1. Reaching young workers: WorkSmart
Presented by Clare Coatman
Hi everyone, I’m Clare Coatman, senior campaigner at the TUC and lead on our programme to reach younger workers. This is the 2nd webinar in a series on reaching younger workers, I know some of you joined us for the first one but don’t worry if you missed it - I’m talking about a different topic today and you can catch up on our youtube channel.

2. 3 ways to participate
Ask questions and vote for your favourite – links below this presentation
Answer the polls – link below this presentation
Comment and chat – click on ‘Say something nice’ (bottom-right)
Please join in and participate in this webinar. If you look below this video stream you’ll see links for questions and polls. If you have any questions you’d like me to answer please submit them and I’ll do my best to answer as many as possible at the end.
You also have a chat area to the right – do say hello, and chat the other participants, but if you have a question for me please put it in the questions area, not the chat.

3. There’s loads of great work going on
We all know we’ve got a problem reaching younger workers despite lots of fantastic work going on across the movement

4. We started with a year of research
Desk research – policy, demographics, attitudes
100’s of WhatsApp diaries – both conversations and videos
Interviews with more than 100 young workers in 6 locations around the UK
Workshops with young workers
Ongoing web engagement with young workers through the project
A series of workshops attended by staff from 20+ affiliates
Interviews with key union stakeholders
By definition, young workers in the private sector are largely a group we’re not in contact with.
So we knew we needed to begin with in depth research to listen to younger workers and find out about their lives

5. Research findings 4 barriers Attitudes to unions Low expectations
Low levels of trust
Futility
Needs
There’s no silver bullet
Talk through research findings
there are several reports that go into extensive detail if you’re interested
We knew we needed to find an idea that would be inherently appealing to young workers by meeting one of their needs, and that we could use to take them on a journey to lower their barriers to organising
We had an early question in around how do you get young workers to join a union when they are working 2 days a week and they do not know about unions? – this is exactly the idea we’re working with, to start a relationship with a group who are currently quite far from us, to meet them where they are and then bring them closer to us
We generated hundreds of ideas from workshops with union staff and young workers
We whittled them down and tested them until there was just one idea left
The most important thing is that we didn’t make assumptions and based every decision on evidence and testing

6. What we are testing Pilot: job progression offer - WorkSmart
Grab attention of young workers
Deliver value and engage with them on job progression
Raise awareness of problems at work and start to spot leaders
Transition to unions (probably a specific digital branch)
Identify and support potential workplace leaders
Deploy organising resource to workplaces
Pilot: job progression offer - WorkSmart
Organising for recognition and membership - WorkSmart Extra
The idea we’re still working with is to help younger workers get ahead at work with a job progression offer
We heard time and again, if you’re in school…
Talk through flow chart

7. WorkSmart – more info A digital offer, supported by 1-to-1 engagement
About getting on in life and at work
Build better relationships
Know your rights at work
Progress at work
Learning and skills
Bitesize, fun, social, action-orientated
Walks young workers towards union membership – WorkSmart Extra

8. Getting users into unions – WorkSmart Extra
Co-designing with unions, we will:
find young workers we don’t reach now
warm them up to unions
segment by industry, employer etc.
invite them to join a union through WorkSmart Extra
Idea: “walled garden” digital branches inside unions

9.
And this is what it looks like, every word and image has been tested
For now the link is just for you to look at, we’ll let you know when it’s ready to be promoted next year

10. The pilot, Jun 2018-Feb 2019 1,000 young workers
All about the learning, not the volume
Proof of concept – can it work?
We’re piloting the first stages with a few of the TUC’s affiliated trade unions, Unite, GMB, CWU and Prospect and we’re talking to USDAW.
We’ve involved the wider movement in the development of WorkSmart and the lessons we’ve learnt apply right across the private and public sectors

11. Over to you Any questions about WorkSmart or reaching younger workers?
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