Stakeholder Engagement Resource Hub

An initiative of The Energy Charter Better Together Know Your Customers and Communities

1. Why do we listen to customers?

All energy businesses are here to serve our customers and communities. Put simply, without customers (whether they are residential, small & medium business, or large commercial & industrial) we would not have our business. To deliver our energy products and services in a way that meets our customer and community needs and expectations, we first need to understand: what are those needs and expectations?

That’s why engaging with our customers, consumers and communities is essential.

2. What’s this got to do with me?

Maybe you’re a network engineer, a planner or a marketing manager and you’re thinking, what’s this got to do with me? It’s easy to think that engaging with customers and communities is the job of those in our business who interact with them every day. Maybe you’ve even got a dedicated team of Stakeholder Relations or Community Relations folk.

Well, the good news is that the more people in our business that speak to our customers and communities, the better we will be. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to genuinely engage with our customers and community you will be surprised at what a rewarding experience it can be, and how it may help you do your job better!

That’s because speaking to customers and communities gives us all the opportunity to understand:

• Who is using our energy products and services and who else might benefit from them?
• Why are they using them and how and where they are being used?
• How can our energy products and services be improved?
• Do our energy products and services meet future needs and expectations?
• How is a community impacted by our activities and is there shared value for all?

3. Supporting you

There are people in our organisation that can share opportunities to engage with our customers and communities and support you in doing so. There’s also a Stakeholder Engagement Framework that can give you some tips.

We’d encourage you to contact the following people if you want more information:

Karyn Looby, Stakeholder Engagement Specialist

4. Finally… share the feedback!

Remember to share the insights across your organisation!

Often people are being asked similar questions from different people across our organisation, or information gained from a conversation in one area of our organisation can benefit someone else in another area.

Ten principles when undertaking engagement with First Nations communities (IAP2)

• Start well – At the start of an engagement activity, always share an Acknowledgement, Welcome or Statement of Country. Make it meaningful to people in the room, Country and project. 
• Early engagement - Approach First Nations communities at the earliest project planning stage. 
• Recognise diversity - Seek out diversity within the First Nations communities. Meet with groups individually. 
• Be mindful of language – Use respectful and inclusive language. This includes using English terms that may be culturally insensitive for some. 
• Cultural load – Be aware of the cultural load on First Nation team members. They carry more community expectations than others. 
• Appropriate tools - Select your techniques wisely, use the telephone, host small meetings, and carefully consider locations. 
• Relevance – Not all engagement will be relevant to all First Nations groups. Accept that some individuals or groups may not want to participate. 
• Build relationships – Approach as an ongoing relationship, not a transactional or project-by-project approach. 
• Time – Recognise that First Nations engagement takes time and build this into your program. 
• Openness – Create an openness and opportunity to share in the engagement. This may include things that are not directly related to your topic or project.

Engagement is not a substitute word for consultation. IAP2 have developed a flexible framework - the IAP2 Spectrum, that explains the different levels of engagement that we can use to engage our customers, stakeholders and community.

An engagement colleague Max Hardy has shared his reflections on the IAP2 Spectrum:

What is it?

It is a framework that explains the different levels of engagement that organisations can engage their stakeholders/communities. The further to the right on the Spectrum, the greater the influence the community has to influence decision-making. At each level a different promise to the community applies – a promise that decision-makers can be held accountable to. Each level requires a different type of interaction.

The Inform level simply offers to provide information throughout a process about work being undertaken by an internal or expert team leading up to a decision being made. The promise is simply keeping people informed – some would say it is about helping people to understand. No input or feedback is sought from the community of interest.

The Consult level is about putting forward options or a proposal for which feedback is sought. The promise is to listen to the community of interest’s feedback, to carefully consider, then make decisions and finally explain how this feedback has been taken into account.

The Involve level invites input and ideas from the community to help develop options/potential solutions. The community participates earlier in the process than for the consult level. The community is part of developing solutions, not merely commenting about plans or solutions being proposed by an organisation. Ultimately the organisation will still make decisions, but they promise that the decisions will be informed by ideas and input.

The Collaborate level is a significant jump. It’s about partnering and sharing power – to the maximum extent possible (a phrase that has been used, confused and misused). It takes more time and effort. A range of stakeholders/community members work together with the sponsoring organisation to define the scope of the decision to be made, to develop options, to assess those options against agreed criteria in an attempt to arrive at consensus. Although more time consuming and expensive it is the shortest route to an implementable solution for highly complex/controversial decisions.

The Empower level is essentially delegated decision-making. It is where an organisation promises to do whatever the ‘community of interest’ decides.

Some common misunderstandings of the Spectrum

1.  You start at the left and go right. Some have misunderstood the framework completely, thinking that you start off Informing, then you Consult, then you Involve etc. It’s a framework and a not a process guide.

2.  At the Inform level a decision has already been made (like the DAD approach; Decide Announce and Defend). It may seem like a subtle difference but this is not the case. At the Inform level the public is kept informed about progress being made by an internal working group, until a decision is made. No input or feedback is sough – people are just progressively informed about what is going on.

3.  Once a level is selected that is what you have to do throughout. This is not necessarily the case. IAP2 does not actually stipulate this, but those trained in the IAP2 Certificate are told that it is very important to work out the highest level on the Spectrum you will go for any given process. All the levels to the left of that level also apply.

4.  The further to the right on the Spectrum the better it is. This was never the intention and it is why the Spectrum runs left to right – so that it does not appear to be a hierarchy like Arnstein’s Ladder. IAP2 has attempted to convey through the training, that it depends. It is about finding the most appropriate level. Trying to Collaborate on something fairly straightforward, where there is little passion or complexity, would be a waste of time. Doing a simple Consult level process for something highly complex will probably result in having to start all over again, after having done some damage.

5.  It is up to the organisation to decide what level, and be clear about it, then everything should run smoothly. In my experience this is nonsense. The level often needs to be negotiated, and communities have shown that they can challenge the level of engagement, especially when particular stakeholder groups have been overlooked in the process.

Online engagement is going gang busters. IAP2 have compiled a useful list of resources in one place.

GHD have produced a wonderful resource to help you to consider a range of digital engagement options. GHD shares that storytelling is a powerful way to share information, create understanding and foster genuine collaboration and that COVID has shown us more people are willing to try online ways of connecting.  Consider 3D models, animated videos and augmented reality (AR) which are really useful tools to convey concept projects and support engagement efforts.  

Check out the resource here.

Sharing A Guide to Engaging in Disaster Recovery, released in 2015 by IAP2 Australasia.

This guide is intended for anyone involved in a disaster recovery situation – community leaders, politicians, engagement practitioners, workers from specialised agencies, those without prior recover experience or for experienced professionals working in a community they are unfamiliar with. The content focuses on the ‘human’ element of recovering, examining the importance of effective engagement, and identifying useful strategies that maximise the potential for sustained, strategic disaster recovery that is genuinely community-led.

This Energy Charter #BetterTogether initiative enables collaboration within the energy sector towards shaping business culture and decision making based on the voice of the customer. We hope the energy sector finds that this toolkit can be used far and wide to encourage better engagement with Australians. You can access the Toolkit here. Feedback always welcome.