annual membership survey to gauge the member satisfaction level of FICA. This survey has now been completed. The number of responses was disappointing, but I guess it reflects what we feared and that is you are busy people and the last thing you want to be doing is filling out another survey.
There was however some valuable feedback and I was impressed with the time that respondents did take to write responses, these are invaluable.
In summary members want more networking opportunities, less soft skills training, more hard skills training (for example mechanisation efficiency).
The newsletter is still the preferred form of communication (90%) followed by Logger Mag (52%), events/face to face (38%), facebook (35%) and through other contractors/industry (28%).
Attracting and retaining industry talent is still important and an area we probably need additional focus, the importance of advocacy came across very strongly as did the industry's social license to operate.
What we could do more of:
‘Be more active in the South Island. And in silviculture’
‘Push for FICA fuel card for the benefit of smaller contractors’
‘Maybe explain why social license is important and the part FICA plays – I get sick of people saying FICA doesn’t do anything for me. At the very least FICA flys the flag for social license. Without a contractor’s voice we would be pretty stuffed. Ask contractors in Gisborne about social license’
‘Educational events, industry networking, knowledge sharing, contractor advocacy’
‘Have more presence with members. Link into other areas/promotions/events’
‘Get out in the Regions more even as a Board ie Gizzy, SNI, Otago, Southland’
‘More good news stories in the media. They have completely destroyed the image of Forestry’
Focus on assisting contractors to be more efficient and need to put more focus on creating a sustainable industry eg controlling how forest managers are operating and treating contractors – contracts etc’
‘Good work on excavator hand- rail issue’
‘Ask contractors more about potential changes to certification programme’
‘be interested to build more of a relationship with AFCA
‘Great to see we are putting more focus into areas that contractors see as real at the moment’
‘In the present absence of any coordinated industry leadership, certainly in training, it is absolutely crucial that FICA retain a strong position of representation and advocacy for the workforce’
What we could do less of
‘Less logging, more about before the logging’
‘you are doing good’
‘No comment FICA is a vital cog for forest contracting companies in particular’
‘Leave the little issues, the biggest thing affecting the industry is lack of continuity’
‘Bureaucracy’
‘Getting bogged down in training’
‘Forestry guarding standards etc that add more compliance costs – safety – this is at a high standard, focus needs on running a sustainable harvesting business.
Overall Value
Finally of those who responded when asked how would you rate the overall value of your FICA membership 82% responded 3 and above 5 being the highest, 93% responded they would renew their FICA membership and 90 % that they would tell others about FICA membership.
And finally for our silviculture contractors who I know sometimes feel forgotten.
‘I’m certainly getting my money worth out of FICA re the silvi immigration help - $1,500 membership and I have a truck load of advocacy. Pile of people out there benefiting from the work – even MBIE is getting free consultants!’
Thanks to all that responded to the survey. As you can see FICA strategic plan is already responding to a number of the issues raised and there are a number of items in this months newsletter that are also responding.
