Labor unions have a powerful mission for working people. But union management isn’t easy. It requires clear focus on connecting with, organizing, and uniting union workers while continually attracting and retaining members. It also requires efficient and effective daily management of the organization.
One of the most powerful things you can do to strengthen and grow your labor union is to have the right labor union membership software in place. Doing so can help you:
- Continue to attract new union members
- Engage and retain members you already have
- Work more efficiently so you can do more for your union’s membership
Let’s look at what union membership software is, what it can help your union achieve, and an example of an organization using union membership software in the real world.
What is Union Membership Software?
Union membership software offers capabilities that facilitate the attraction and retention of labor union members, streamline union membership data management, and facilitate union member organization. Choosing the right union software gives you:
- A full range of functionality to help you easily find, engage, and organize union members
- One system to manage all of your organization’s data and processes, including:
- Securely capturing and tracking member data
- Processing dues
- Managing union member grievances
- Coordinating events
- Monitoring and managing local unions
- Running the reports needed to track progress and make informed decisions
- The flexibility to work anytime from anywhere while maintaining data integrity and accurate reporting as your union grows
Momentive AMS offers robust and feature-rich union management software. In addition to a complete set of "out of the box" functionality, the software’s architecture enables it to be easily configured and expanded to meet virtually any business process requirements for your labor union.
Union Membership Software Helps Your Organization Achieve Its Mission
The right labor union software can help your organization work more efficiently and effectively to achieve your union’s mission. Here are three ways that union membership software can help your union:
1. Attract More Union Members
Continually attracting union members is critically important for growing your organization and maintaining its strength – especially when union membership rates are in decline. Today’s members and prospective members expect to be able to easily interact with organizations (including their labor union) online. For example, to provide a modern experience that attracts new members, you can use your union software to:
- Allow members to engage with your organization from their mobile devices
- Set up a member-facing portal that allows your union members to manage payments, orders, and preferences, participate in discussion forums, and complete online polls and surveys
- Deliver a faster, more streamlined member experience by using workflow automation to automatically route data and files between people and systems – giving you more time to provide the support your members expect
2. Engage and Retain Union Members
An active and engaged member is much more valuable to a union than someone who just pays dues. That’s why collecting, tracking, managing, and measuring your member data is crucial for strengthening your union. Union membership software gives you:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities so that your leaders can use the information being collected on your website and by activists in the field. The right union membership software is flexible and allows for easy configuration of fields, records, and online forms.
- The ability to create and manage targeted communications and campaigns that help you reach members with important information and inspire them to advocate for the union and for themselves.
Send text messages to your members to remind them when it’s time to sign their union authorization card. This approach helps you to retain members and maintain your union qualification requirements each year.
- The ability to measure and score member engagement. This functionality allows you to define key performance indicators (KPIs) and assign weights to member engagement based on those KPIs. Then, you can automatically assign engagement scores to each member, providing insights that help identify opportunities, spot potential challenges, and adapt to changing member preferences and needs.
Automatically score members based on KPIs and then schedule automations and actions based on the scores. The functionality is flexible, allowing you to set up any number of automated actions based on criteria you determine.
3. Work More Efficiently and Get More Done for Your Members
Using disparate tools or software with poor functionality for unions will only hinder your progress. With the right union management software, you’ll have a single system for your member data and processes, as well as process automation capabilities, to keep you running smoothly and efficiently. Additionally, everyone in your organization – from local staff to national leadership – can access the data they need, when they need it, from any device.
Here are some specific ways that union management software can help you work more efficiently:
- Centralized data: Using multiple disconnected systems to store data and manage processes can waste time, as your leaders and staff must track down and compile information from various systems just to manage daily processes. Union software allows you to manage member and financial information in one convenient location.
- Anytime, anywhere access: The right union management software will allow you to find and organize members using a mobile app, giving you access to the information and analytics you need, when you need it.
- Streamlined processes: With the right union software, not only is your member data in one place, but your organization also has a single system to manage tasks – from billing and dues processing to member grievance management – so your leaders can spend more time providing member support. It also enables you to automate processes, freeing up time for higher-value work.
- Efficient reporting: You can view, report on, and interact with data in real time. So, instead of spending time pulling together information from multiple systems, you can quickly view key organizational metrics each day. You’ll have the business insights you need at your fingertips to help you make faster, more informed decisions that drive your organization forward.
AMS solutions enable you to set up self-service for your local organizations. They can pull reports and access content through an online portal, making them more self-sufficient and better able to organize locally.
What to Look For in Union Membership Software
Your union membership software should include both membership management and union-specific functionality. Here are nine things to look for in union software:
1. Comprehensive functionality for unions: You should have the functionality you need to manage your union’s processes, from accounting/dues processing and grievance management to membership and local/affiliate management – all in one system.
2. A single, centralized database: Make sure the software allows you to collect and track union membership and financial information in a single database so that you always have access to a complete and accurate view of vital data.
With Momentive AMS, for instance, you can capture and track union membership and financial information in one system. Our powerful search functionality allows your team to search for member information across the entire database. The result: Your organization works more efficiently by using one access point to your member data.
3. An easy-to-use system: Even non-technical staff should be able to access data and complete day-to-day work without needing to ask your IT team for help. Find a solution that makes it easy to run reports, create dashboards, and manage member data so your staff doesn’t need IT assistance just to manage processes and access the data they need each day. That means non-technical staff can work more efficiently while your IT team can stay focused on ensuring your systems support your business processes.
4. Mobile access: Look for a system that gives you and your members access to data and process management anytime from anywhere. With a mobile app, your staff has quick and convenient access to data from the office or the field.
5. E-business capabilities: The system should enable you to manage payments, orders, and member preferences; offer discussion forums; conduct member polls and surveys; and provide self-service options for local unions – all through an online portal.
6. Process automation: Look for a system with tools that allow you to automate manual processes, giving your members a more streamlined experience while giving you more time to focus on higher-value work. For example, a drag-and-drop process flow editor allows you to easily automate processes, such as incoming inquiries and grievance management.
7. A flexible platform: As your organization evolves, so must your technology. Look for a platform that can handle even the most complex business processes to meet your union’s changing needs. A highly customizable platform enables easy changes and upgrades, accelerating the development speed for configurations and new applications — helping your IT team work more efficiently to meet your organization’s growing demands for application configuration and development.
8. Efficient, reliable reporting: The software should allow you to easily view, report on, and interact with data about your union’s activities, local unions, events, and more. Look for built-in reports and dashboards that allow you to drill down into the data for more detailed information.
9. Security: Look for union management software that keeps your data safe with solid backup and disaster recovery plans. Providing a strong security foundation and supporting data security best practices lets your members know you have data privacy and security standards in place. Explain how the information you collect will be used to provide a better and more personalized experience, making your members more likely to trust you. That trust will then lead to a longer, more productive member experience.
Example of Using Union Management Software in the Real World – The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA)
ALPA represents and advocates for more than 61,000 pilots at 34 U.S. and Canadian airlines, making it the world’s largest airline pilot union. In partnership with Momentive, ALPA utilizes Aptify to enable its staff to work more efficiently and allow members to access membership benefits and participate in union-sponsored programs easily.
With the help of Momentive, ALPA automated processes to synchronize employment records, reconcile monthly dues bills, and provide accurate and timely bills. Working with Momentive AMS, ALPA developed a customized solution to streamline the process around union-sponsored insurance products.
Additionally, in the past, ALPA staff members had to submit requests to the IT department to develop the reports and data they needed, which frequently resulted in delayed responses to member inquiries. Today, staff can easily and quickly create reports that allow them to respond to information requests in a fraction of the time.
Learn more: Read the ALPA case study
