Our latest Digital Lab seminar looked at what digital could mean for case management in UK unions. I’ve been spending a lot of time of late talking to digital leads at our affiliate unions. I’ve been hoping to get a sense of the big issues for digital as we move into a new normal. And case management has been cropping up quite often as a priority.
There are a bunch of drivers behind this. For some unions it’s about providing more a responsive service to members who have problems. It might be about streamlining processes and using limited resources more effectively. Other unions are looking to expand their digital infrastructure to empower reps. And some are trying to find better ways to safeguard members’ sensitive personal data.
Another trend running alongside this is unions modernizing their IT capacity. For most, this means moving to the cloud for infrastructure and software services. The two case studies from our seminar fit that picture of making the most of some of the new possibilities.
PCS have been running a large project over the last couple of years to move from a legacy membership database onto Salesforce CRM. With all the basics now under their belt, they’re looking at next steps to realise the potential of the new tools. And case management is one of their current priorities to look at next. Paul Barnsley and Paul Hawkins joined us to talk about their roadmap and what case management looks like within it.
Accord have been through a review of infrastructure, and developed a greater use of cloud services. They’ve had some nice approaches to the deeper possibilities of Microsoft Office 365 for collaboration and integration. Chris Rimell told us more about how they’ve built their own casework workflows to improve processes.
And the TUC’s data protection officer, Andrea Peace, gave us a checklist of the considerations unions will need to ensure any new approaches keep the union compliant with GDPR and members’ sensitive information safe.
There are going to be loads of different approaches to case management, to fit with different unions’ situations and infrastructure. If you’ve got ideas to share on this one we’d love to hear it, so please do get in touch.