Why working with members is so rewarding
EngineeringUK's corporate relationships managers Jane Campbell and Karen Woodward discuss the things they most enjoy about their work with our Corporate Members.
It is always a privilege to work with our Members and by understanding more about what they are doing well and what challenges they face we are able to help them and others. Connecting people for mutual benefit is highly satisfying and rewarding and everybody gains a new idea and a new contact.
1. It’s a partnership
Our Members have an appetite to work in partnership – they challenge us to push our boundaries and develop further our expertise, whilst helping to contribute their own ideas. Recently, we worked in collaboration with Siemens, who are one of our long-standing Corporate Members. They approached us regarding the challenges of organisations using various ways of calculating reach. We therefore produced a guide that offers an introduction to the key considerations around calculating and reporting the reach of STEM outreach activities. It is intended to help organisations to consider the best way to define, calculate and report the numbers of schools, teachers and young people their activity reaches. We hope this resource will help provide more clarity and consistency across the sector.
Mark Wood, Schools and Corporate Citizenship Manager at Siemens gives his view on the unique partnership we have with our Members:
“EngineeringUK is a catalyst for its members to work collaboratively, share best practice and discuss developments in the fast-moving skills space. As a member, we share a collective purpose, to address the skills gaps in STEM subjects in the UK. EngineeringUK supports us by clearly defining this through their in-depth research, as well as creating materials and resources which offer a consistent and a clear message to schools and students. They provide webinars where we both gain intelligence on key topics, as well as contribute opinion as one collective business voice to feed into policymakers.
"This is a mutual partnership. EngineeringUK challenge us to address our own Corporate Citizenship Strategy and we proactively challenge them to develop provisions, requesting data in more understandable formats and a consistent methodology to measure reach to ensure members have a solid foundation on which to measure the impact of their own activities. With the skills arena being very different space after the pandemic and the opportunities with new technology and new qualifications to attract new generations into our business, this collaboration is essential to share ideas, network, address collective challenges and turn discussion into positive, collective action.”
2. We test and try things
Our Members are willing to try new ideas and new models of delivery in partnership with us. We are running a pilot with our Energy Quest programme with Drax who have trained their outreach team to deliver this in a selection of schools, taking an engineer as a supporting volunteer. This pilot will be evaluated, and the outcome shared so other Members can see what worked well and decide whether they would like to get involved and scale up their own delivery.
Jane Breach, UK Community & Education Outreach Manager at Drax, said they value our partnership 'for the multi-level support EngineeringUK provides' including:
- Access to evaluation, industry reporting, and advice to support development and delivery of our strategic goals
- Quality resources such as Neon and Energy Quest which support and expand our educational delivery
- Industry networking through membership and The Tomorrow’s Engineers Code community
- Support for the policy work that EngineeringUK engage in with government
3. They keep it real
Our Members keep us grounded and in the real world, informing us of the issues that matter most and supporting our policy team on the work we have agreed to deliver.
By working with a variety of organisations from across the engineering and technology sectors we see organisations that may often compete in industry coming together to share ideas and best practice on their STEM outreach for the greater good of the engineering and technology sector….and of course for the benefit of young people. It’s a collaborative effort.
Why join EngineeringUK?
- We bring organisations together under the banner of Corporate Membership to collaborate with one another and share best practice/ideas/solutions to common challenges for the good of the wider engineering and technology community.
- Our Members share our mission to enable more young people from all backgrounds to be informed, inspired and progress into engineering and technology and believe in our ability to make a difference.
- We help our Members grow the impact of their engagement activities, and their membership fees also help us to deliver some core areas of our work, such as research and advocacy – so that we can all learn and share what works best and decide how, when, and where to invest our time, energy, money, and effort.
- No one organisation can achieve what we need (and what they need) by working in isolation. In the energy sector alone, we will need at least 260,000 engineers to achieve net zero by 2050. Our collaborative efforts will have a far greater combined impact for young people.
Celia Anderson, Skills Strategy Lead at RWE Renewables UK Ltd, shares her view: “RWE is delighted to have joined EngineeringUK. Developing people and encouraging the next generation to use their skills in the energy industry is at the heart of the RWE entry level programmes. RWE require a workforce that will enable it to achieve the company’s ambition of achieving net zero by 2040 and expanding its green generation capacity to 50 gigawatts, with some £15 billion earmarked for the UK.”
EngineeringUK is a catalyst for its members to work collaboratively, share best practice and discuss developments in the fast-moving skills space. As a member, we share a collective purpose, to address the skills gaps in STEM subjects in the UK. EngineeringUK supports us by clearly defining this through their in-depth research, as well as creating materials and resources which offer a consistent and a clear message to schools and students. They provide webinars where we both gain intelligence on key topics, as well as contribute opinion as one collective business voice to feed into policymakers.
— Mark Wood, Schools and Corporate Citizenship Manager, Siemens
