gLOCAL Evaluation Week 2020

After months and months of research, collaboration, implementation, evaluation, highs, lows and ultimately, progress, we were thrilled to openly discuss our mission to drive a cultural change in the garment manufacturing industry, by giving workers a voice through the use of technology.⁠ In this 2-part series, we shared some exciting insights collected over the course of this journey.

Worker Voice: Using technology to drive cultural change in the garment manufacturing industry.

We hosted a webinar on the topic of ‘Worker Voice.’ Our panel included representatives from the organizations that were part of the WOVO evaluation. Through this webinar, we offered insight into how evaluations, alignment across organizations on sustainability priorities, and technology can be leveraged to increase transparency and accountability within a factory setting. Further, the discussion also addressed challenges such as low digital literacy among workers and the need for buy-in from all stakeholders involved including workers, management, and factory owners.

Speakers:

• Smit Gade, Good Business Lab, shared the academic evidence on the value of “voice” in a work setting and the design research of the evaluation.
• Elena Fanjul Debnam, Labor Solutions. She spoke more about the design and the philosophy behind developing a tool and how it has enabled both businesses and workers.
• Gauri Sharma, Shahi Exports, shared the implementation journey of the tool and the learnings from the experience.

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Going Beyond Research: Reimagining communication systems in the garment manufacturing industry.

Carrying forth the discussion on the importance of worker voice, we hosted a second webinar walking the audience through the journey of conceptualizing Inache. Right from the learning from our WOVO evaluation, to designing a human-centered low-cost tool and implementing it in Shahi. The discussion also touched upon moving beyond research findings to creating tangible solutions.

Speakers: 

• Ach Advaryu, Good Business Lab. He spoke about the importance of worker voice platforms given the impact of COVID-19 on businesses and workers. He spoke about the evaluation of Inache tool. 
• Anant Nyshadham, Good Business Lab. He spoke about the future of such worker voice tools and how they are relevant and can be scaled up in other labor-intensive contexts.
• Arvind Patil, Good Business Lab. He spoke about the design journey of Inache and the qualitative research that went into designing and developing the tool.
• Chitra Ramdas, Shahi Exports. She spoke of the implementation and training processes followed at Shahi to increase take-up of the tool by both managers and workers.