At the NEU, we have been developing our use of digital channels in our response to the coronavirus crisis. This has been a difficult time for our members, with schools mostly closed, new ways of…Read more…
Working remotely for trade unions
The coronavirus crisis and our response have caused huge changes for all of our society, but it also brings new ways of working. Unions are having to keep on doing the same things they’ve always done…Read more…
Answering big questions by starting small – Developing the WorkSmart prototype
The TUC’s WorkSmart project explores how unions could engage with young workers who have little awareness of us. Over the last two years we’ve developed an idea that could appeal to young workers….Read more…
Getting started with Service Design for unions
Service Design is a broad and diverse discipline which seeks to optimise an organisation’s services by focusing on aligning the experience people have of using them. It’s a way of working that’s…Read more…
Data and unions: TUC Digital Lab workshop report
To date, making decisions based on data to improve union experience has mostly been an aspiration, rather than the reality for most trade unions. There are some good examples of testing and…Read more…
How do you get your users to actually use your union digital project?
Digital change projects are only partly about making sure a new bit of technology works. Even the best specified new tech tools won’t be any use if people don’t agree to change their current…Read more…
The new world of work: report warns of an unprecedented rise in workplace activism
Employers’ law firm Herbert Smith Freehills interviewed 400 global company executives about their predictions on worker activism. Their concerns are an interesting view from the other side of…Read more…
Four digital challenges for unions that might be better tackled as a movement
At the TUC Digital Lab, we ran a survey amongst our affiliated unions, looking at their readiness for digital transformation. We found a mixed picture, with a number of technical and cultural areas…Read more…
What does ‘digital’ mean for your union?
One of the challenges in looking at the experience of digital in UK unions is that there isn’t really any single accepted definition of ‘digital’ across the movement. Different unions currently…Read more…
Measuring our digital journey: A survey of UK unions
To help understand how well UK unions are prepared for that digital transformation, we worked with digital agency Outlandish to survey and research unions’ current capacity and experience with…Read more…
Finding out what makes prospective members click
There are an estimated 6,000 people working in visual effects in the UK – most of them clustered around London’s Soho. London has become one of the three international hubs for this…Read more…
Summer Patrol: taking offline conversations to online organising
The TUC Summer Patrol is an organising campaign run by young trade union unionists in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. The aim is to visit high streets to interview and engage young workers about…Read more…
Getting more out of your union’s content: TUC Digital Lab workshop report
Content is the lifeblood of websites, emails, social media posts, text messages, apps and more. If unions don’t have good content, where will our members find the help and advice they need? (The…Read more…
#digitalunions: Staying connected
Next year, millennials will make up more than 50% of the workforce. Those who entered work during the internet age are nearly all instinctively digital-first. They’re also mobile, connected…Read more…
Are you election ready on Facebook?
As we enter a likely general election, many unions will be thinking how they can get their issues across more clearly online during such a high profile campaign moment. Social advertising has become…Read more…
Organising in the digital age: TUC Digital Lab workshop report
On Wednesday 26th July at UCL we held our fifth TUC Digital Lab session, looking at the challenges and opportunities for unions in making greater use of digital in organising. The session began with…Read more…
Optimising digital engagement with union comms
Alex Lloyd-Hunter of digital agency Forward Action was one of the judges in this year’s TUC Communications Awards. And before the ceremony, he talked to a group of union communicators about his…Read more…
Successful union balloting with digital: TUC Digital Lab workshop report
At the end of June we convened the third session of the TUC Digital Lab, where we discussed and workshopped approaches to running successful ballots, with help from digital tools and design methods….Read more…
Campaigning to win with digital: TUC Digital Lab workshop report
For the second TUC Digital Lab workshop, we brought together colleagues from 14 union organisations to help us identify good practice in union digital campaigning. Case Study: Level Up! First, we…Read more…
Developing social video at the TUC
We’ve been doing some work at the TUC to improve our own social video output. The digital comms team got together recently to take stock of what we’ve learned and where we’ll go next, and we thought…Read more…