7 May 2024
As you may have heard, workers.coop is restructuring its approach to strategic planning and delivering work. This means changes to the working group structure. We’re letting members know about these changes as we move from our strategy and structure version 1.0 to 2.0. Following the Board elections, workers.coop also has a new Board which you can read more about here.
We answer some questions about these changes below.
Have these changes come out of thin air?
No. The Research Group have been carrying out research on the functioning of workers.coop. The changes set out have been made in response to recommendations following feedback from the Research group and also feedback from the Autumn Assembly and ‘All Hands’, as well as wider observations and discussions within our People, Policy and Culture Group, and finally recommendations made by the Board and paid workers in response to challenges raised.
Why is the federation’s structure changing?
These changes are a direct response to one of two main challenges identified – that the previous structure was overly complex and was not functioning as we envisioned. To read more about the challenges and how we responded, see the ‘All Hands’ presentation here where this was presented and discussed in January.
Structure 1.0
The previous structure of workers.coop included the Board and Co-ordination group, as well as the following working groups: Mobilising, Communications, People, Policy and Culture, Digital, Member Learning, Co-ops Anti-Racism and the recently formed International working group. See the Handbook 1.0 for more on the old structure including a map.
Structure 2.0
We still have a Board, accountable to our membership that is responsible for the overall strategic direction and finances of workers.coop. But rather than a large number of fairly isolated working groups we have created two strategic groups (SGs) that align with our two main missions:
SGs are member led groups, that set strategy, plan and commission projects and think about the ‘bigger picture’. They are not responsible for doing work or carrying out operational activities. To get stuff done, a project group forms under direction of the SGs that operate until project completion.
The operaitonal activities will be carried out by a new ‘operations group’ (OG) that is made up of paid worker members. One member of the OG will sit on each ‘strategic group’ (SG) and SG members can attend OG meetings. To see the flow of accountability and decision-making set-up see slides here.
A map has been created to visually demonstrate the new working structure.
Member involvement
There are now clear and distinct routes through which members can get involved:
- If you are interested in strategic thinking and planning, you can join a SG
- If you are interested in specific activities and delivery you can get involved in the relevant project
- If you are interested in both aspects, join a SG and then get involved in one or more project groups
For instance, two projects you can get involved in:
- Co-op conversations (Co-op Support & Dev SG) Join our Conversations supporter team by contacting John Atherton
- Co-op Fortnight campaign (Movement Building SG) (Join here)
- More projects will be put out shortly, or join one of these groups to suggest projects and co-commission work
Democratic work in progress
We and the Research group want to stress that what’s being presented is the result of much discussion and feedback however “it is not a finished product”. We have tried our best to incorporate lots of ideas and perspectives but developing things in this way can result in contradictory views and we may still need to figure this out. We want to hear members’ feedback to keep developing our new structure, and encourage you all to challenge and improve what is set out.
We’ve created a discussion thread on our Forum here for answering any questions, if you spot something that’s been missed or want to provide feedback.
