Our survey says…

Every year, we survey members to find out what they think of STEP and what else we can do to support them. A big thank you to everyone who took part in the 2023 survey. Almost 1,300 responses were received from across the world, which represents an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year. This response rate provides a high level of confidence that the results reflect the wider membership population.

Addressing your challenges

Continuing a trend from the past few years, ‘regulatory/compliance requirements’ and ‘staying up-to-date with the latest technical changes’ still top the table for the biggest professional challenges for members. However, more pronounced in 2023 were the challenges associated with recruiting and retaining employees and striking a healthy work-life balance. It is therefore pleasing to see that 87 per cent think their membership is important or very important for keeping up-to-date with industry developments.

Value and satisfaction

Member sentiment continues to be extremely positive, with 83 per cent rating STEP membership as good or excellent, and a marked increase in the willingness to refer STEP membership to colleagues. Our net promoter score grew to +49,[1] not far off the scores achieved by Amazon or Apple.

The quality of STEP education scored well, with 81 per cent satisfied and 81 per cent stating they felt more confident in their professional abilities as a result of completing a STEP course.

Recognition of STEP

Over the past couple of years, STEP has championed some big, important societal issues and run campaigns to drive greater awareness and influence change. The 2023 survey highlighted that although we have successfully increased member awareness in the key areas of reputation of trusts, responsible stewardship of wealth, digital assets and mental capacity, we still have some way to go if we are to be recognised as a leading authority. So what have we done and what will we do to continually improve?

Adding value to members

To build on our core role of supporting members with regulatory compliance and to ensure we keep you up-to-date with developments in key areas, we built content hubs for topic areas including digital assets, mental capacity, modern families and the responsible stewardship of wealth. We have also added to our portfolio of thought leadership reports, launching two new reports in 2023: Loss of Mental Capacity: A Global Perspective and Wills and Trusts: Buyer Beware.[2]

In May 2024, we will be launching a new STEP Journal website that will replace the hard-copy publication. Moving to a digital publication means we can provide you with more relevant and timely content that is tailored to your specific interests.

Excellence in education

Since we launched the more flexible STEP Diploma we have seen a 17 per cent increase in student enrolments year-on-year. We have continued to develop our education and, in October 2023, launched STEP CPD Learning Course: Contentious Estates to help address the rise in inheritance disputes.

STEP education will continue to evolve throughout 2024. In January, we supported an exciting new route to STEP membership for civil-law practitioners as the International University of Monaco launched the STEP-accredited International Management of Family Wealth programme. This will be followed by new STEP courses and continuing professional development to support practitioners in the areas of mental capacity and digital assets.

Raising our profile

Much was done to raise our profile in 2023. Our public-facing Protect Your Digital Memories campaign to raise awareness about the need to plan for what happens to your digital assets reached over eight million people via social media and the accompanying video was viewed in full more than 200,000 times. The campaign also won two membership industry awards for Best Awareness Campaign at the Association Excellence Awards and the Memcom Excellence Awards.

We also created the Trusts Information Centre, a hub pulling together information about trusts, including their types, uses and regulation. This aims to act as a reliable source of expert information about trusts and supports STEP’s work with policymakers.

In 2024, we will build on the recent development of the STEP Global Representative Power, which serves as a model best-practice template to governments globally when developing new (or reviewing existing) mental capacity legislation. It has already impacted the development of legislation in multiple jurisdictions, including the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and New Zealand.

This is just a taste of the things we are working on to address the feedback provided in the membership survey. Your input is hugely valued and helps us to continually improve. Please continue to share your thoughts and take part in our surveys. If you are not receiving our surveys, you can opt in via your online profile’s contact preferences.