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COMMUNICATIONS AND FEEDBACK
MEEVs has already published an update report on the RICS website to keep membership informed on progress and will carry out six-monthly checks on engagement levels. They’re also looking at the metrics, including how many members are taking up the CPD offer, how many people have looked at the breakdown of fees and how many have visited the new member value portal. This latter initiative aims to bring together all aspects of the membership value proposition in one place.
Future digital plans include a digital communities portal planned for the second quarter of this year, to provide members with event and communication ‘autonomy’ along with a member-to-member digital community platform. According to Murphy, the creation of a digital community will offer much more opportunity for member to member engagement, and the option to start your own groups that include people with common interests.
He says: “This removes RICS from being the middle man in terms of GDPR perspective, so once a member joins a community they can communicate with other members across the globe. For instance, say you decide to set up a global FM group and have members across the world. As with all of these things it’ll depend on members’ engagement but if you do take part you’ve the option to reach out to people wherever they may be.”
As Murphy comments: “Members are interested in developing their careers, getting value for money for their fee and meeting like- minded practitioners, and they want to learn and understand global issues as well as local issues.”
Less exciting but no less important priorities for the group are to explore hygiene factors such as the effectiveness of the customer call centre, ways of increasing member influence and looking at how to rebuild professional groups – including how they will be structured.
Interestingly, feedback so far shows that most of the members also believe the institution should ensure they sort out the governance which is a key output of the current Bichard Review.
“What I’m seeing now is people are letting the organisation sort itself out and would like in the meantime to see output increase, but the RICS needs the resources to do so. My sense though is that people are happy to give the RICS space to work through these issues and I feel encouraged.”
FUTURE PLANS
The group is briefed to carry on analysing and responding to membership feedback for the rest of this year while the Institute waits to hear the outcome of the wider governance review.
However, Murphy’s personal opinion is that having a member led group of this sort which pulls together the constituent parts of the RICS would benefit the institution in the longer term.
He says: “We’re certainly here for the implementation of the issues we’ve outlined here and I think the ability to pull together the governing council, the world regional boards, the management team and membership is a real positive.
“In the longer term the members need a strong voice that can help make things happen. I appreciate we’ve got a huge responsibility to make the RICS work for the next 150 years – and with my built environment hat on, I want our younger generation to become as professional as possible, understand all these global challenges and operate in a responsible way.”
FURTHER INFORMATION
www.rics.org/uk/news-insight/latest-news/news-opinion/rics-updates-for-member-experience-value/
