Building Effective Employer and Business Membership Organizations (EBMO’s)

Employer and business membership organizations (EBMOs) are effective when they add value to their member enterprises and meet their representation, advocacy and services delivery needs. Building strong and effective EBMOs is the main goal of ACT/EMP´s institutional capacity building programme.

One of ACT/EMP's flagship capacity building products is a series of practical guides/training modules on building and managing EBMOs more strategically and effectively. The core Effective Employers' Organization training package is targeted at EBMOs to improve their organizational structures, governance, management, communications and advocacy to help them better respond to the needs of their members. The package is a set of five different guides on Governance, Strategy, Advocacy, Revenue Building and Communications. The package has been partially updated in 2018 with a new Guide on Good governance and another one on Being the voice of business, in cooperation with the Programme for Employers' Activities of the ITCILO.

In addition to the core Effective Employers' Organization training package, ACT/EMP also produced a series of guides/training modules on membership services. The Services Series guides consist of Strategic Approach to Service Development and two thematic guides on specific membership services. The Strategic Approach guide provides general guidance on business strategies for the design, delivery and monitoring of membership services offered by EBMOs, while the thematic guides go into greater depth on specific services provided to members in industrial relations and human resources, and labour law. A guide has also been developed on Building a Strong and Efficient Sectoral Employers' Organization.