All the union news that's fit to blog...
We asked unions last year about what they wanted in terms of shared activity around the CRM projects so many of us are going through. One of those things was more to demystify the market for platform CRM, and which products are out there. Many of us have been using particular membership database products for … Continue reading Introducing cloud CRM platforms for unions
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Implementing a new CRM or other core tech project without paying attention to how you manage the change within the union is risky. At best you may end up missing out on key benefits, and at worst, fundamentally limiting the union’s ability to operate on the new tech. We ran a session with independent IT … Continue reading Change management to support union tech projects
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At Nautilus International, we’ve been working on a digital engagement project to improve the on-boarding process for our cadet members. The situation Nautilus represents maritime professionals working at sea and ashore. We’re a transnational union with about 20,000 members in the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland. We cover people who are experienced in senior roles, through … Continue reading A dedicated onboarding journey for young members – Nautilus International case study
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When we set up the TUC Digital Lab, the first thing we did was to work with unions to devise a set of 8 digital design principles to help inform our work. They’ve stood up pretty well over the years and been useful to us on many occasions in steering the choices we make in … Continue reading Design principles for a new union CRM project
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The need for unions to mount and sustain large scale campaigns has grown in recent years. We’ve seen major national industrial disputes for many unions. Fundamental challenges such as government attempts to curtail the right to strike. And for those unions who are politically affiliated, an upcoming general election campaign. Digital technologies increase our options … Continue reading Preparing for major union campaigns online
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Direct Debit has been really important to unions. It helps safeguard union income against the threats to check-off dues collection. And it also helps us make more of the opportunities for a direct and personalised membership experience with our members. For most unions, running Direct Debits as efficiently as possible will be a real boon … Continue reading Understanding your union’s direct debit options
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To launch our new analytics guide for unions, we held a webinar with its author, Sam Jeffers of Join Together. Sam talked us through the rationale behind the report, and its suggested framework for helping unions define the data they want to monitor, the ways they will gather it together, and the lessons they can … Continue reading Designing your union’s data dashboard
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Doing more with data is a huge opportunity for unions. This report sets out the basis for a common framework for using data that can be adopted by unions to understand, report on, and improve the way they serve members across the entire member lifecycle. Analytics can help unions: The report explains how to collect … Continue reading An analytics guide for unions
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We’ve been expanding our use of social video at the TUC, to make the most of networks like TikTok and YouTube. These networks give us the possibility of reaching beyond the more politically engaged people that we regularly get to on Twitter. But for a video to land well with different audiences, we’ve had to … Continue reading Making great social media videos – four quick formats that work
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The ACTU’s Union Innovation Hub is a really ambitious program of group-buying and co-design for core membership software for Australian unions, used by around 30 unions across different states, Chris Walton and Stephen Gargano joined us for a Digital Lab webinar, to talk about what they’ve done, and how they went about it. I’ve been … Continue reading Building union CRM together – ACTU Union Innovation Hub case study
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Over the past five years our digital projects team have been working to transform PCS, based on the back of a move to the cloud CRM platform Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365. We started our journey with Salesforce in 2018. Initially we worked with a Salesforce partner called Fonteva. Fonteva developed membership organisation functionality with … Continue reading Next steps in CRM for unions: 3 years on from PCS’ Salesforce move
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The cost-of-living crisis is having a huge impact on our members’ lives. Unions are working to help members win better increases to pay, but there could also be opportunities for us to offer members advice, community, news or practical help around other aspects of the situation. The TUC Digital Lab worked with several trade unions … Continue reading Working with members on new content ideas around the cost of living
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At PCS, we took the decision a few years back to modernize our membership database with Salesforce – a modern platform CRM system. That’s been an important underpinning for this work as it allowed us to take on deeper and more responsive tech projects in many areas around member data. Where it’s been particularly helpful … Continue reading Data for industrial action balloting – PCS case study
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There are a whole bunch of challenges for union members in exercising their right to strike, and being able to raise sufficient pressure to win their disputes. Some of those are newer trends that have been born out of the pandemic. Some have been growing for a long time. Firstly there are the hurdles in … Continue reading #StrikeTech – Unions using digital tools to build and win disputes
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For the RMT national ballot this year, we wanted to organize a turnout campaign that was based on measurable success. And one that helped us get across the doubly punitive hurdles for transport unions from the Trade Union Act. We had 42,000 members to canvas, across 15 different employers. Adding in numerous distinct grades and … Continue reading Using P2P SMS in a strike ballot campaign – RMT case study
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Social media has been prominent in our recent campaigns, but the first point I want to make is that whilst it’s very visible, it’s not a silver bullet. Amongst all the things we do to get a vote out, it is quite far down the ladder. Other forums are often higher in our priorities – … Continue reading Using social media in strike ballot campaigns – CWU case study
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Many unions are currently considering the future of their membership databases. For some, products are being retired or contracts coming to an end. For others, a run of high pressure large ballot campaigns has highlighted a need for greater accuracy and agility. In some, there are fewer developers with the expertise to support an older … Continue reading How to start a CRM change project in your union
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As unions digitise more and more of their operations, new tech tools are becoming essential across all their functions. However, the systems used to manage membership data are still the most critical that unions rely on. This new TUC Digital Lab report looks at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems from the perspective of the union … Continue reading Managing CRM change projects in unions
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In September, the TUC Digital Lab ran a workshop for unions working on or considering CRM migration projects. This is the second time we’ve covered CRM in the Digital Lab and, for the second time, it was very popular, with more than 40 union staff from over 30 unions of all sizes attending, ensuring we … Continue reading Running CRM projects in unions
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The TUC has been evolving our approach to social media in the last couple of years. Here are a few of the principles of what we’ve tried, and what we’ve learned in doing it. Social is a battle for attention The starting point for a lot of our content is that on social media most … Continue reading What we’ve learned from growing the TUC’s social media comms
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