More Engagement with Less Effort for Engineers Australia’s Community

Engineers Australia, the national body for engineering, uses their online community to offer their 120,000-plus member base a private space to network with peers, discuss their work, and share resource documents. With their Higher Logic Thrive Community, EA Exchange, Engineers Australia was able to replace disjointed LinkedIn groups, Teams chats, emails, WhatsApp groups, and other informal ways of connecting and create a dedicated space for their members.

The community is helmed by Clementine West, Community and Social Engagement Manager, and supported by Hannah Watkinson, Social Media Coordinator.

“There’s a huge need for these engineers to be able to talk to each other, work together, give each other advice, and share information. Since Engineers Australia is the peak body for engineers here, it’s a really great opportunity for us to facilitate that,” said Clementine.

A key differentiator of the Higher Logic software for Engineers Australia is the ability to verify members via a Higher Logic integration with their database, Oracle. Clementine said, “Higher Logic Thrive’s ability to integrate with our database is invaluable to us because it’s crucial for us to vet that participants are verified engineers.”

Before Higher Logic Thrive, Engineers Australia hosted communities of practice on separate, technologically outdated websites. The team has now been able to move these sites into EA Exchange as microsites. This means that community of practice members can benefit from features like discussions, while staff can consolidate work in one central space.

In addition, the team has launched a student hub on EA Exchange, which helped them navigate away from LinkedIn groups (which created risk for them due to the lack of member verification).

Clementine adds, “The ability to have microsites on Higher Logic Thrive has been a game changer because it’s allowed us to rehome some of these sites or standard communities where people weren’t happy. We can apply an extra level of customization for the sub-communities that need it.”

Like any online community, EA Exchange needs to be moderated—but this job is easier for Clementine and Hannah because of the self-moderation feature. Hannah says, “One feature that definitely makes our lives a lot easier is that users can flag content and it will disappear into our review queue. As a small team, this helps us keep the community a safe place. And the whole moderation process is really user-friendly.” In addition, when they have to reject a post, Higher Logic Thrive Community comes with built-in response drafts that they can edit for the user or send as-is, which helps make the whole moderation process really user-friendly.

Before the community, Engineers Australia had to share documents on their website, which was difficult to keep updated and personalized. But in EA Exchange, they can store any size of document in the relevant community library. Clementine said, “Being able to have a place where you can organize and store documents and invite others to do so as well is really invaluable for us.”

Higher Logic has also helped the team improve the way they manage their volunteer program. Clementine said, “Using Higher Logic Thrive has improved our systems so that they work with less chaos.” They’ve created a volunteer hub to offer a one-stop-shop for resources on volunteering and conducting their annual expressions of interest applications.

As Clementine and Hannah invest more effort into growing community engagement, it only improves outcomes for other teams at Engineers Australia.

For example, the policy team uses the community as a two-way channel to get member input and feedback on their advocacy. With the community, the policy team no longer has to solicit members via email or post a general call to an entire audience on LinkedIn or Facebook. Clementine said, “They’ve found it to be a useful space where they can talk directly to members, without having to pay for a targeted ad.”

The marketing team also uses the community to promote Engineers Australia’s events. Hannah said, “It’s created a whole new space where we can share ads for our conferences. The marketing team can advertise events to the open forum or target them to a particular group.”

Additionally, as a small team taking care of a large community, Clementine and Hannah appreciate the support they get from Higher Logic. They feel comfortable asking questions knowing they’ll get a prompt response – even based in Australia. Clementine said, “The support from Higher Logic has been really great. When we’ve needed tutorials, tech support, calls, a weekly check-in—that support has been really important for us.”

In the future, Clementine and Hannah have plans to explore a community-based job board, as well as using gamification to promote member achievements.

As Australia’s national body for engineering, Engineers Australia is the voice and champion of their 120,000-plus member base. They provide members with the resources, connections and growth they need to do ethical, competent, and high-value work in their communities.