Welcome back to our AuSAE Member Chat Series – Half an Hour of Power. This week we are delighted to have sat down with AuSAE member, Eva Scheerlinck, CEO, Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees.

In a short 30 minute interview we discussed four key questions with Eva to reflect on the last five months and look forward to the future post this crisis.

What do the next 6 months look like for your association and your members

This time will be a period of consolidation for the association. We are taking the opportunity to implement a new operational model, refining efficiencies and enhancing organisational performance. We have learnt a lot along the way, including technology use, operating models and the importance of training and reskilling for staff during this time.

There will be things that will never go back to what they once were and we are using this time as an organisation to realign, reset and refocus on what the future holds. Ensuring our teams understand the changes ahead and feel supported through training in the next few months.

Like all associations during this time we are focused on delivering outcomes for members, strengthening member value and ensuring we represent member interests in key advocacy priorities.

Areas of concern

My main concern lies within the uncertainty of COVID-19. As most associations will understand, our model was built on the delivery of face to face events, educational courses and conferences. As it currently stands, we don’t know if we can rely on face to face delivery in 2021. It’s also important to recognise that delivering conferences online is a lot more involved and creates more work than our normal face to face platform. While we are all pivoting and moving to online, the creation of work and the pressure on teams is high.

We are scenario planning all possibilities, including the current situation in Victoria and if other states end up in similar circumstances.

As a CEO the uncertainty is difficult, particularly when staff, stakeholders and members are asking questions that we don’t have the answers to. The best we can do is to try and plan for different scenarios and keep our communication lines open and transparent.

Areas of opportunity

We have seen an increased level of community engagement, greater member participation rates, broader and deeper conversations, and access for all members wherever they are located.

There has been an increased interest in peer to peer learning, and participation in this has skyrocketed over this time. Our members have never been more interested to hear from each other and understand what likeminded colleagues are doing during this time and what they can learn from each other.

Internally, the increased flexibility for staff is an exciting opportunity for us. While we always offered working from home opportunities, it was never to this level. During this time, two team members have moved to the country full time and with our fully flexible working environment they will be able to continue working from home past this crisis. We are still seeing the same level of productivity from all staff, and as an organisation we look forward to continuing to offer flexible working arrangements for all team members to encourage them to pursue the lifestyle and balance they desire.

Celebrated moments in the last five months

Our major conference for the year was scheduled five days after the pandemic was called, we cancelled and reinvented the conference in a short period of time. The conference pivoted to a virtual event, we didn’t try to replicate the conference in its current format but reimagined and reworked the event and overall we were very proud of the delivery and reception from members.

During this time we have also moved our education courses to virtual classrooms including our Diploma. The team have worked hard to shape this content to transition to an online format, instead of full days of delivery, courses have been broken down into three hours per day.