Every association has once had that feeling where everything just feels…stuck.
Maybe it’s just the doldrums of August, but work is piling up, the office is feeling less energetic, and everyone dreads the thought of opening up the AMS software. It’s not a good feeling, and if left unchecked, might cause severe damage—whether to your morale, membership, or bottom line.
You need to make a change, but what is it? Just like weekly hosted happy hours won’t change a poorly performing technology system, a software upgrade won’t help if you have deeper issues with your team or structure.
It can sometimes be challenging to identify the root of the issue, and having a fresh perspective is helpful. Through many years of experience in the association and membership management industry, we’ve found that the solution usually lies in a change in one of three areas—or all of them!
Take a closer look at these three distinct areas to find opportunities for change: technology, talent, or culture.
With that said, let’s explore where to look for opportunities for change in your organization.
Limitations with Existing Technology
At Momentive, technology is our specialty—specifically for membership management software.
The system you use can have a considerable effect on member satisfaction, employee productivity (and morale!), and workplace efficiency, so it seems natural for us to start there. Here are a couple of widespread areas for improvement in an organization’s software:
- Reporting: What kind of access to data do rank-and-file employees have? Are they able to quickly and easily answer questions that a member may have by accessing their file? What about more in-depth reports that your board may request regarding the success (or failure) of the most recent marketing campaign? If this information isn’t readily available and easy to parse into intelligent reports, you may want to look into a software upgrade.
- Functionality: What does your software do for you? Can it make mundane tasks easier or automate them completely? Can it use logic to connect the dots and help you make better decisions on complex subject matter with data-backed points? How is performance? There are a few things worse than a slow system clogging up your day with buffering icons and loading screens!
- Configuration: Since every organization is unique, does your technology stack have the ability to bend and become what you need? A configurable system offers numerous options that can be easily enabled or disabled as needed. Configuration is the key to fine-tuning your processes to make them as streamlined and efficient as possible.
Impediments on Your Technology Staff’s Progress and Potential
Technology should be effortless—a path to innovation, not an impediment.
Another related, yet separate, issue with poor technology in your organization is the strain it can put on your technical staff.
Technology and business continue to be interwoven more closely, but the best companies are using technology to drive business, not just manage it. In an ideal scenario, your technical team will have time set aside for innovation—they can take a step back and examine your processes, seeking ways to improve or automate them.
But if your tech staff is inundated with tasks to manage the software and systems your organization uses every day, you’ll never reach the potential of what’s possible.
For example, in customized membership management software, numerous workarounds are typically in place. This is because you’re asking the software to do something it wasn’t intended to do—like putting a turbocharger on a Prius. Workarounds tend to be technical in nature, which means you’ll need the support of your IT department to get the result you’re looking for.
Another example of technology impeding progress instead of supporting it is the need for constant troubleshooting and an overflowing inbox of support tickets. A poorly performing member system, or a team that hasn’t been sufficiently trained, creates undue strain on the technology staff who must continually put out small fires day to day.
Team Structure
This cultural issue tends to fly under the radar, yet it can cause significant inefficiencies that are felt company-wide. Company hierarchies can be political at times, and when different people or departments have conflicting goals, achieving growth can be challenging.
One of the classic examples of team structure issues is when a team member has multiple bosses. Think about it—when the direct report under each boss has a project due at the same time, which should she prioritize? If it’s not clear, that can put a lot of stress on the employee.
Team structure, which has nothing to do with the talent level of your team or the technology they use, can significantly impact the culture of your workplace.
Time and Effort Inefficiencies
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having your time and effort being completely wasted while at work. Sure, everyone has a day like that every once in a while, but when it becomes an ongoing pattern, you might have a problem.
One example we frequently see of wasted time and effort in associations is when the membership management software isn’t user-friendly. Standards for technology and usability have increased over the last few years (and will continue to do so!), and there’s just no excuse for a system that doesn’t provide, at minimum, the following options:
- Mobile and app access
- At-your-fingertips report creation
- Training resources for self-education
- Intuitive navigation that doesn’t require a user manual to understand
In that list, the reporting features deserve more explanation. Every team member should be able to pull reports on any data point, using any necessary filters, at any time.
In a digital-driven world, data is not a luxury reserved only for those with authority. Your team needs to feel comfortable and empowered to use data to enhance their decision-making abilities and perform their duties more effectively.
The ability to connect the dots between engagement statistics, financials, and various other data points is the key to effective member management in the future.
Impact on Other Departments
This is a biggie.
Interdepartmental operations are always tricky. Let’s face it—each department has different goals, mandates, expertise, and priorities. And even if you get all of that straight, you still have to deal with the communication aspect, which can throw a wrench in even the best thought-out plan.
In our experience, you wouldn’t believe the amount of inefficiencies present in many associations that rely too heavily on interdepartmental operations to accomplish something that should be achievable by an individual.
We’ve discussed this previously, but reporting is a common scenario. Here’s an example:
- The member management team makes a request to IT to pull some member data they don’t have access to.
- Then, member services makes a request to the accounting department to pull the financials from the past quarter.
- Then, the same team requests engagement and event attendance data from the marketing team.
- Lastly, they compile all the information together into a PowerPoint to present.
This entire process can take a week, but it’s entirely possible to complete it in just a few clicks if you have the right system.
Not only is this inefficient from a workflow standpoint, but look at all the other departments that had to be dragged into a project that really doesn’t concern them.
