We all aspire to ground our decisions in real data where possible, giving our unions’ activities the greatest chance of success. But in reality, there are often barriers to achieving this.
Unions have lots of data, but it may be trapped in systems that few people can access. Sometimes data is paper based, in files held by individuals, or not networked. Where we do have reports, these can be siloed, too brief, too rigidly formatted, and unable to tell us the full picture. Or the raw data can be too complex for staff and reps with more limited data skills to be able to work with.
That’s where data visualisation comes in. By creating visual representations of the data, intuitive and interactive, sharing them with those who need to see them, staff and reps more widely around the union can understand what the data is telling us and explore it further themselves.
This guide aims to introduce some of the ways in which unions might introduce data visualisation more widely to their work. Based on learning from a project we ran with a group of unions earlier this year, it covers some potential use cases, as well as tools and skills that will be needed.