Manja Horner, founder of Boost, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss leadership mindset roadblocks, knowledge capture strategies and how her company is helping unions modernize their operations. She shared valuable insights on delegation, efficiency and preserving institutional knowledge in the face of retiring workers.
Horner emphasized the importance of effective delegation for union leaders. She explained that many leaders struggle with relinquishing control, fearing tasks won't be completed to their standards. To combat this, Boost teaches leaders how to prepare their teams and systems, document processes and establish clear communication channels. This approach, Horner said, allows leaders to take unplugged vacations and frees them up to focus on higher-level tasks.
Addressing efficiency concerns, Horner highlighted the need for unions to embrace modern practices and technology. She noted that many offices still rely on outdated, time-consuming processes, such as printing and rescanning digital documents. Boost works with clients to streamline workflows, implement project management tools and increase transparency across teams. She added that these improvements not only save time but also reduce frustration and improve member service.
Knowledge capture is a critical focus area, with 30 percent of senior staff retiring across all industries. Horner detailed Boost’s approach to preserving institutional knowledge, which includes interviewing retiring experts, documenting best practices and leveraging AI-powered tools to organize and disseminate information. This process ensures valuable experience and insights are not lost when long-time employees depart, allowing younger workers to benefit from decades of accumulated wisdom.
To learn more about Boost’s innovative approaches to union leadership and operations, listen to the full episode of the America's Work Force Union Podcast.
America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.
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