The Challenge and the Opportunity for Trade Unions
Trade unions have always been at the forefront of representing workers' rights, ensuring fair treatment, and pushing for better working conditions.
Digital and AI technologies offer transformative tools that can help trade unions more effectively achieve their goals – from communications to representation; from organising to providing member services.
However, for many unions, the path to digital transformation and integration of AI into daily work and across these different objectives remains unclear.
While several trade unions are embarking on digital initiatives, from member engagement platforms to data analytics for understanding member trends, a cohesive digital and AI strategy is often missing. This lack of strategic direction raises concerns about ensuring that digital endeavours are coordinated, impactful, and in line with the core values and objectives of the union.
This proposal is created as an example for Unions21 of how a digital consultancy project for a trade union could run. Any actual project would be tailored to a trade union directly, based on conversations with them and an analysis of their particular context and needs.
- The Challenge and the Opportunity for Trade Unions
- Sample project for a trade union
- Aims and outcomes
- Project Methodology
- Phases and deliverables
- PHASE 1 - Analysis: Understanding capabilities, needs and opportunities
- PHASE 2 - Design: Developing a digital vision and principles
- PHASE 3 - Validation: Workshops with Staff, Reps and Members
- PHASE 4 - Strategy and planning: Formulating a strategy and implementation roadmap
- Investment
- Why work with me?
Sample project for a trade union
Aims and outcomes
- The trade union has a comprehensive grasp of its strengths, vulnerabilities, knowledge gaps, and potential obstacles to achieving a vision. Through this insight, the union can identify priority areas for action, both quick wins and longer more enduring changes.
- The trade union has formulated a digital and AI vision that is both ambitious and in tune with its core mission, ensuring it remains relevant amidst the evolving digital landscape. This vision is strengthened by guiding principles that chart the course for achieving the vision.
Project Methodology
The project will be structured in clearly defined phases that harness a mix of in-person or remote workshops, in-depth interviews, consultative meetings, and targeted desk research.
Throughout the project, I’ll incorporate principles from agile, lean, and design thinking methodologies. These prioritise adaptability, iterative development, inclusivity, and a deep focus on both the external members and internal experience, understanding their needs and wants.
In essence, the approach doesn't just aim to craft a strategy; it also serves as a practical introduction to modern digital working paradigms. Experiencing these elements firsthand will be invaluable for trade unions as they navigate the implementation of digital strategies and tactics in the future.
Phases and deliverables
PHASE 1 - Analysis: Understanding capabilities, needs and opportunities
This initial phase aims to evaluate the current insights and determine the strengths and potential areas of improvement of your digital model to date.
- A strategy meeting to discuss the principal issues surrounding the union's digital initiatives in the context of their overarching goals and mission.
- Interviews with key stakeholders across the organisation to understand their digital needs, goals, skills and mindsets.
- A comprehensive desk review of your existing digital initiatives in this and comparator unions or organisations. This involves analysing the data, extracting insights from the portfolio, and evaluating metrics related to member engagement, digital adoption, and any other pertinent KPIs.
- A workshop to relay and interrogate findings from our analysis. This session will be a platform for the team to share their perspectives on what digital strategies have been effective and which ones might need reevaluation.
Estimated total days for this phase: 9 days
PHASE 2 - Design: Developing a digital vision and principles
This phase will spark discussions around the implications of digital for the trade union and the extent of their aspirations in leveraging digital tools and strategies.
To realise this, it's pivotal to grasp how leaders and staff within the union perceive the term 'digital' and what they envision as a forward-looking yet achievable digital strategy. Consequently, this phase will commence with one or more workshops involving union leaders, pivotal staff, and, if applicable, trustees, aiming to:
- Pinpoint a definition of "digital" and AI that resonates with the union's ethos and goals.
- Evaluate the broader landscape: understanding how peer unions and organisations leverage digital tools – assimilating current best practices, drawing inspiration from pioneering digital movements, anticipating future trends, and discerning how the union can carve a distinct digital niche.
- Identify both the current digital users within the union and potential future members and audiences that the union aims to engage in the digital realm.
- Explore how digital tools and strategies can bolster existing union objectives both now and in the foreseeable future. This could include goals around representation, democracy, organising, member services, member communications and engagement and internal processes and culture.
- Craft incremental and revolutionary digital visions. These visions will be further refined in the subsequent phase based on feedback from staff, members and representatives and gauged against the union's capabilities.
- Draft preliminary principles to guide future digital initiatives. These principles will be measured against renowned digital guidelines, such as The Charity Digital Code of Practice and other pertinent digital frameworks (e.g., GOV.UK digital design principles).
Estimated total days for this phase: 4 days
PHASE 3 - Validation: Workshops with Staff, Reps and Members
This phase will use insights from the previous work to bridge the gap between the envisioned digital vision and the current state of affairs. It will encompass three distinct workshops. The insights and discussions from all three workshops will be consolidated into a report, which will then be presented to the union for review.
Workshop 1: Staff of the Trade Union
This workshop will engage about 10 union staff spanning various departments – including communications, IT, member engagement, and HR. Its objectives will be to:
- Review and refine the preliminary digital vision, understanding its implications, the opportunities and challenges it brings, and defining markers of success.
- Reflect on the current digital experiences within the union and how they resonate with the vision – identifying what's working and what needs enhancement, including potential obstacles and risks to be addressed.
- Begin formulating guiding principles for the digital strategy's evolution and decision-making.
- Pinpoint immediate digital necessities and envisage future aspirations.
This workshop is anticipated to last around 3 hours.
Workshop 2: Members of the Trade Union
A workshop accommodating about 10 union members, preferably with a keen interest in digital matters and diverse backgrounds. Its focal points will be:
- Revisit the role the union, along with its services, plays in participants' professional lives.
- Reassess and refine the draft digital vision, understanding its practical implications, opportunities, challenges, and defining success metrics.
- Gauge members' current digital interactions with the union, aiming to enhance member experience.
- Continue drafting guiding principles for the evolution and decision-making of the digital strategy.
- Identify immediate digital requirements and long-term objectives.
This session is projected to last 2.5 hours
Workshop 3: Reps and Activists of the Trade Union
A workshop accommodating about 10 union reps, preferably with a keen interest in digital matters and diverse backgrounds. Its focal points will be:
- Revisit the role the union plays in participants' professional lives.
- Reassess and refine the draft digital vision, understanding its practical implications, opportunities, challenges, and defining success metrics.
- Gauge activists' current digital interactions with the union, aiming to enhance their experience.
- Continue drafting guiding principles for the evolution and decision-making of the digital strategy.
- Identify immediate digital requirements and long-term objectives.
Estimated total days for this phase: 7 days
PHASE 4 - Strategy and planning: Formulating a strategy and implementation roadmap
This pivotal phase is centred around crafting the digital strategy and plotting a roadmap to its implementation. It is integral that the strategy remains fluid, continually integrating feedback from key stakeholders, and evolving based on their insights.
The culminating deliverable of this phase is a comprehensive digital strategy document, complemented by a detailed roadmap and preliminary cost estimates. We'll present these findings to the Union's Digital Steering Committee and provide actionable recommendations on strategy deployment in the project's concluding sessions. This strategy and its accompanying roadmap will encapsulate:
- A refined digital vision statement for the union, articulating its aspirations in the digital and AI era.
- The union's digital proposition, spotlighting how it can differentiate its digital services and engagements – and how digital can connect to and strengthen in-person work.
- Clear objectives and performance indicators, aligning the digital roadmap with the union's broader mission and goals.
- Approaches to cater to member needs both in the present and as they evolve in the future.
- Balancing the exploration of innovative digital avenues with enhancements to existing platforms and services.
- Navigating the equilibrium between long-term strategic objectives ("epics") and immediate, actionable tasks ("sprints").
- Proposals for enhancing digital technology infrastructure and becoming a more “informed consumer / buyer” of digital technologies, including fostering a digital-first culture, identifying tactical advancements, and result-driven evaluation.
- Insights on how to allocate and optimise resources to fuel the digital transformation.
- Governance and management frameworks to translate the strategy into tangible actions seamlessly.
- Strategies to ensure digital inclusivity, ensuring every member benefits equitably from digital initiatives and can have access to digital resources.
Estimated total days for this phase: 7 days
Investment
Based on the phases included, 27 days at €700 per day. This is obviously just an example and any proposal would be tailored based on the specific requirements of the client.
Total: €18,900 exc VAT
Why work with me?
My passion is helping non profits realise a transformative vision of what they could be in the digital and AI age.
Over 15 years as a senior digital leader, I have worked with non-profit organisations as diverse as Médicins Sans Frontières, UNISON and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to understand their goals; explore the possibilities digital offers for achieving these goals; and map and deliver the changes they needed to succeed.
Since 2021 I've been working as a non-profit digital strategy consultant, alongside studying for an Executive MBA at ESADE Business School in Barcelona.
Through this role, I've undertaken digital strategy projects at national and international non-profits – including Oxfam, Concern Worldwide UK, the International Science Council, Greenpeace Spain, Relate and Family For Every Child. In each organisation, I’ve worked with senior leaders to help them develop and start realising an ambitious digital vision. The consultancies have covered member engagement, income generation, product development, audience development and changing organisational skills and mindsets.
From 2014-2017, I led the digital programme at UNISON, building their digital capabilities and digital strategy. I won senior leadership support for and delivering an organisation wide digital transformation programme focusing on:
- Piloting innovative digital systems and communications methods in core areas of work – representation, membership engagement, democracy. An example was the online ballots programme, which increased turnout in votes from 10-20% to 40-50%.
- Developing a new digital technology strategy to harmonise different cultures and systems in the traditional IT teams and the digital team. This included taking the first steps to integrate the legacy membership system with the Salesforce system used by the digital team.
- Increasing digital impact across the organisation. I developed a training programme and the digital.unison knowledge-sharing site to support staff and volunteers (no longer updated). I also led develoment of a website platform for 800+ branches to develop their own sites.
My work at UNISON led to it being listed in the Digital Leaders 100 list in the UK in 2017 and the team won a number of TUC Digital Awards in the period. At ODI my digital strategy was awarded Digital Strategy of the Year at the European Digital Communications Awards.