**Published name**
What types of projects does your company undertake?
Where does your company undertake projects?
Has your company had ongoing engagement with First Nations people and/or the
traditional owners of the land where your projects are based (i.e. concerning native title protection, land use, etc.)?
How many staff work in the company in Australia?
How many company staff work in an engagement role in Australia?
What roles do your company's community engagement staff perform?
Are your community engagement staff outsourced to a third party?
Who does your community engagement staff report to?
What actions does your company take in the recruitment process to ensure you select personnel with the appropriate skill set and experience for engagement?
We ensure they have had experience in engagement with major projects and community in their application and interview. Generally, great engagement staff do not have traditional marketing or communications backgrounds but rather come from scientific or project roles where face-to-face and one-on-one engagement (rather than a broadscale approach) has been a large focus. Additionally, specific training to improve engagement skills is looked on favourably, such as IAP2 training or similar.
What professional development does your company provide engagement staff to ensure they have the appropriate ongoing training and skills development?
All of the above (offsite training courses, writing and communications courses, or media training) as required and/or requested
What career advancement and opportunities does your company offer to motivate engagement staff to perform to a high level?
Management/promotion opportunities for high performers, mentoring (externally and internally), coaching
Our company's policies and processes for receiving and responding to community complaints and other feedback help us to continually improve our community engagement
The systems that our company uses (eg. CRM, file management system) facilitate the efficient operation of our community engagement staff
Please share some examples of what is working well in your company.
Having a range of different programs (i.e. education program, grass-roots community support, project/program specific engagement, Local Benefit Sharing etc.) with people that are dedicated to each area allows them to focus on providing consistent and effective engagement. The community knows who to get in contact with and trusts that we will respond.
Are there opportunities for further improvement for your company? Please provide examples.
The need for effective early engagement across all areas of the business.
Is there anything else that you would like us to know?
There is an emerging Australian hydropower industry, with several proposed projects. There is opportunity for collaboration and coordination of learnings and best practice engagement in the industry to ensure smooth deployment of hydropower projects with affected landowners, neighbours and other stakeholders.
