Sharing worker voice data
Suppliers are suffering from due diligence fatigue.
Too many audits
Too many surveys
Business has worked cooperatively to come up with a model for sharing audits - pioneered by Sedex and now widely copied. The audit-sharing model has managed to reduce the load on suppliers somewhat. Whilst "death by audit" still occurs - it has become less common.
But what about worker voice?
This article sets out the challenges involved in sharing worker voice data - and the next article in this series sets out how Ask The Workers meets those challenges.
Death by survey? Solved by Ask The Workers.
Our "collect once, share many times" model is innovative and works for everyone. If you want to jump straight to our second article covering how we do this - click here.
Worker voice - one size does not fit all
Workers should not all be asked the same questions.
Workplaces are different. What might be appropriate or needed in one location is not necessarily the same as another - even in the same industry and geography.
Business sponsors are different. Sponsors have different standards, different budgets, different capabilities, and can have different areas of focus.
Findings can lead to more questions: worker feedback is an opinion and not necessarily a "fact"; it is an indication of risk and different to an audit finding provided by a professional expert; worker feedback should be the start of a dialogue; to move forward, questions may need to be adjusted (continuous worker voice), or further surveys may be required - and workers may need to be consulted.
Questions may need to be segmented: if findings are raised that only affect one demographic (eg: migrant workers or workers in employer-provided accommodation), then meaningful follow-on questions need to be focussed on that part of the workforce only.
And what one business sponsor might want to do in response to a finding could be different to what another thinks is best.
Standardised questions are not ideal; any dialogue with workers requires flexible interactions, where one set of questions might lead to another.
"Standard surveys" are prevalent - for sensible, practical and economic reasons. But this may not always be the best approach.
The challenges of sharing worker voice data
We use the term "Sponsor" to mean a business which is paying for / organising and conducting labour rights due diligence on another (a workplace).
Sharing data collected from workers or survey findings is difficult across Sponsors.
The challenges are practical, legal and commercial - here are some of the main issues:
Practical:
Timing: Surveys are point-in-time. But Sponsors needs data when they need the data, and that is not synchronised across the year. Sponsors produce consolidated reports - but adjusting and converting data collected via different survey models at different times is a lot of work.
Administration: It is hard to keep on top of surveys if they are different across workplaces. The administration quickly becomes onerous for a Sponsor whether they have 5, 20, or 500 workplaces that need to be surveyed.
Specificity: Each Sponsor usually has its own particular questions and they are not all ready at the same time. This makes it impossible to get a single survey organised that can meet everyone's needs. For example, one business might have a focus on gender discrimination, whilst another might be focussed on monitoring working hours.
Confidentiality: Workplaces might not want survey data collected from their workers shared without their knowledge or, perhaps even, without their consent.
Consent: Workers have a right to be informed as to who might see the data they provide and why.
Compliance: Privacy legislation inevitably bites when data is collected from individuals. If Sponsors are in different countries, then the dimensions involved can multiply - meaning that surveys really need to be truly anonymous to minimise the considerations in this area.
Legal:
Ownership: Who owns the data that is being shared - what permissions are required from them?
Deletion: What if the data owner decides the data should be deleted or rights to share revoked - for example, because a supplier is being dropped or because of concerns over authenticity?
Liability: What responsibilities does the data owner have to others who might rely on it - are there liabilities here if data proves to be unreliable or not authentic?
Publication: What further publication rights might be granted by the data owner to Sponsors who want to see it and perhaps incorporate it in their own reports?
Duty of care: What responsibilities are being assumed by those who collect data from workers? Workers may well have expectations that the data they provide is only to be used for their benefit.
Voluntary: What assurances are going to be given to Sponsors with whom data is being shared that the data was provided voluntarily by workers? Note that data collected compulsorily from individuals could be tainted legally.
Privacy: What privacy laws apply to the collection, storage and use of personal data linked or collected as part of a survey - and who is responsible if privacy laws are not observed.
Commercial:
Who pays:
If each Sponsor individually pays for its own survey, understandably they can be unwilling to allow their survey results to be shared with others, potentially competitors.
If workplaces are asked to pay for surveys, then how can we be sure surveys will be done on an arms' length basis and without influence?
What's in it for the workers: workers take a risk when they answer questions about their labour rights. It is difficult to convert individual surveys involving different Sponsors into a coordinated dialogue that can lead to improvements in working conditions, if these are required.
Death by survey is expensive
Surveys are expensive for business Sponsors to organise - but potentially even more more onerous for suppliers.
Surveys can be more expensive for suppliers, more so than social audits.
Social audits involve management, surveys involve workers;
Surveys can interrupt production; often surveys have to be introduced, supervised on premises, and production is stopped whilst they take place - or workers are being pulled off the line to answer questions.
Like audits, sharing data is a problem worth fixing
See our next post here: Ask The Workers - not death by survey
It sets out how Ask The Workers meets the challenges set out above using our "collect once, share many times" model.
Find out more and ask us for call?
Contact us at info@es3g.com or book a call directly here.
