Thank you for your valuable input into our survey
In early 2006, committee members were invited to participate in an online survey designed to collect information about committee member demographics and experience of committee work.
This survey was part of the 2005/06 programme under the NSSF (National Standardization Strategic Framework) of increased engagement with the community of standards-makers, particularly in relation to the question of recruitment and retention of participants in standardization.
We had an excellent response, with almost 950 survey forms completed of which just under a third were completed by committee chairmen. You can see below a summary of the key trends recorded in the survey results.
This information will be used as part of the ongoing strategy development for our new sector structure in Standards Development to help address problems encountered in key areas where new members are not coming forward to replace retiring members and/or where it's not possible to draw upon an established tradition of participation in the standardization process.
BSI would like to take this opportunity to thank all those committee members who participated in the survey and provided such valuable information.
What are the membership demographics?
Respondents were drawn fairly evenly from a range of industry sectors with no one sector predominating. The most common sectors represented were Engineering (22%), Manufacturing (17%) and Construction (11%).
Just over 40% of respondents identified themselves as representing a trade association in their capacity as a BSI committee member, while 20% said they represented a company, 7% a government department, 7% a public sector organization, 2% a consumer body, and the remainder represented a mixture of other organizations such as learned institutions or professional bodies, charities, co-opted experts and others.
About 50% of all respondents first became a committee member prior to 1995, with another 16% joining during 1995-1999 and 34% during 2000-2005. It was encouraging to see that a third of respondents were relatively new participants in standardization committees.
However, it will be even more important to generate new 'recruits' in the future as over 40% of survey respondents confirmed that they plan to retire from standardization work over the course of the next 5 years.
Perhaps not surprisingly for an online survey, almost 99% of respondents confirmed they had internet access. Of these, just over 90% had broadband access. For those respondents without broadband access, over a third planned to get broadband within the next 12 months.
The majority of respondents were male (90%) and the most common age range was 51-60 years (40%) with about another 25% in each of the age ranges 41-50 and 61 years+. Just 10% of respondents were under 40.
Almost 88% of respondents were employed, of which 80% worked as employees while the remainder worked as consultants.
Those working as consultants mainly worked with clients in both the public and private sectors (64%), while the majority of employees worked in the private sector (76%). 12% of respondents were retired. Just over a third of those respondents who are currently employed expected to retire in the next five years.
Less than 2% of the respondents reported they had a disability which impacted their participation in standardization, the most common disabilities being related to physical mobility impairment (31%) and hearing impairment (31%).
How do people learn about becoming committee members?
Almost 80% of respondents learnt about participation in standardization through their workplace, with about 25% identifying trade associations as the source of their information as well or instead of their workplace. Only about 10% of respondents also identified sources such as press coverage or BSI communications.
That trend is reflected in the fact that about 60% of respondents were asked to join a committee by someone in their workplace, and about 20% by their trade association. Just under 10% volunteered without being asked.
Other channels identified included contacts in professional bodies and the British Standards Society, personal responses to developments in industry or international standardization, etc.
Why do people participate in standardization?
For the vast majority of respondents, the most important reason was the fact that standards are relevant to their area of work (85%) or are expected to be relevant to their work in the future (57%).
The second most important reasons were the networking opportunities (42%) and the fact that employers were supportive of the individual's work in standardization (41%).
The third most important reasons given were the benefits of having active standardization work on an individual's CV (65%) followed by the availability of funding (56%) and the fact that the individual was able to dedicate time to standardization work (50%).
A number of respondents also commented to the effect that they had a personal as well as a professional interest in the subject and could bring valuable expertise to bear on standards development in their area.
How much time do people invest in committee work?
Just over 50% of respondents participated in 1 technical committee (51), no sub-committees (52%) and no panels (78%).
However, consolidating the overall responses gave an average participation rate of 2.5 technical committees, 1.9 sub-committees and 1.5 panels. This implies that the standardization workload is unevenly distributed across the total membership with, for example, up to a third of the survey respondents being involved in 2 or more technical and sub-committees.
This pattern is also reflected in the amount of time spent in a typical month on committee work, with 42% spending less than 1 day, 51% spending 1-6 days, and 7% spending 7 days or more.
For those people who spent less than 1 day per month, just under 60% spent less than 2 hours on committee work. Of those spending 1-6 days per month , just under 80% spent up to 3 days on committee work. For the minority who spent more than 7 days on committee work, about 70% (43 respondents) spent up to 2 weeks and the remainder (19 respondents) spent over 2 weeks on committee work.
Overall, 57% of respondents felt they spent about the right amount of time on standardization committee work. About 35% wanted to spend more time and 7% wanted to spend less.
What do people feel about their experience of being a committee member?
In total, 85% of respondents said they were satisfied with their committee membership experience (50% satisfied, 23% somewhat, 12% very), while 15% were dissatisfied (3% dissatisfied, 10% somewhat, 1% very).
Positive satisfaction levels were primarily in response to the nature of the committee work programmes (73% satisfied, 19% very satisfied) and the effectiveness of the committees (70% satisfied 11% very satisfied), and secondarily to the effectiveness of committee chairmen (59% satisfied, 25% very satisfied) and the quality of BSI support (56% satisfied, 12% very satisfied).
The primary reasons cited for dissatisfaction were the amount of financial support available (30% dissatisfied, 20% very dissatisfied), the quality of BSI support (20% dissatisfied, 9% very dissatisfied) and the effectiveness of committees (16% dissatisfied, 2% very dissatisfied).
In the open-ended comments section, a number of respondents noted that their satisfaction levels varied significantly from one committee to another with a whole variety of factors influencing their opinion. These included, in addition to those specifically queried in the survey, other issues relating to the overall nature of the international standardization process, the speed of developments and the impact of standardization "politics" and bureaucracy.
What barriers affect participation in standardization?
Over half of all respondents (56%) said they had not experienced barriers to participation.
For those who had, the most significant barrier for the majority was lack of time due to other commitments which impacted 54% a lot and 31% a little.
The next most common barrier was the issue of committee work incurring financial expenses which the respondents could not afford to a greater (28%) or lesser (37%) extent. After that, the location of committee meetings posed a slight problem for 45% and a major problem for 15%. This pattern was very similar to that for the impact of ineffective committees.
However, at least half of the respondents were not impacted at all by the other barriers mentioned in the survey. Non-supportive employers impacted only 10% of respondents a lot and 38% a little. The picture was very similar for individual's having an incomplete understanding of the standardization process.
Dependence on e-working practices was a big problem for just 10% and a slight problem for 22%, while BSI e-committee system performance as a big problem for 8% and a slight problem for 37%. The quality of BSI support for committee work overall posed a major barrier for 18% and a small barrier for 35%.
How can we support new committee members?
Based on the respondents' own experience, the very important factors identified for giving new committee members a high quality experience of the standardization process were: an effective chairman (88% very important); an effective committee secretary (87%); a supportive employer (79%); effective committee members (62%); funding to cover committee expenses (54%); and a formal induction to committee work (49%).
Factors which were considered Somewhat Important were largely to do with education & support. All of the following were rated somewhat important by ~45-55% of the respondents: training in the use of e-committees; training in the standardization process; having a mentor on the committee; promotion of the benefits of standardization to employers; supportive trade associations; and CPD (Continuing Professional Development) accreditation.
Of all the factors covered by this part of the survey, the only ones considered to be Not Important by significant numbers of respondents were: the availability of a mentor on the committee (31% Not Important) and CPD accreditation (43% Not Important).
However, almost 400 respondents were prepared to act as mentors for new committee members, primarily in relation to their current committees (80%) but sometimes for any committee (20%).
