To professionalise or not to professionalise? That is our question!

With more than $100B in infrastructure projects in delivery in Australia right now, the professionalisation of the engagement sector has become a hotly debated topic.
We asked three global engagement and impact assessment leaders to delve into this debate at the recent IAP2 Australasia conference. But there’s a twist…
Our debaters – Aurecon’s Kylie Cochrane, RPS Australia Asia Pacific’s Rachel Fox and NextGen’s Research Leader, Associate Professor Sara Bice – had to make their very strongest arguments both for and against the professionalisation of community engagement. The results were compelling, challenging and sometimes surprising.

On the one hand, we see increasing evidence of the bottom line impacts that engagement can have. Leaders in the field are constantly seeking to take the next step forward, to demonstrate the legitimacy of the practice and integrate it across the infrastructure lifecycle. In that context, the push to establish formal qualifications and supporting standards and assurance frameworks seem logical.
At the same time however, we’re hearing from our industry partners that the unprecedented scale of our national infrastructure build and rising community expectations means the demand for skilled engagement professionals is at an all time high. As industry strives to quickly fill the gap at a price that clients are prepared to pay, the push toward professionalisation seems impractical. So, is professionalisation the right next step for the engagement practice? Does it symbolise steps towards legitimacy or an exercise in gold-plating that alienates experienced professionals and that industry won’t pay for?

The case for professionalisation

Rachel Fox, Stakeholder and Community Engagement Leader for RPS Australia Asia Pacific

The community engagement field has grown in scale, size and depth. We are important. We need to get it right.
Trust in authority is at an all-time low. Engagement approaches are being looked to by decision-makers to connect with communities.
These days engagement practitioners are in the tent. But it means our practice is under greater scrutiny to deliver.
We need to constantly look for solutions on how to engage diverse groups of people from Aboriginal communities, to young people, CALD groups – busy people.
We also need to be across developments in our practice that constantly changes in a rapidly changing world, involving digital platforms, deliberative engagement and research-based engagement.
We need to be more persuasive with fellow professionals – to, as Cindy Plowman argues, “bring the wisdom of the community to the decision-makers”. We need to understand and talk the language of planning, gateways, contracts, risk, program, budget and business cases.
This all points to a crying need to increase the standard and consistency of engagement practice.
We need tertiary training to ensure our practice is grounded in academic and practical theory
We need accreditation to help weed out good practice from bad.
We need a membership body so that our profession is taken seriously.
This will place our practice firmly at the top table and ensure a consistent standard of practice, career pathways that will attract talent and renumeration commensurate with our recognised professional status.

Sara Bice, Research Leader, Next Gen (ANU) and President of the International Association for Impact Assessment

Professionalisation matters. It brings with it role legitimacy, a set of standards and broader recognition not possible in an expert but otherwise dispersed discipline.
I’m a researcher and we’re always defining things, so let me start by defining what I mean – or what the literature means – by professionalisation:
Professionalism scholar Professor Mike Saks defines professionalisation as encompassing: power, capacity to ‘gatekeep’, collective activity for the public good, a shared professional culture, existence of professional/practitioner groups, and exclusionary power. Tertiary level qualifications, standards boards or certifying bodies and related certification programs or centralised thresholds for participation are also often characteristics of professionalisation.
For community engagement professionalisation can help us to articulate the foundational skills, capabilities, knowledge, experience and values that fundamentally shape our practice. The work of associations like IAP2 and the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), for which I currently serve as President, has already gone a long way towards defining best practice, values and principles. But there is considerable space for improvement in defining the shared skill sets, knowledge and experience to be expected of a community engagement professional.
Is this someone with a comms degree? Someone trained in stakeholder management? An engineer with people skills?
Is it someone with an Arts degree? A bachelor’s, master’s or perhaps no degree at all? Surely, not a PhD!
Today, we don’t know the answers to any of these pretty basic questions. But we should.
The time for professionalisation is now. It will bring cohesion to community engagement practice. It will help us to define and refine best practice in ways not previously possible through coordination of a peak industry body. Professionalisation will make Australian community engagement world-leading. It will give us a seat at more tables, more often and with more influence. Professionalisation recognizes that we are more than (mostly women) good at talking to people. We are more than a sausage sizzle, more than an outlet for complaints.
We are professionals. And it’s time we were recognized as such.

Kylie Cochrane – Global Communication and Engagement Lead and the President of IAP2 International

There are five key points to support why community engagement should be professionalised. Five. It’s that clear.

It will bust the ‘Anyone can do it’ myth. There’s no formal/professional qualification required to work in community engagement, so the perception is that anyone with a personality (or just a pulse) can do this. How hard could it be?
It’s our responsibility – sharing is caring. We have a responsibility to share lessons, processes and methodologies with EPs. We must ask ourselves, will the engagement industry die if we do not pass this information on?
It will provide an opportunity for future growth of our industry. Many graduates from related disciplines don’t understand what we do or know that community engagement offers a career path in itself. Are we missing out on talent?
Clearer industry standards will reduce engagement risk on projects. Lots of engagement isn’t done well (or not done at all) and communities are becoming more and more aware of their rights. There were $20 billion in projects cancelled or delayed in the last decade in Australia, influenced by community outrage and opposition.
It will legitimise our practice. Professionalisation will help us to move away from tick-a-box engagement. The market will pay more for engagement professionals. In almost every country and region it has been shown that degree-qualified staff in any discipline earn more than those without degrees. Let’s face it – who among us doesn’t want to earn more and what consultancy doesn’t want to be more profitable?

Five reasons for professionalisation. It’s very clear.

The case against professionalisation

Rachel Fox, Stakeholder and Community Engagement Leader for RPS Australia Asia Pacific

If we professionalise we run the risk of becoming too distinct and rarefied.
We will lose the opportunity to encourage an engaging and collaborative approach across professions and amongst all decision-makers.
We may create a professional self-interest which seeks to protect our industry rather than expand the practice.
We will become tick-a-box, motivated to comply with industry standards rather than developing tailored, contextual approaches that respond effectively to issues and people.
We’ll lose the diversity in our practitioners’ backgrounds. Fewer people will come to engagement from technical backgrounds, which we know can be really useful when engaging communities on complex matters.
Engagement is fundamentally about encouraging citizen participation on issues that matter. Are we really saying that only professionals can lead this? That people need a degree to know how to get involved?
And on the matter of an engagement degree, if we go down that path we’re losing what tertiary education should really be about: expanding your mind, being challenged, learning to think, engaging with ideas.
Developing practical skills that will land a job is professional development and is something different. Our profession will be all the richer if we keep our doors open to the best minds and the finest thinkers -regardless of whether they studied maths, astrophysics or English literature.

Sara Bice, Research Leader, Next Gen (ANU) and President of the International Association for Impact Assessment

Professionalisation is an unnecessary distraction at a time when community engagement practitioners should be getting their hands dirty with the people that matter, in the places where they can make a difference. We are experiencing perhaps the most intensive period of infrastructure delivery in Australian history. People need us. They do not need us spending time on useless degrees that will only funnel cash into gluttonous universities while delaying us reaching the outcomes that matter.
Professionalisation will take too long. It takes years to establish new university degrees and curricula, longer for the first students to graduate and reach the market. Even longer for market salaries to recognize and rise in response to new qualifications, greatly limiting the most direct incentive to further study: Better pay.
And even if you were now to say, “Well, yes, Sara, but that’s a rather limited understanding of professionalisation. It’s about more than tertiary degrees or training,”, I would counter, “Yes, but the other arguments are just as weak.”
Take certification: Seriously, folks, are we ever going to certify practices that many admit to doing based on their gut, their experience? Can we really certify as a profession that for which we continue to fail to articulate a clear value argument? When we can’t communicate what we do to our colleagues in engineering, finance or project management. Really? We’re going to certify as a profession a field based almost entirely on intangible values, social good, equity, giving voice to the marginalised and ‘feelings’? The CPA would be laughing.
And so, colleagues, it is with some regret that I say to you professionalisation is a path best not pursued.

Kylie Cochrane – Global Communication and Engagement Lead and the President of IAP2 International

There are five key points to support why community engagement should not be professionalised. Five. It’s that clear.

Risk of a standardised approach to engagement. One size does not fit all . We need a variety of views and experiences to constantly develop and improve our craft. Also, the communities we work with are not homogenous.
Contextual awareness cannot be taught in a classroom, it comes from experience. Textbooks cannot teach you about the emotions of outrage. Think back to the last time you faced protesters, an outraged crowd, a really angry community member – did you stop and look up outrage tips in your book?
What will professionalisation mean for those who are currently in the industry? Will we have to go back to school? Who would be willing to do this? Would we lose good engagement professionals who were not willing to re-train? IAP2 has been trying to wade through this for years.
Access to education. Will a specialised degree with specific requirements for entry exclude people from joining our industry? We work to give opportunities and a voice to the people who don’t have them – this would contradict that.
Narrow definition of expertise. I am currently both a community advocate and an engagement professional. We can have professionalisation but let’s not stamp out the individual’s experiences or passions. This brings diversity to our field and keeps us moving with the times.

Five reasons against professionalisation. It’s very clear.

Taking the debate forward

In the midst of some good-natured competition even our debaters confessed that having to make both sides of the argument got them thinking differently. The discussion has important implications and will feed into the Next Generation Engagement Program’s professionalisation research stream.
So, do our debaters have you thinking differently, hot under the collar or scratching your head? We want to hear about it. Give us your comments and let’s keep the conversation going.