Transcript

B Renukaprasad: So workers may or may not have access to a smartphone.  Workers may or may not have access to even a phone. And workers sometimes know how to read and may not know how to even type a text message. 14:06 So what we have built at Inacheit can be we’ve considered the literacy level, we’ve considered the access levels, we’ve considered the internet penetration.  We’ve considered multiple aspects to see what works best for the worker and how easy they can access.

Hello! And welcome to What about work? An audio series produced by Good Business Lab.

Good Business Lab seeks to globally transform the lives of low-income workers through rigorous research and evidence-based solutions.

What about work? talks about the past and current experiences of workers in labor-intensive industries and other emerging sectors from different geographies. Be it garment, automobile, fast food, platform gig work or any other.

Today’s episode opened with B Renukaprasad, Senior Ventures Manager at Good Business Lab also known as GBL.

Last time, we explored what happens when firms lack an infrastructure for instant two-way communication between management and workers. Accumulated frustration, unresolved roadblocks, and untapped insights.

Inache, a tool for low-income workers in manufacturing contexts, hopes to transform that.

But how? A case resolver in an Inache-enabled workplace explains how workers have dealt with emergencies there:

Dorothy: they record the voice and then it comes to the case workers email. Thank you for using that one mail, it will directly automatically go to the worker side because once they call and cut the call, they’ll immediately receive an invoice inbox message where they’ll tell you. Thank you for using the service. Then the case reporter has to write the case details. Once we write the case details, we can save whatever we have the case status. Then from the case reporters side, we’ll have to send one more message telling. Thank you for informing us. you can come report back tomorrow and please give your leave letter, put it in the box . It is like that.

And Dorothy knows the value of time when dealing with issues in blue-collar environments.

Dorothy: We can close the case that 72 hours we know is generally how much time it takes to resolve cases or that some cases take longer. So yeah, in some cases, we try to solve it within 24 hours. So once we close, we update the case so that once we update the case, then automatically the case will get closed. Then 72 hours is the minimum period we have given for the workers further so that they can take some time and come back. Then some cases might take a long time. Also when it involves issues related to production or something, it takes more than that.

It takes a lot more than that. We tend to think of conflicts as a singular event. But there’s usually a broader compass of actors and contexts within every situation. Senior Design Manager Arvind Patil talks about the map of stakeholders that needs to be kept in mind when designing any intervention that prioritizes worker voice and firm growth.

Arvind P:  I tried to understand what different stakeholders are thinking about this tool because you are empowering one community, right? One stakeholder within the ecosystem. So you have to take care of their hesitations. So for example, conventionally, through orthodox means of grievance management, the factories used to receive 20-30 cases per month, ok. Through suggestion boxes or hotlines or worker committees and the staff that we have on the shop floor, they were able to take care of those queries. But when you introduce a digital tool, suddenly everything becomes accessible. What we speculated was that we will receive 60 to 80 cases within a month, more than that, in fact, so in order to handle such a large volume of cases, you have to empower welfare officers and her staff, right? So this is the first point like you are taking care of one of the stakeholders through a human centered approach. You have to develop a communication strategy so that you can meet the needs and requirements of different stakeholders. Then in order to motivate, we proposed that it was a part of the research theory of change only that how exactly incentives affect the motivation, right? So we conducted several design sprints with the HR staff just to understand what matters to them. We just did not want to give some rewards or incentives to them that were not meaningful for them. So in each and every phase of the project, we try to understand what matters to different stakeholders, right? What are their hesitations and what are their motivations?

Building motivation is difficult to accomplish in an already stressful labor-intensive environment.

Smit G: So that’s the way we are trying to structure where this tool is built in a way that allows for kind of allocation resolution accountability in this typical factory setting, as well as we are trying to kind of incentive or use incentive to provide better coverage for work. So for example, hr and manufacturers are busy and if you add something new to their work, then it essentially means that they might not have, you know, bandwidth or motivation to kind of do this on time. So we also develop incentives that are there if the factory meets certain SOPS that were given in terms of timeliness and accuracy of the resolution of the cases.

That was Associate Director of Research and Data at GBL, Smit Gade who you also heard in the previous episode. GBL co-founders Anant Nshyadham and Achyuta Adhvaryu stressed that the project arrived at the importance of incentives to make this tool work pretty organically.

Chief Development Officer Achyuta Adhvaryu notes that case resolvers pointed out,

Achyuta A: this new dashboard and technology, it was really interesting at first, but then we realize this is a lot of extra work. Because lots more complaints are coming in and suggestions.

Achyuta A: And things that we need to respond to, but we’re not getting paid more or compensated or incentivized in any way for this.

Achyuta A: And so that all resulted in the development of an entirely new worker voice technology and kind of a system of incentives that and services that helped to implement within factories in a way that both engaged workers and developed trust for the tool with workers and then also engaged hr and management team members to actually get things right and respond in a timely and appropriate way.

Anant Nshyadham, Chief Strategy Officer, adds

Anant N:  I think that the incentives and we aren’t able to tease this apart. But anecdotally, when we were kind of rolling out the incentives and designing them, I think we realize actually that it wasn’t just about winning a prize, It’s about recognition for effort and that does two things that gives you the energy to keep putting forth that effort. If you’re in the HR team and it allows your work to be seen and feel, valued in the sense that, you get credit for doing what work is hard. But it also kind of Directs your attention towards important things. So, I think these are two things that the system does.

Recognizing and incentivizing efforts that resolution staff are undertaking is one important part of the puzzle. The other is leading manufacturers who may already understand the need for such practices, on the path to achieving them efficiently and effectively.

According to Senior Partnerships Associate Bethamehi Syiem,

Bethamehi S : So whenever we’ve spoken to partners we found that many of them are already convinced or already know the value of having grievance addresses within their supply chains. But what they’re looking for is a tool or a medium of enabling grievance redressal in the most effective way both for the business as well as for the workers. So one thing that has come up in conversations, something that came up even in our research prior is that anonymity is really huge in the sense that a worker should not feel. if they report a particular grievance or a suggestion, there will be fear of retaliation and then with Inache being an entirely anonymous tool, that is something that we’re really able to answer on.

For women, especially, anonymity is key to trusting that they will be heard without consequence. Sanj Saxena, Partnerships Associate, elaborates,

 Sanj S: From my experience, talking to that level of management. One of the great things is that everyone is Keen on doing better and to improve the wellbeing of their workers. We do want to make it as easy as possible for suppliers and factories to take this product up. So that means this, then a lot of work in terms of developing SOPs and having regular check-ins with partners, and essentially hand holding them through the process until they are kind of comfortable using it by themselves.

Factories are the last mile connection between wellbeing interventions and workers. But there is a mile and half before them. Funders.

Senior Funding Associate at GBL Karan Menon spells out exactly how funding for projects like Inache works.

Karan M : Now, funders prioritize impact or the potential for impact. So when they make these investment decisions, their key focus is on impact. And potentially if your innovation was successful or if it’s already successful, they want to see the proof and they want to see that you’ve had this impact in the past and they want that, that’s when they want to, you know, fund it . And you know, as impact numbers have rolled in, especially since the end of 2022 this issue has kind of been addressed and we’ve managed to make a kind of start on quite a few funders who are interested in this.

It takes an ecosystem to propel tools like Inache that focus so acutely on improving worker wellbeing. But its impact on business returns makes the pitch easier.

Anant N: quit rates went down by 10% absenteeism, went down by the same amount.

That may sound small but for a large scale enterprise, 10% could mean hundreds of thousands of workers.

Anant N:  And so that’s pretty fascinating. That was a powerful insight for us because we’re always interested in identifying root problems, trying to propose simple solutions. That’s the whole reason why we’re interested in both, of course, the welfare impacts for workers, but all so trying to quantify returns to the farm so that we can move to the next stage where we say, Okay, you should do this, This is totally worth your investing in. And so, this trial, I think, was really important to bring that. Here’s something you actually can do. And look, it has a measurable impact even for a Simply light touch thing and low-cost thing.

It is this active involvement that transforms the research Good Business Lab conducts to actionable programs.

Bethamehi S:  It starts off with background research and understanding who we want to reach out to, and why we want to reach out to them in order to create that buy-in for Inache we really also try to understand what the needs of the partner is. So at this stage, There’s a needs assessment that is done and after this we are able to really craft a much better demo of the product. Keeping in mind what the needs of the partner are.

Sanj S:  I think that is something that has been really appreciated by partners, that the tool has been specifically developed with the manufacturing center in mind and with the blue collar workforce in mind, which really helps in terms of implementation. And in terms of effectiveness, because every feature is built, really mindfully to tackle a certain need of every worker. and beyond that, I think some concerns that we’ve seen are in terms of on-ground implementation and they would want somebody Who’s able to help them implement the tool within their factories. We do want to make it as easy as possible for suppliers and factories to take this product up. So that means this, then a lot of work in terms of developing SOPs and having regular check-ins with partners, and essentially hand holding them through the process until they are kind of comfortable using it by themselves.

B Renukaprasad expands that the ground work they do can really show pathways for a tool like Inache that may not have initially been considered.

B Renukaprasad: So one of the recent observations that we’ve made is that the turnaround time on resolving a case is a little longer at this point of time. So, can we reduce that? So we, we try to understand the usage patterns, we try to understand the newer issues that they might be facing within the sops that we’ve provided, we try to understand how best we can reduce the turnaround time overall because that’s the most important factor if, if a worker is, if a worker needs a resolution on, access to water filter. So if, if the water filter is broken, the worker wouldn’t wait for three days for them to lodge it in and wait for it to be resolved. They would go to their HR person or the welfare person in the shop floor immediately and get that fixed immediately because they wouldn’t want to go thirsty for three long days. So this is something that we are understanding on a day to day basis. Can we reduce the turnaround time for some of these types of cases where they would want immediate resolution? 

And this played out with one factory worker who had

Worker:  some issue regarding my payment. I had asked Sir for a cheque. Sir, mentioned that I should drop an application and the concerned department will give me the cheque. When I went to drop an application, the department told me to come after 2 months as the cheque was not available then. When I went to the department after 2 months, they told me that the cheque had bounced. So, i told them that I need my payment.

Extensive wait for your money can be emotionally intense. For a low-income worker, it can also mean drastic financial challenges.

Worker: I thought I should call up the helpline number, maybe they can help resolve the issue. 

The problem was solved immediately and the cheque came through. 

This wouldn’t be possible if programs don’t meet workers where they are.

Worker: The number is written on the bathroom wall. 

Open communication doesn’t need to just stop at grievances.

B Renukaprasad:  We also learned that this targeted broadcast messaging can help in different ways as well to communicate, to establish a personalized level of communication. You know, all this while broadcast messaging was probably used to inform about different holidays or probably a greetings message or a, or a new announcement within the factory about a certain, you know, change in the work, timings or something like that. But, we went by, providing a feature like, targeted broadcast messaging, we’ve enabled personalized level of communication. Now, even if you want to communicate just to line 24 about the tube light not working in that line, you can do that right now and, and the people will be informed beforehand and they might take corrective measures.

Achyuta A: Those basic kinds of communication, you can achieve through this kind of technology. So there’s actually quite a lot of uses that we’re kind of just beginning to open, the door to as we kind of scale a Inache and begin to learn about how firms are actually using it. That is potentially powerful for workers.

This came in incredibly handy during the recent pandemic where reaching workers with little access to infrastructure was a major roadblock to communication. It showed that investing in communication channels that can withstand crises of any magnitude makes good business sense. As our motto says, good business can only happen when worker wellbeing is prioritized.

Achyuta A:  firms can really gain monetarily by instituting this stuff. And they can really start to see worker voice as an investment that has a return as opposed to something that they’re doing because they want to do something nice for their workers. 

It’s also important to underscore that tools like Inache aren’t built to replace or subsume traditional mechanisms of enabling worker voice, especially collective action. Unions and other critical forms of organized labor can in fact utilize tech-enabled tools to inform and address potential sites of conflict in factories.

Anant N:  it doesn’t crowd out any interaction, you would have with the union but it’s just an extra channel. But I think there’s at least a couple ways in which when you think about this over the ensuing kind of development of the industry that they maybe are a bit complementary or interact with each other a bit more.

Achyuta A: We’ve kind of talked about the firms incentives to adopt this kind of stuff and push this stuff and see it as an investment that generates return. It’s also plausible that if labor rights organizations and unions are on board with using this kind of tool, for their own purposes, they see a return. We generate much more adoption. So that’s a goal of ours, as well as to kind of speak to that idea.

Bringing in technologies of communication that are intentional, purposeful, and have a reliable body of evidence behind them can transform the lives of low-income workers. Women, in particular, can begin to thrive instead of just surviving in labor-intensive contexts. Open communication can signal a significant environmental shift in how factory management are willing to navigate relationships with workers. It can also provide support for labor rights organizations and unions to hone in on what problems they have to tackle head on. And for the workers? If your workplace made listening to you a priority, you’d want to speak up more. 

Like Anant said, a simple solution that moves towards resolving complex problems.

And there you have it! The first season of What about Work? With this podcast, we set out to put challenges women workers in the garment industry face under the microscope. And bring to light some possible solutions that stakeholders can implement. Our goal was to show how worker wellbeing is good for business and business should only happen when worker wellbeing is prioritized. We are so grateful that you took the time to tune in. And we hope you’ll return for Season 2. When and where? We’ll keep you updated.

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