Classification of Technical Writers in the ANZSCO standard

July 2016

The President's report in May generated a lot of very supportive correspondence to its author. Encouraged by the member response, Emma Harding visited Andrew Hancock, Senior Researcher at Statistics New Zealand – Tatauranga Aotearoa to learn more about the process for requesting change to the ANZSCO standard.

The draft submission published below is open for reader comment until 20 July 2016. We are interested in receiving feedback and also evidence in support of the submission. We hope to submit the final document to Statistics as soon as possible after this date. Thank you to members of the ASTC (Australian Society for Technical Communication) committee for their input into this document.

For readers looking for the classification which this submission addresses, see http://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/classifications-and-standards/classification-related-stats-standards/occupation.aspx.

DRAFT

The Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand (TechCommNZ) formally requests Statistics New Zealand to:

Change the classification of technical writers in the ANZSCO standard, and
Change the occupation name from technical writers to technical communicators.

Issue 1: Change the current ANZSCO classification

Technical writer (ANZSCO code 212415) is currently classified under Sub-Major Group 21 Arts and Media Professionals >> Minor Group 212 Media Professionals >> Unit Group 2124 Journalists and Other Writers >> 212415 Technical Writer.

TechCommNZ requests a change in classification, moving technical communication to Minor Group 224 and creating a new unit group as follows:

Sub-Major Group 22 Business, Human Resource and Marketing Professionals >> Minor Group 224 Information and Organisation Professionals >> Unit Group (new) Technical Communicators. This would be the coding category for anyone identifying themselves using terms such as technical writer, technical communicator, technical author, content developer, documentation manager, documentation specialist.

Our expertise is not only in writing. We also provide business and user analysis, project and change management, training and implementation support. Technical communicators work across all industries, which may call for different tools, techniques, and adaptations. We write policies and procedures, manuals and instructions, system and equipment documents, web and application information. We use sophisticated content strategies to write, publish, and maintain complex information products through long life-cycles. We are not just writers, and we have little in common with professionals working in the Arts and Media.

Issue 2: Change the ANZSCO occupation name

TechCommNZ requests a change of the occupation name “technical writer” to “technical communicator”. There is no one term for the occupation, but the most common choices in New Zealand are:

Technical communicator
Technical writer
Technical author

Practitioners across the globe have struggled for a long time to produce an agreed name for the occupation. In recent years "technical communicator" has superseded the traditional name of "technical writer" – largely to recognise that technical communicators produce more than just written deliverables. The wide international acceptance of "technical communication" is evidenced in the naming of our professional bodies:

Society for Technical Communication (US) – http://www.stc.org
Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (UK) – http://www.istc.org.uk
Australian Society for Technical Communication (Aus) – http://www.astc.org.au
Tekom (Europe) – http://www.technical-communication.org
TechCommNZ – Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand – http://techcomm.nz

Please refer to TechCommNZ Salary and Hourly Rate Survey, December 2015, page 8, question 4 for more details of titles used by TechCommNZ members.

Why TechCommNZ seeks change

The two main reasons we need these issues addressed are that New Zealand needs more:

Technical communicators to support economic growth
Visibility of technical communication – as a career and as a service available to businesses in the knowledge economy.

New Zealand needs more technical communicators

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of technical communicators in the US is projected to grow 10 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations [1].

We are seeing similar growth in the New Zealand ICT sector, with the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment claiming growth in the IT software and services exports of 14% per annum in the last 6 years [2].

In Australia in 2013-14, there was an increase of 5% in the number of ICT professionals, with the sector contributing $79 billion to the national economy. Trade in ICT services totals around $5 billion per annum. Employment in ICT alone is projected to grow 2.5% per annum over the next 6 years [3].

More technical communicators are needed to support growth in ICT, but our visibility is poor. The ANZSCO standard classifies technical communication with journalism – a profession in which, according to the Careers New Zealand website [4], the "chances of getting a job…are poor due to high competition for a limited number of vacancies".

In recent times, the profession of journalism has been in decline, so we need to take steps to ensure that technical communication – a growing and vital area of work – is no longer associated with journalism, which has entirely different skills and goals.

New Zealand needs more visibility of technical communication

TechCommNZ wants to promote the use of a consistent occupation title to improve statistical accuracy at Census time. The actual choice of term is not without controversy, but we recommend adopting the same term which our colleagues use world-wide – technical communicator.

By encouraging our members to use this term in the Census, we can start to be accurately counted, helping us to gain visibility as professionals. Technical communication as a profession in New Zealand is plagued by its lack of recognition, even by people working in the field. The negative effects of this are:

Suitable candidates for the profession don't know it exists as a well-paid and interesting career
Businesses and industry continue to have a "do it yourself" approach to technical communication, instead of engaging qualified and experienced professionals.
Advertised roles include technical writing as an add-on skill, resulting in lower standards.

Appendix 1: What technical communicators do

The following role description is taken from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, What Technical Writers Do [5]:

Technical writers typically do the following:

Determine the needs of users of technical documentation
Study product samples and talk with product designers and developers
Work with technical staff to make products easier to use and thus require fewer instructions
Organize and write supporting content for products
Use photographs, drawings, diagrams, animation, and charts that increase users’ understanding
Select appropriate medium for message or audience, such as manuals or online videos
Standardize content across platforms and media
Gather user feedback to update and improve content
Revise content as new issues arise

Technical writers create paper-based and digital operating instructions, how-to manuals, assembly instructions, and “frequently asked questions” pages to help technical support staff, consumers, and other users within a company or an industry. After a product is released, technical writers also may work with product liability specialists and customer-service managers to improve the end-user experience through product design changes.

Technical writers often work with computer hardware engineers, scientists, computer support specialists, and software developers to manage the flow of information among project workgroups during development and testing. Therefore, technical writers must be able to understand complex information and communicate the information to people with diverse professional backgrounds.

Applying their knowledge of the user of the product, technical writers may serve as part of a team conducting usability studies to help improve the design of a product that is in the prototype stage. Technical writers may conduct research on their topics through personal observation, library and Internet research, and discussions with technical specialists.

Technical writers are also responsible for managing the consistency of technical content and its use across business departments including product development, manufacturing, marketing, and customer relations.

Some technical writers help write grant proposals for research scientists and institutions.

Increasingly, technical information is being delivered online and through social media. Technical writers are using the interactive technologies of the Web and social media to blend text, graphics, multidimensional images, sound, and video.

There is significant professional overlap with information architects, user experience designers, policy and business analysts, and procedure writers.

Appendix 2: Technical communication bodies of knowledge

There are several technical communication bodies of knowledge, such as the Society for Technical Communication's http://www.tcbok.org/. TechCommNZ has collaborated with Australian Society for Technical Communication (ASTC) to produce a local version of the TCBoK: http://tcbok.info/. These resources list the super-set of knowledge, skills, and attributes that technical communication professionals apply in their daily work.

Appendix 3: Technical communication qualifications in New Zealand

In New Zealand, the Graduate Diploma in Information Design (Ara Institute, formerly CPIT) is the only Level 7 qualification for technical communicators, and it is currently on hold and under review, for relaunch in early 2017. There are smaller courses available with other providers [6].

Appendix 4: About TechCommNZ

The Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand:

Provides ongoing support and professional development for technical communicators in New Zealand
Maintains and extends a collegial network for members
Seeks to gain wider recognition of the role of technical communication in New Zealand organisations
Fosters strong relationships with tertiary training providers of technical communication in New Zealand.

We represent professionals in New Zealand who are typically involved in producing online or paper-based documentation, instructional videos, screencasts, interactive training resources, and other information design products.

TechCommNZ Membership

Member numbers are growing, and we think there is potential to increase them a lot more as awareness of the profession grows.

	Companies	Corporate Members ¹	Individual Members	Student Members	Total Individuals ²
01/09/2013	27	166	72	12	250
15/09/2015	31	318	99	31	448
30/06/2016	28	345	88	26	459