Background

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Suppliers in the Global South, particularly MSMEs, face mounting pressure to demonstrate effective human rights due diligence while navigating climate shocks, market volatility, and rapid technological change. Traditional audit-based approaches often miss early warning signs and leave worker grievances unresolved for extended periods. Meanwhile, buyers, investors, and regulators demand clearer evidence of due diligence outcomes, and workers need accessible pathways to remedy.

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This interactive session introduces a practical five-step routine (Capture → Triage → Resolve → Verify → Learn) that participants can deploy at a pilot site within 30 days. The framework is technology-agnostic, operating effectively whether implemented through paper systems, WhatsApp, IVR, or sophisticated digital platforms.. This routine enables workers to report their concerns through confidential, language-accessible channels, with designated queue owners that’d provide an acknowledgement within 48 hours and close standard issues within 14 days.

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The session opens with senior practitioners, one from a brand and one from a supplier, sharing before-and-after metrics, trust-building safeguards, and operational lessons learned from their on-ground experiences (using examples of real cases). This sets the stage for an intensive hands-on workshop where participants work with complex, realistic case studies to design context-appropriate grievance systems.

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The session will leverage the collective wisdom of the participants by first identifying gaps in current systems, then applying the framework to address real challenges they face. Groups will tackle scenarios ranging from wage shortfalls and excessive overtime to transportation safety and cultural sensitivity issues. Advanced discussions can further address scaling beyond pilot sites, integration with existing compliance systems, and navigation of conflicting local norms.

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The workshop produces immediately deployable outputs: one-page implementation blueprints with clear ownership, time targets, and a basic business case for securing management approval.

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Key Objectives

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• Proven system templates including one-page grievance blueprints, 30-day deployment plans, and business cases - tested through realistic scenarios and ready for adaptation to any workplace context.

• Expert-validated best practices from brand and supplier speakers on trust-building safeguards, operational integration challenges, and scaling approaches for worker feedback systems across different contexts.

• Hands-on experience working through real workplace issues that gives all participants - whether buyers, suppliers, investors, or civil society - practical understanding of how effective grievance systems actually work.

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Guiding Questions

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• How can organizations implement effective worker grievance systems that deliver results within 30 days, regardless of their technology capacity?

• What are the essential trust-building elements that make workers actually use grievance mechanisms and believe issues will be resolved?

• How do successful companies design grievance systems that work across different cultural contexts, workforce profiles, and operational constraints?

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Format

• Interactive workshop (60 minutes): Expert practitioner presentations (15 min) followed by hands-on small group activity using case studies (35 min), concluding with synthesis and practical take-aways (10 min). Participants work in small groups with realistic workplace scenarios, apply the five-step framework, and create implementable templates they can photograph and adapt for their own contexts.

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Session Partners