Ask The Workers - 1 million answers already

6 days ago
3 min read

Ask The Workers has been commercially live for just over 6 months; we are already celebrating our first million data points.

That's over 1 million questions asked and answered by workers using our app

Our app is now in 20 languages, in both the Play Store (Android) and the App Store (Apple), and it is live on four continents.

Our app is being used continuously by workers to provide feedback on their labour rights - 24x7.

Ask The Workers 1 million questions answered

Ask The Workers - a million data points

Companies that implement Ask The Workers in their supply chains are getting real-time data on labour rights at scale, directly from workers.

Workers tell us, we tell you

A million questions asked and answered is not a big number for Ask The Workers. This is just the beginning.

Continuous worker voice: savings

Real-time and continuous data on labour rights does not have to be hard to manage or expensive to collect.

Ask The Workers is a continuous system - it is not a survey. That delivers many savings for business:

Once set up, it just runs; it is continuous and workers report their daily conditions without interrupting production at the supplier.
Data flows automatically and in real-time to simple dashboards without human intervention.
Workers provide feedback on remedy as it happens and on whether it is sustained (no more spreadsheets managing corrective action plans)
With no typing in the app, interpreting the data is straightforward - it is all numbers

The biggest saving comes from the ability to manage reputational and litigation risks. As the recent Dyson case shows in the UK, supply chain workers are a recognised class of rights-holders and able to bring legal action in the country of the buyer if their rights are prejudiced and the buyer benefits.

Dyson settled out of court - but you can be quite sure this has been a difficult and expensive road for them.

It is better to be properly informed and to act - than to be ignorant or to ignore.

Reputational and litigation costs arising from worker rights abuses are material. Avoid them by taking the right due diligence approach.

Demonstrating that your due diligence processes are reasonable is more than a tick-box exercise - you need meanginful consultation with rights-holders and the best way to do that is via a platform like Ask The Workers.

Continuous worker voice: costs

Our costs are surprisingly low - a typical pilot project for us is 10 to 20 sites at a monthly cost of US$1,000 supported by a set up fee to get the pilot up and running. Clients that move beyond the pilot can end up monitoring entire factories of 1000s of workers for as little as US$10 per month.

We recommend that businesses set up a prize draw fund to compensate workers for their time in providing feedback. This is paid to workers and not to us - and is also surprisingly efficient at maintaining interest in the app at a low monthly cost (perhaps $0.01 to $0.10 per month per worker on average).

Prize draws are voluntary. The overriding motivation for workers to use the app is the sense that there will be a response and a remedy if there are issues that are reported.

Moreover, Ask The Workers real-time data is provided, with safeguards, to employers directly at the same time as that same data is provided externally to business (ie: to customers, brands, at the top of the supply chain).

Our platform shows that worker-provided data encourages employers to communicate more effectively with their workers to:

self-remedy issues identified in consultation with workers (workers are continuously providing data on all conditions, changes to conditions, and levels of satisfaction), and
sustain compliant conditions.