By Bijie Li, Director of Labor Solutions Operations, Emerging Markets
Images from www.un.org
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals listed above, give all countries – no matter their size or wealth – an action plan to achieve social and environmental justice. While the goals are large in scope and meant to address the world as a whole, businesses can do their part to help the progress. Many issues can be addressed within organizations and their supply chains that can have an impact on their communities, their countries, and around the globe.
Tackling all 17 goals within your business may seem daunting- but as part of a commitment to helping the world achieve sustainable development, perhaps you can start with a few. Labor Solutions can help by providing services that can assist in a variety of ways. Here are a few achievable goals for many businesses to work towards:
Sustainable Development Goal #3: Good Health and Wellbeing
Making health and wellbeing a priority in your workforce leads not only to a healthier society, but can also increase productivity, employee retention, employee wellbeing, and revenue.
Labor Solutions division can help your workforce improve its health and wellbeing through our eLearning and WOVO services. Our programs educate employees on physical fitness, financial and emotional wellness, mental health, and more. Employees can also connect with our qualified professionals for personalized health.
Sustainable Development Goal #5: Gender Equality
Gender Equality in the workplace is an important component of a healthy work environment where all workers feel safe and empowered while on the job.
Labor Solutions can implement worker surveys in order to identify if there may be a sexual harassment problem in your workplace. We can also administer E-learning courses that train workers and management on sexual harassment prevention through our mobile phone platform, WOVO. WOVO trainings are accessible and beneficial for all employees and employers, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. This helps ensure that everyone is included in the conversation and invested in gender equality in their workplace.
Beyond these preventative measures, Labor Solutions can help organizations to establish and employ grievance hotlines, which can offer victims of sexual harassment immediate support, comfort, and advice on how to proceed. Labor Solutions offers both an external hotline, Labor Line, and an internal platform, WOVO, to help address the specific needs of each organization. Taking steps like these to combat sexual harassment in the workplace that may seem small, actually have the potential to make vast improvements towards gender equality and a healthier work environment.
Sustainable Development Goal #8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Ensuring your workplace is an environment where employees are treated with respect and dignity, is both a financial and emotional win. Problems that prevent your employees from working with dignity and respect are often hidden in plain sight.
Labor Solutions believes that the first step to ensuring a respectful workplace is worker-employer dialogue. Providing workers with a way to share their opinions, ask questions, and report problems directly to management is critical to creating a decent place to work.
Labor Solutions created WOVO to help connect workers and their employers on a secure and anonymous platform. This dialogue, not only provides workers with a voice, but it also helps improve managerial skills by demanding they address issues quickly and directly.
Additional services like surveys to help identify issues in organizations and their supply chains, and grievance hotlines like Labor Line can help track information to analyze and lead to resolution of issues that negatively affect workforces, and the quality of work opportunities.
This UN Sustainable Development Goal also aims, ” to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour…” and to “Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers” See the details here.
The Labor Solutions suite of products can help increase transparency, communication and feedback within an organization and with its vendors. Bringing more information and data to light for decision makers can help them ensure positive, safe, secure and compliant working environments.
Sustainable Development Goal #9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Identifying, mitigating, and preventing abuses within your supply chain can improve work experiences and living standards for workers, and technology can provide additional benefits. Help your business to be more progressive in the fight for a more sustainable world by using innovative technologies.
Labor Solutions can implement WOVO, a new mobile phone app designed to revolutionize worker engagement and voice within the workplace. WOVO has a range of features that include:
• Two-way anonymous communication between workers and management,
• Corporate broadcast messaging to send company-wide messages and alerts,
• Instant worker surveys to identify issues,
• E-learning modules with comprehensive courses to advance worker wellness, and
• Connections to local, live coaches who can personally motivate and support employees,
WOVO’s services can help your supply chain identify and address malpractices, as a proactive step to improve communication through innovative technology.
To read the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in full, click here.
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