Submitted by Victoria Nadile, WICE Contributing Author & Associate Business Process Analyst – NYPA
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Last fall, WICE conducted a survey to update our understanding of our membership. With the ultimate goal of setting a direction that makes sense for our membership and building a community around that – with your input! Our results were share with members in attendance at our Fall Conference in White Plains and we’ll do another recap in Albany this Spring, but it’s high time we share some of the results with you.
Currently, a member is defined as anyone registered on WICE’s mailing list. In other words, if you received an email invitation to take the survey, you’re considered a member! Pretty straightforward, right?!
It is important to note that there is presently no associated financial cost with membership as well as no limitations on membership. We hope these factors will encourage a variety of interested women across professional fields to join our organization and the community we are building.
The purpose of this survey was two-fold: gain a better understanding of (1) who you are and (2) where you may want to get more involved with WICE.
We received a total of 149 responses from our members over the course of the three and a half week survey period. The alignment of responses to questions about geographic region and member organization affiliation with the previous demographic information for the full membership suggests that the responses are a representative sample of WICE’s overall membership. The resulting analysis of the responses highlighted some key characteristics about WICE’s members. Members are employed across numerous businesses, with both state-owned and private utility companies featured most prominently; close to 70% of WICE’s membership constitutes employees from either a publicly or state-owned utility.
The survey also provided insight into where our members reside. Although most respondents live and work in New York (with high representation, in particular, from the Capital and New York City regions), responses also indicated that some respondents reside outside of New York State and beyond the tristate region! The WICE planning committee anticipates using this information to better accommodate its members by scheduling events that are easily accessible to all , such as our recent networking event in Albany, or the upcoming event in NYC on March 3rd.
The survey also allowed us to consider the various professions of each of our members. Most respondents (more than 80%) are either at the manager or staff level, with approximately 12% of respondents identifying as executives. Represented professions included—but were not limited to—communication/public affairs, engineering, and law. This suggests WICE has been quite successful in attracting members from a variety of professional backgrounds— with more than twenty professional categories identified by respondents.
Now the work begins! With the information from this survey, WICE hopes to design events that will cater to your professional interests. We’ve already begun planning events with our members’ geographic locations in mind. We hope to see you at one of the happy hours, volunteering events or conferences being planned across the state over the coming months.
WICE thanks all of those who participated in the survey. For more information, please visit WICE’s membership page: https://wiceny.com/membership/ For inquiries about updating member contact information, please use the form on the membership page to send an email to us.