COVID-19 Pandemic has posed tremendous challenges to workers’ livelihood and wellbeing worldwide, and Cambodia is no exception. Disruptions to production, temporary closures of factories and overwhelmed management have prevented factories from providing effective and stable professional and wellbeing support for workers. Workers desperately need resources to keep growing their workplace knowledge and maintain emotional health during this challenging time. Labor Solutions and Winrock (USAID CTIP-Cambodia) are collaborating to provide learning digitally to workers in Cambodia, leveraging Labor Solutions’ easy-to-access and scalable WOVO platform. The interactive and self-paced eLearning courses, developed by Labor Solutions and subject matter experts include topics on professional development such as gender equality and communications, as well as wellbeing such as physical and mental health. The courses include gamifications, testing your knowledge exercises, can be downloaded offline to support the environment without the internet. Winrock (USAID CTIP-Cambodia), with its substantial experience in supporting workers in Cambodia, have been dedicated to the acculturalization and localization of the courses to ensure they adapt to the specific context and workers’ needs in Cambodia. Under permissible conditions, CTIP-Cambodia will also provide onsite guidance and training to factories and workers on leveraging Labor Solutions’ Worker Voice, Survey, and eLearning tools to improve worker engagement and wellbeing. Labor Solutions, a social enterprise, leverages technology to engage and educate workers throughout supply chains. Over a million workers in 25 countries have access to Labor Solutions’ eLearning platform, WOVO. The Labor Solutions team will digitize the content and focus on strategic deployment and implementation to ensure as many workers as possible are able to access eLearning on a variety of topics. Winrock (USAID CTIP-Cambodia), a seven-year program (2016-2023) sponsored by USAID, engages stakeholders from government, NGOs, and private sectors to address regional and local challenges faced by migrant workers and improve workers’ livelihood and wellbeing. With a team of local experts, it focuses on providing awareness and capacity building activities for both factories and workers.

A study by the Fair Wear Foundation and Care International found that female factory workers in Vietnam face systemic sexual harassment and violence at work. Approximately 2 million people are employed in Vietnam’s garment sector, with some factories having as many as 20,000 workers. More than 80% of the workers are women. Participants interviewed as part of the study reported being exposed to physical violence, sexual jokes, obscene gestures, and offensive emails, among other abuses. Excessive overtime was also uncovered. The study found violence and harassment had a negative impact on workers’ health and wellbeing, as well as the organization’s productivity, competitiveness and reputation. The study also found that when clear complaint procedures were in place, women reported significantly lower levels of abuse, 25% compared with 58.7%. “Anonymous reporting options are critical in factory settings, which often operate in areas with few worker rights and protections,” explains Elena Fanjul-Debnam, Head of Labor Solutions. “Workers can face serious retribution from their employers, as well as family members if they are seen making complaints.” In 2018, Labor Solutions launched WOVO, a worker voice and wellbeing solution that allows workers to report concerns anonymously using mobile phone technology. The tool also offers workers access to personal and professional e-learning, as well as confidential wellbeing support.

Henry Ford famously said “you can take my factories, burn up my buildings, but give me my people and I’ll build it right back.” His sentiment underscores the importance and value of putting employees first. Direct worker feedback is the foundation of all successful human resource and management teams. Putting employees first means listening to workers to identify performance improvement opportunities and to design engagement programs that work. We often encourage employers to conduct a worker survey, no matter where they are in the evolution of their worker engagement program. Worker surveys allow you to hear directly from your workforce, gather reliable data and better understand needs. Surveys, when conducted correctly, are effective at gathering a balanced and representative view of what employees think, enabling organizations to make data-based decisions and spend funds more effectively. Just the act of conducting a survey can increase employee engagement and loyalty. It allows employers to demonstrate that their employees’ opinions matter. Employees feel more empowered when they are given the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions. This is especially true when employees see organizational change take place as a result of feedback gained through surveys. On the other hand, neglecting survey results can diminish employee engagement and lead to cynicism. For this reason, it’s important that employers communicate survey results, as well as any steps that are being taken to address areas of concern. This is true even if the decision is to not take any steps. Simply saying, “We heard your concerns, but we can’t make this change because of ,” can be an effective engagement strategy. Employees now feel like they have a voice and understand how the decision was made. How often should an organization survey its workforce? Opinions vary on how frequently organizations should survey their workforce, but I think it ultimately depends on how quickly a company can implement change. If a company is nimble and able to execute necessary changes within six months, then it makes sense to conduct a survey twice a year. For many employers, organizational change takes much longer. In those situations, surveying employees every 12 to 18 months is more realistic. For years the consumer industry has been conducting Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to track customer perceptions. These are quick surveys that some companies do weekly to keep their finger on the pulse of their buyers. This same concept can be extremely useful for employers to better understand employee needs. Increasingly, more and more of our clients are asking for these Employee Pulse Surveys to better track employee engagement. Labor Solutions’ Employee Pulse Surveys include three questions and we typically suggest employers conduct them once a quarter, and sometimes after a significant event—either positive or negative. It fosters understanding of how changes made in the company are perceived by employees. Maybe there was a restructuring, merger or change in policy. It is important that these surveys are conducted often and during times of relative calm, so you have a baseline and are more easily able to identify trouble spots or change. Because Employee Pulse surveys are short they help guard against survey fatigue, which can lead to incomplete responses or inaccurate data. Is it necessary to survey the entire workforce? Clients are relieved to hear it’s not necessary to survey their entire workforce, which can be time consuming and expensive. Unless the company is very small, statisticians agree that a randomly selected sample of a population can be used to reasonably estimate the views of the entire population. A recent article in the New York Times illustrated the validity of probability sampling by using the analogy of a chef checking the flavor of his sauce. In short, it’s not necessary for the chef to eat the entire batch to know how his sauce tastes. To determine how many employees should be included in a survey sample size, employers need to determine their desired margin of error. The margin of error indicates the survey’s degree of accuracy. For example, a survey with a 5% margin of error found that 70% of the population prefer the color red and 30% prefer the color blue. The true value, based on the 5% margin of error, would be anywhere in the range of 5% more or 5% less than what was reported in the survey. For red, the true value would be between 65% and 75%. For blue, it would be between 25% and 35%. At Labor Solutions we typically use a margin of error of +-7.5 percent. This tends to minimize costs, while also delivering trustworthy results for this type of survey.  You can use a sample size calculator to determine how many employees you should include in your sample size.  For a company with 10,000 employees, for a +-7.5 margin of error, a sample size calculator shows you will need a sample size of 171 employees. If you increase your sample size, you will decrease your margin of error. But at some point the law of diminishing returns makes the increased accuracy negligible. In addition, increasing the sample size typically increases the costs associated with executing a survey. Not to mention the time and effort involved in encouraging workers to take a survey. While surveys are key to organizational success, surveys can’t stand alone and they are only one piece of an effective employee engagement program.  An effective program is constantly seeking input and adapting to the needs of employees.

These are resources and tools available for the public. If you are a client, please reach out to your client adviser for more tailored resources and services. Engage and educate workers even if they are not on-site Tell workers to download atun. atun, is a free mobile application current and former factory workers that provides e-learnings and support on a host of critical topics including, parenting, finance, and health. We’re working with The Empower@Work Collaborative to digitize their materials as well. If you are an employer and want to send an SMS to all your workers telling them about the app, to make sure they download it, please reach out to Bijie Li. We’ll also be able to help you reach out to those workers again when you reopen your facility. Stop rumors, spread only creditable information We’ve set up Google Drives for the following languages with local images, links to local resources and other critical information English Bahasa Indonesia Chinese If you are not able to use Google Drive to get these resources, please send your request to: Bijie Li. Vietnamese Hindi Burmese Spanish Khmer Non-language specific images The WHO is constantly providing accurate information and promotional materials to be shared. You can visit their website page and join their Whatsapp group just send a Whatsapp that says  “hi” to +41 22 501 76 15 Protect Human Rights Just because there is a pandemic does not mean that workers’ human rights should not be protected. Keep up-to-date on the latest stories, programs and more at the Business for Human Rights Resource Center Protect your Business Labor Solutions has posted several articles with tips for business including: Addressing Coronavirus for Factories Outside of China Addressing Coronavirus for Factories in China Monitoring Human Rights from Afar McKinsey & Co also published a report about Coronavirus that offers lots of tips for businesses. We’ll be updating this regularly so please keep coming back. Hashtag #coronavirus #blog

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights the snowball effect that trade wars, sanctions, executive scandals and consumer activism are having on corporate compliance departments. Given the frequency with which new risks are emerging, compliance officers are working increasingly more with other departments and third party organizations to stay a step ahead. In terms of cultural compliance, forward-looking companies are taking a proactive approach in an effort to stave off likely threats. “Organizations are seeking novel ways to identify and address concerning trends before they turn into full-blown issues, as the traditional grievance box and ‘open door policy’ approaches are not sufficient,” explains Krystal Bouverot, Director of Innovation at Labor Solutions. “We developed WOVO for precisely this reason.” WOVO is a mobile-phone based, worker wellbeing solution designed to help companies engage and communicate directly with employees with transparency. Featuring anonymous, two-way communication, WOVO provides employees and company leadership a private, confidential platform through which concerns can be shared and discussed in detail, without compromising employee anonymity. In addition, organizations can pull analytics data from WOVO to help identify trends and potential flashpoints. Corporate leadership can view and respond immediately to data via WOVO’s online dashboard, an important feature when trying to get in front of workplace issues. WOVO can also be used to facilitate employee surveys and deliver customized training. For more information about WOVO, contact info@laborsolutions.tech TAGGED COMPLIANCE, WORKER VOICE, WOVO

Supply chain factories are often located in emerging countries with low labor costs and few protections for workers. In these settings, challenges like unsafe working conditions and unfair labor practices are the norm. For women, who represent a majority of the factory workforce in many segments, the challenges are even greater. According to a United Nation’s Global Compact Group report, women working in factories are often subjected to verbal abuse, unfair labor practices, sexual harassment and other forms of violence. The  “Our Voices, Our Safety” publication by the International Labor Rights Forum adds that factory workers are often hesitant to report exploitive and dangerous working conditions out of fear of retaliation, including losing their job. And in some countries, where subordination of women is the norm, social and cultural practices discourage women from speaking out. Against this backdrop, major manufacturers are taking steps to protect workers by requiring that supply chain factories meet set standards for worker safety and wellbeing. Labor Solutions is playing an important role in this effort with the development of WOVO. A mobile phone-based technology platform, WOVO provides workers with a variety of resources and tools designed to address their health, safety and wellbeing needs, including the following: A safer work environment The International Labor Rights Forum estimates that globally between 40 and 50 percent of women experience unwanted sexual advances, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at work. In the garment industry, where three fourths of the workers are women, sexual harassment is rampant, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. It’s also under-reported due to fears of disbelief, blame, or social or professional retaliation. The report also argues that social audits currently being conducted in some supply chain factories are largely ineffective at uncovering harassment because they fail to protect worker confidentiality. WOVO’s anonymous reporting features and survey tools allow supply chain workers to maintain confidentiality while reporting unsafe working conditions, harassment and abuse. With WOVO, workers are able to use their mobile phones to anonymously text concerns or threats directly to human resource representatives. Through WOVO’s 2-way anonymous communication feature, factory representatives are also able to respond back, while maintaining workers’ anonymity. In addition, workers’ concerns and factories’ actions are logged and can be analyzed using WOVO’s robust reporting system. Professional and personal development opportunities Supply chain workers in poor countries often have limited access to education. This is especially true of women. However, through WOVO employees can access both professional and personal digital training modules on a variety of topics. WOVO’s digital training platform can remove bias and democratize professional development by allowing workers to select trainings, as opposed to traditional training programs where workers have to be selected in order to participate. Also, management can track professional training course completions through WOVO, which can make the process of rewarding or promoting workers less subjective. Digital training also empowers women, as they have the freedom to select subjects of their own choosing. In addition to professional development, WOVO offers courses for personal development and wellbeing. Approximately 80% of WOVO’s users are women, and popular personal wellbeing topics include pregnancy and women’s health, parenting, elder care, relationship support and finances. These trainings can benefit the entire family, in addition to helping women better themselves through ongoing education. Personal and professional coaching support Through WOVO, workers can reach out via smart phone app or SMS to local, qualified coaches trained to respond to professional and personal wellbeing issues. For example, one worker in her 33rd week of pregnancy, reached out to a coach through WOVO because she was wasn’t sleeping well due to headaches and hypertension. The coach encouraged the woman to visit her doctor and helped her put together a list of questions. After following the coach’s advice, the woman was hospitalized for delivery. After her baby was born, ongoing support was provided including lactation support and information related to newborn milestones.

By Guest Writer: Mark Evans, Omega Compliance The topic of ‘audit fatigue’ has been around for almost as long as the responsible sourcing profession itself.  When high-profile exposés in the 1990s revealed human rights abuses in the apparel and footwear supply chain, brands saw factory audits as part of the solution. However, the industry’s response was largely uncoordinated, resulting in a multitude of codes of conduct, each requiring its own version of supplier audits. As a result, factories became inundated with audits and ‘audit fatigue’ set in among workers and suppliers. For the last 20 years, brands and retailers in the U.S. have tried to address the fatigue issue by reducing the number of audits. Recognizing that 90% of brand requirements were the same, the industry embarked on numerous harmonization initiatives, such as the GSCP, with the objective of consolidating around a single audit tool. Not only could this address fatigue, it could also allow the industry to turn its attention to other important initiatives like capacity building and worker wellbeing. Despite these bold attempts at harmonization, it became clear that while brand requirements were similar, they were also completely distinct. The 10% difference was unbridgeable, reflective of the different values of the separate organizations. The industry in the U.S. turned its focus elsewhere. However, recently renewed efforts to solve audit duplication, coupled with fresh thinking, has revealed there is light at the end of the tunnel and a glimpse of a changing, more dynamic responsible sourcing landscape. In 2015, the Social & Labor Convergence Program (SLCP) was launched with the support of more than 200 signatory brands including adidas, Gap, Nike, VF Corp PVH, and Target. Rather than reattempting to harmonize standards, the SLCP’s mission was to create a converged assessment, performed by qualified verifying bodies, like Omega. The dataset collected would be broad enough to enable benchmarking against each brand’s proprietary standard. The SLCP has made considerable progress. A significant number of its high-profile signatories, acting as force multipliers, have recently committed to replacing their own proprietary audits with the SLCP assessment. Furthermore, a growing number of brands and retailers, including Walmart, which have sourcing footprints beyond apparel, are accepting a broad range of accredited audits, such as Sedex, WRAP and Amfori, rather than requiring their own.  The landscape seems to be finally shifting towards fewer, but higher quality, responsible sourcing audits. In addition, the audits are underpinned by a pool of auditors certified by the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA), another recent industry milestone. So what’s next? Presuming the consolidation of responsible sourcing audits continues, brands and retailers will have newly available resources. They should choose to reinvest their savings into other parts of the industry in need. But the question remains, will brands and retailers move from monitoring to collaborative efforts or will they double down on other tiers of their supply chain? Below are some key areas in need of more focused resources: Improving the conditions under which homeworkers are employed across their supply chains. After agriculture, the homeworking economy is the largest employer of women in the developing world. Given how prevalent piece rate compensation is in this sector, there are real challenges with payment of minimum wage, for example. More specialized responsible sourcing audits, under the IRIS standard, of labor brokers. Worker dialogue programs, such as WOVO, which provide workers with greater representation and agency within their supply chains. Greater supply chain traceability. As an example, growing concerns of forced labor in Xinjiang has recently prompted Cotton On to ban the sourcing of cotton from the region, where an estimated 80% of China’s cotton is produced. This issue is likely to grow in prominence as pressure is put on the U.S. Congress to intervene. In fact, Omega has recently built a cotton traceability assessment, performed upon both factories and mills, enabling brands and retailers to understand where their cotton inputs originate. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the position of her/his employer. Hashtag #uncategorized

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the limits of relying on face-to-face communication, and demonstrated the importance of having a digital communication platform in place to connect with workers.  The ‘new normal’ is about changing how we live and interact with others, including how we adhere to new laws and regulations. Communicating and listening to workers effectively is key to implementing these changes. As the journey to establish the ‘new normal’ begins, employers reflect on successful tools and strategies used during the emergency and formulate strategies for moving forward.  Team members who a year ago had been hesitant to implement WOVO, now see the urgency. Gauri Sharma, Operational Development Manager at Shahi Exports, says “Managers have come to me and said, ‘we need an effective communication system now… tools like WOVO are going to be the future of how communication is done in factories.’” Whether workers have stayed on-site throughout the emergency or were sent home, Labor Solutions clients around the world report a huge uptick in WOVO utilization. Both factory management and workers quickly turned to WOVO to stay in touch. Workers were able to voice their concerns, ask questions and get answers about topics important to them. This quick and comprehensive utilization of the WOVO tool by workers allowed management to quickly identify and address leading concerns and causes of stress. We spoke to several employers about how they used WOVO. Starting Communications Early Dianzhen Lin, the human resources manager at Dongguan Pouchen, a footwear factory in China, said WOVO has been essential to a smooth transition into the new normal, “WOVO has been our first choice for information dissemination since our factory reopened in the second half of February this year. With WOVO we were able to quickly inform workers what was going to happen. They can check immediately. The SMS accessibility of WOVO also allows companies to spread the word to those who do not own a smartphone, reaching basically everyone in the workforce.” When Pouchen started to reopen, they proactively used WOVO to send newsletters with clear and detailed steps for each worker to take to protect themselves and their coworkers. These steps included the proper use of disinfectants, conducting more frequent workplace inspections, adhering to social distance guidelines, and wearing masks and other personal protective equipment, where necessary.  Dongguan Pouchen reported that WOVO’s ability to send “dynamic and eye-catching content” was “important to make workers pay attention because that helps them digest the information.” Getting Organized When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Hwaseung Indonesia, an apparel manufacturer, decided to temporarily halt operations and send workers home. Workers quickly turned to WOVO to express concerns about their job security and reduced orders. This increased utilization by 100% from the previous month. The management recognized that WOVO was key to keeping communication channels open and workers engaged. The factory formed a WOVO Committee to better manage incoming messages and develop communication strategies to keep workers engaged and up to date while they were offsite. This resulted in the management reducing their response and resolution time. Hwaseung is thankful they had WOVO during the crisis, “WOVO has helped us better communicate with our workers during COVID-19. Employees have been able to use the WOVO App to ask about COVID-19 policies in Indonesia or in our company.  When our factory was closed and other times when we really cannot meet workers in person, WOVO helps us communicate with employees and respond to their questions and complaints.” Answering Workers Questions and Addressing Their Concerns Quickly The COVID-19 pandemic has been a scary and confusing time for everyone. Reassuring workers that you are listening and answering their questions and addressing their concerns quickly helps reduce stress, and shows that employers and companies care, which is critical when building trust in this time of uncertainties. Workers have and will continue to struggle adapting to the new normal. Whether the transition is smooth depends on worker engagement and buy in. One human resource manager in a Chinese factory, recalls it being hard at first when new rules kicked in, “When we first required everyone to wear masks, workers were not very happy because the work floor, particularly the gluing area was hot. They sent in so many questions into WOVO.” The management of that factory quickly decided that rather than being defensive by replying every single question with the same explanation, they acted proactively by sending out a newsletters with clear information to help contain and prevent the spread of the virus. Responding to worker feedback, management also saw that ventilation on the work floor prevented workers from wearing proper personal protective gear, and worked to cool the floor. Once workers felt that their concerns were being addressed, they were able to see that “our [management’s] decisions were focused on protecting the overall well-being of all workers.” Samho, a footwear factory in Vietnam, stayed open through the pandemic. They continued to use WOVO and reported that it was critical, since “management and workers were not willing to conduct face-to-face reporting, so WOVO was the most effective way to communicate and connect the factory with our workforce.” Samho used the WOVO data dashboard to identify that workers were concerned about their personal health and safety, and responded by using WOVO to continuously and proactively send newsletters to workers with information on updated company health and safety policies and procedures. This prompt response helped workers to feel safer and more cared about by management. Read more about how employers are using surveys to keep workers engaged in the continue process of change

Never have companies had to make such drastic changes to every day operations, nor have workers faced such a unique set of challenges. With no recent historical precedent to COVID-19, factories and workers will have to cooperate to adjust how they work together successfully. Implementing change will be especially challenging and undoubtedly will be a process of trial and error. Success depends on listening and engaging workers in the decision-making process in the creation of the ‘new normal.’ Increasingly, Labor Solutions’ clients are turning to surveys to better understand workers’ experiences and to engage them in policy creation and evaluation. Collecting worker feedback helps not only to inform decisions and change but helps “workers to feel respected and heard when they receive our outreach seeking their opinions”, said a human resources director at Dongguan Pouchen, a footwear factory in China. Labor Solutions has designed a survey to specifically address COVID-19. Use our off-the-shelf survey or work with our team of statisticians to customize one for your workforce. The COVID survey sets out to determine: The physical safety of workers and their families The emotional wellbeing and leading causes of stress for workers Workers’ understanding of their access to care Workers’  trust in management Workers’ understanding and feelings about their physical safety at work Workers’ overall sense of engagement in the workplace Surveys provide timely feedback from workers, allowing companies to quickly implement changes before issues snowball and become impossible to manage. A human resource manager at an apparel factory argued that there is no such thing as a “bad survey result”; every result is an opportunity to learn. When critical feedback is received in a survey, “then it means something is not working with this new policy and we will need to take a deeper look and adjust what we are currently doing.” One facility that was deemed essential was the addition of living facilities on-site for workers. After a few weeks of cohabitation, management conducted a survey and found that workers missed their families, were frustrated with their roommates, and ultimately needed more time alone. Management worked on allowing for additional time off, this helped with social distancing and helped address the needs of workers. In several workplaces, WOVO surveys helped to determine that workers had lost trust in their management because of the COVID-19 response. We also found that because they lost trust, they did not feel safe and were concerned about their job security. The Labor Solutions team was able to work with each management team to craft a response and outreach plan to workers. For some workplaces this meant being honest and open about declining orders and pledging to continue to be transparent with workers about the state of the company. For others, this meant implementing new COVID-19 safety measures, and in some cases, this included adding free transport to work and housing options for workers. These are difficult times. Outreach from management to factory groups will have to be ongoing. Conducting surveys in a structured scheduled manner helps you track changes overtime and to continue to collaborate with workers to determine what the new normal looks like for your company.

Background Like many good employers, those managing Factory Five believe that communication between their employees and the management team is critical for success. They know that employee engagement is correlated with employee productivity and overall company performance. That is why they set up “input boxes” located in their facility’s restrooms, as well as a hotline to call, and encouraged employees to communicate directly with their department’s manager if they had questions or grievances. But although Factory Five had taken these measures, managers only collected around 60 questions and grievances through their input boxes and 21 from their hotline in the span of a year. This seemed like a small number for a factory with a workforce of over 16,000. Labor Solutions was called upon to help improve communication. Outcome When we came in to help Factory Five, we understood the challenges the company faced collecting, understanding, and responding to employee grievances and questions. After learning of its benefits, Factory Five decided to implement communication technology used in the WOVO platform. This platform ensures anonymity and provides a more convenient method of communication between employees and management through text messages. Upon implementation, Factory Five saw an extreme boost in employees’ willingness to communicate. They received a total of 1417 messages, 344 of which were labeled as grievances, in only the first quarter. This is equivalent to almost a 7,000% annual increase in communication compared with the previous results. Managers said that their employees were more engaged, and less hesitant to provide feedback because their messages were anonymous. Employers also took advantage of the broadcasting feature that enabled them to reach their workforce with announcements through text messages. Previously, they had broadcasted messages using flyers or audio announcements. Not only was communication streamlined, but grievance and question management as well. We calculated that Factory Five took an average of 5 days to close a single case, a huge improvement from their monthly basis resolution. On average, we see a 90% reduction in response time to workers’ questions and complaints. Through the platform’s case management feature, Factory Five was also able to measure the frequency of certain question and grievance case types, allowing managers to broadcast information to reduce the need for employees to ask additional questions. This increase in efficiency of communication enabled them to create a stronger work culture and improve engagement.