Worker Voice + Worker Surveys: Common Questions

Worker voice refers to the ways workers can safely share concerns, feedback, and experiences about their working conditions, particularly within global supply chains. Worker voice is critical to human rights due diligence because it provides direct insight into risks at supplier workplaces that may not be visible through audits or buyer reporting alone. Effective worker voice systems help identify issues early, support access to remedy, and strengthen protections for workers.

Worker voice complements audits by providing continuous, worker-reported insight from supplier workplaces between audit cycles. While audits offer periodic snapshots, worker voice tools capture ongoing conditions across supply chains, helping brands and suppliers identify emerging risks, monitor progress, and respond more effectively over time.

Worker-driven human rights due diligence is an approach to HRDD that centers workers in supply chains as active participants in identifying, preventing, and addressing risks. It emphasizes ongoing worker engagement, accessible grievance mechanisms, and accountability for outcomes at the supplier level, rather than relying solely on top-down or one-time assessments.

Worker voice surveys are structured tools used to collect feedback directly from workers at supplier facilities about working conditions, risks, and management practices. They enable brands and suppliers to gather consistent, comparable data across supply chains while protecting worker confidentiality and safety.

Worker voice surveys differ from audits in that they are continuous, worker-reported, and scalable across supply chains. Audits typically assess compliance at a single point in time, while surveys reflect workers’ lived experiences and allow organizations to track risks, improvements, and unresolved issues over time.

Worker voice surveys can identify risks related to health and safety, wages and working hours, discrimination and harassment, freedom of association, grievance access, and management practices at supplier workplaces. These insights often surface issues that are difficult to detect through documentation reviews or site inspections alone.

After survey data is collected, results are analyzed to identify risks, trends, and priority issues across supplier sites. This information is used to inform remediation plans, supplier engagement, and ongoing monitoring. Effective human rights due diligence requires systems that connect worker feedback directly to corrective action and follow-up.

Labor Solutions provides tools that help suppliers move from insight to action. Through platforms like Improve,(https://laborsolutions.tech/improve) suppliers can conduct self-assessments, strengthen internal processes, track corrective actions, and build management systems that better protect workers’ rights within their operations. In addition, targeted eLearning supports suppliers in addressing root causes and preventing future risks.

WOVO (https://www.laborsolutions.tech/wovo)is Labor Solutions’ worker voice platform that supports worker-driven human rights due diligence in supply chains. It enables workers to participate in surveys, raise concerns, and access information, take eLearning l(https://www.laborsolutions.tech/wovoeducate-elearning)essons while allowing suppliers and brands to manage feedback, track issues, and monitor remediation in a shared system.

Labor Solutions supports collaboration across supply chains by providing connected tools for workers, suppliers, and brands. Worker voice data informs supplier-level improvement through tools like Improve, while brands gain visibility into risks, actions, and outcomes—supporting credible, ongoing human rights due diligence.

The WELL Survey (https://www.laborsolutions.tech/well)is a standardized worker voice survey developed through a multi-stakeholder design process to capture workers’ experiences and perceptions of working conditions in global supply chains. It collects direct, worker-reported feedback on key labor and human rights topics, enabling consistent and comparable insights across supplier sites, sectors, and geographies.

Organizations use the WELL Survey (https://www.laborsolutions.tech/well)to obtain credible, worker-reported insight that complements audits and other assessments. Because it was designed through a multi-stakeholder process and is used by brands across industries—including companies such as Cisco, Decathlon,(https://www.laborsolutions.tech/post/decathlon) Nike,(https://www.laborsolutions.tech/post/nike-s-engagement-and-wellbeing-survey-now-available-to-anyone) H&M, Dell, and Carter’s—the WELL Survey supports scalable, repeatable, and trusted human rights due diligence. It helps brands and suppliers identify risks early, prioritize action, and track improvements over time based on workers’ lived experiences.