Many of you will remember taking part in IOSH’s 2006 Member Survey, which gave you the chance to air your views. Here, IOSH’s director of communications, Ruth Doyle, reveals some of the findings.
Let me begin by thanking each of the 3752 of you who responded to our 2006 Member Survey — your responses are really valuable, and to get a 17.4 per cent response from the survey sample is phenomenal. It again shows how much IOSH members care for their institution. The profile of respondents also closely matched that of all our members, which reassures us that the feedback we’ve got is fairly representative.
Overall, 59 per cent of you said you were satisfied with your IOSH membership, which paints a very positive picture. Only a small minority wasn’t satisfied. But all of your views are welcome, because while you appear to be saying that we’re doing well, it’s also helpful to know where we could do better.
Some of the most positive feedback in the survey is that the vast majority of members (77.4 per cent) are proud of their IOSH membership and would recommend membership to a friend or colleague. 85 per cent of you also feel that IOSH promotes high professional standards, and nearly 82 per cent believe IOSH is a leading international professional body.
There were many other areas that give us cause for optimism. The majority of you said that you joined IOSH to give you professional status and to develop your careers — and, in most cases, you said your IOSH membership helped you achieve this. Well over 70 per cent of you also feel that IOSH champions sensible risk management and understands health and safety is about protecting people, not bureaucracy.
The survey also looked at member attitudes to branches and specialist groups (SGs), and again the findings were largely positive. More than 93 per cent of you know which branch you belong to, and nearly 91 per cent belong to at least one SG. Nearly 44 per cent of you attend a branch meeting at least once a year, while 30 per cent of you make use of an SG.
I was pleased to see that many of you feel that branches and SGs are providing you with what you want. The chance to meet and share ideas with other professionals, and to gain CPD opportunities is such an important part of our support to you. And the feedback you’ve given will be passed on to our branches and SGs, so they can understand your needs.
But the survey also revealed other areas where we can improve. While you were aware of IOSH member benefits, such as our CPD scheme and this magazine, many of you were not aware of many of our other member services, such as the Benevolent Fund, which could help you when you’re out of work, or ill. You also want to see us tackling negative media stories more effectively, and that’s something we’ll be aiming to do.
Your feedback is critical to the ongoing success of IOSH. It’s something we can feed into all of our planning, and it helps other members in decision-making positions (such as the Board of Trustees and on branch and SG committees) to ensure IOSH remains responsive to you. So please do continue giving us your feedback — we can’t guarantee to do everything, but we will listen and continue to develop our services to meet your needs for the future.
