Communication and engagement

The commission’s strategic communication team provides expert advice on communication and engagement matters to support the delivery of the commission’s work program.

Our year in review

We spearheaded an energy rights campaign

In 2019, 68 per cent of Victorians we surveyed didn’t know where to get more information about their energy rights in relation to their retailer.

From 1 July 2019, new reforms gave Victorians the power to make the most of their energy. Our energy rights campaign spanned radio, social media, web, local newspapers and poster bills and featured information on:

the Victorian Default Offer, a simple and trusted energy price
information about how consumers can use the new ‘best offer’ reform to compare energy plans
how consumers can get help if they’re finding it difficult to pay energy bills on time.

We communicated more effectively through new media

In 2018–19 we continued our efforts to build a strong and engaging presence on LinkedIn and Twitter through work that included:

establishing the energy rights campaign
developing an engaging animated video on how the feed-in tariff affects consumers
working with project teams to develop information-rich social media for projects such as the water customer survey results and our first local government outcomes report.

In 2018–19, we increased our LinkedIn followers by 44 per cent, and our Twitter followers by 71 per cent.

We used enewsletters to provide timely updates to subscribers

We also use two types of enewsletters to keep subscribers up to date: Essential News, an email summarising key project outcomes for the month; and Essential Express, a bulletin announcing important releases.

In 2018–19, we sent 11 Essential Updates and 42 Essential Expresses, with unique open rates averaging around 35 to 40 per cent, well above the industry benchmark.

Progress report, 2018–19

Further develop our media and social media strategies
Status: On track

Outputs

Produced 250+ social media posts (LinkedIn and Twitter).

Outcomes

Subscribers to our social media channels and enewsletters receive more information-rich, expansive and current information via these channels.
In 2018–19, we increased our LinkedIn followers by 44 per cent, and our Twitter followers by 71 per cent.
Our tweets garnered more than 373,000 impressions, while our LinkedIn posts collected more than 205,000 impressions.

Establish a new enewsletter platform
Status: Complete

The platform was used to help us communicate timely information and increase the accessibility of our digital content.

Outputs

In 2018–19, we sent 11 Essential Updates and 42 Essential Expresses, with unique open rates averaging around 35 to 40 per cent.

Outcomes

Stakeholders have a better understanding of our work and important decisions.
In our reputation survey, our ‘information is accessible’ measure increased 4 per cent (to 84 per cent) and ‘tailored to meet your needs’ increased 5 per cent (to 52 per cent).

Create exciting new content including staff articles, videos and podcasts
Status: On track

Outputs

Built a much-wider ‘asset’ net for the 2017–18 annual report by adapting the report’s iconography for use on social media.
Almost all social media posts for 2018–19 used some kind of media asset, whether it was an image, video or infographic.
Produced a small number of staff articles of high quality. We will work to produce more staff articles in 2019–20.

Outcomes

Stakeholders engage with our content, sharing and responding positively, increasing reach and awareness of our activities.
In our reputation survey, our ‘usefulness of social media’ measure improved 6 per cent from 2018.

Improve the organisation’s ability to communicate with its stakeholders through strategic advice and support
Status: On track

We focused on providing strategic advice and support services to build staff capacity in communicating clearly and engaging effectively with stakeholders.

Outputs

Organised for commission staff to attend several workshops covering:

stakeholder engagement
International Association for Public Participation
our new stakeholder engagement framework
social media
workshop facilitation skills.

Organised eight plain English workshops, and ran 11 staff induction workshops and two ‘writing for the web’ training sessions.

Outcomes

Our reputation survey shows that communication, along with commission processes, have improved over two years (+12%).
Open-ended responses in the survey noted a significant and sustained improvement in our written communication.
Overall reputation measures for engagement slipped slightly in 2019 after a significant improvement in 2018. This may be due to a number of high profile projects where normal consultation was affected by short timeframes.

Measuring our success in 2019–20

Goal	Objective	What outputs do we intend to produce?	What outcomes do we intend to achieve?
Goal 1	Manage external communication (media, web and social) to promote trust in the regulator by ensuring it is accurate, relevant, audience-centred and current. Related to major projects 2 and 3.	Digital audit (to identify current status of all content). Conduct review and update key communication policies and procedures.	Key reputation survey measures for website performance e.g. ‘up to date and correct’ and ‘easy to understand’ continue to improve.
Goal 1	Promote stakeholder engagement activities to a wider audience to promote transparency and the legitimacy of our outcomes. Related to major project 1.	Develop and publish annual engagement calendar for stakeholders. Develop response plan to address recommendations of the stakeholder engagement internal audit.	There is an increase in key engagement measures including: participation in engagement activities variety and accessibility of engagement opportunities including online clear reporting of how engagement has been considered in the commission’s decision making.
Goal 1	Promote the work of the commission, building our reputation via earned and owned media channels. Related to major project 3.	Develop annual media and content plan for social media channels	Our reputation indicators for overall perceptions of the commission continue to improve.
Goal 3	Support the divisions to communicate and engage effectively with industry/sector stakeholders. Related to major project 1.	Annual communication and engagement plans developed.	Our reputation survey indicators for overall satisfaction (trusted and effective), communication and engagement continue to improve and exceed key external benchmarks.
GOAL 4	Develop a three-year digital strategy to achieve a coherent, efficient and effective approach to digital platforms and tools. Related to major project 2.	Web and social audit of existing channels completed. Use audit results to inform project scope and procure external service provider. Develop digital strategy 2019–2022. Identify key projects and priorities to inform team planning and major projects for 2020–21.	Stakeholder engagement via digital channels continues to grow. Stakeholder perceptions relating to confidence in the accuracy of content, readability and relevance continue to exceed external benchmarks.

Strategic communication's major projects for 2019–20:

Stakeholder engagement strategy, which aims to provide more engagement activity support for teams and support an effective engagement culture.
Digital strategy, which aims to transform our digital relationship with audiences to better meet their needs.
Reputation strategy, which is built on a stronger understanding of our operating environment and promotes the key themes of a strong and fair regulator that solves real problems and creates incentives for businesses to deliver value for money to customers.

Environmental factors

The main environmental factors influencing our work are:

The scale and pace of reform of the energy regulatory framework means our work in this area has a higher profile and attracts more media attention than some of our other work. It is a challenge to show we are more than ‘just’ an energy regulator and our work in other sectors is just as important to the community. This means we need effective forward planning to ensure we don’t miss opportunities to inform and involve stakeholders in our other work.
Rapid organisational growth and expanding responsibilities. Our immediate priorities include ensuring our digital efforts have a clear strategic focus, and increasing our ability to support the stakeholder engagement work of the organisation.
Growing expectations of stakeholders and the community to engage with us in new and traditional ways. The community expects modern organisations to provide up to date information online along with opportunities to engage on issues. At the same time, many stakeholders continue to expect opportunities to engage in person as we develop our regulatory frameworks and make our decisions. There are also increasing expectations from the government to meet new engagement standards including using online methods.
The banking royal commission highlighted many areas where regulation failed to protect consumers. This means we are expected to be both light-handed, low-red tape regulators yet quick to identify and respond to breaches that affect consumers.

List of all publications and submissions for 2018–19

You can view a complete list of all releases we published and all submissions we received during 2018–19 at www.esc.vic.gov.au/annual-reports.