Grievance management
Digital training and a grievance mechanism
the perfect combination to ensure legal compliance and maximum impact.
Sustify training for your direct suppliers and our complaint management system are a great combination to minimise and solve grievances. Employees learn about health and safety and human rights, and if they discover that regulations have not been complied with or that human rights have been violated, they can contact an independent body: the Sustify helpline. There, the calls are not only recorded, but classified according to a structured complaint process, processed (ideally resolved directly) and reported to you. Grievance management can only really work if workers have been properly trained beforehand.
With grievance management also at your direct suppliers, you can ensure that human rights and the associated social standards are not only known at your suppliers’ production sites, but also complied with. Having a grievance management system in place encourages workers to report grievances and achieves real improvements on the ground. It will also help you to fulfil your due diligence obligation under the Supply Chain Act (under which a whistleblower system will become mandatory for direct suppliers from 2023).
A phone number that is directly integrated into the Sustify app creates trust among the workforce when reporting grievances, as this number cannot be manipulated. Professional case management by native speakers, transparent documentation and quality control by Sustify helps ensure that you avoid grievances altogether, and that any grievances do occur are quickly resolved satisfactorily.
Ling-Li wants to complain
Worker Ling-Li learned about fire safety regulations in the Sustify training and knows that the factory’s emergency exits must always be kept clear. This allows workers to exit the building quickly in the event of a fire. However, Ling-Li notices that her supervisor is still stacking boxes in front of the emergency exit. She doesn’t dare say anything because he is, after all, her supervisor. What now? There is a tattered notice on the bulletin board with a complaints hotline, but at first no one answers the phone – when they do, the call center agents do not think they are the right people to talk to.
Sustify's grievance management
At a glance:
- Hotline number integrated into courses
- Independent third-party provider (no connection to factory/plant or audit company)
- Hotline with native speaking, trained agents and coaches
- Confidential case management (which can be anonymous if desired)
- Direct joint case management (instead of just recording the complaint)
- Experienced trainers from the CR field instead of call center agents
- Reporting on Excel, which can be adapted to your needs and can easily integrate into existing solutions
- Quality control by Sustify Germany
- Currently available in China and India, under development for other countries
Your advantages:
- You identify risks in supply chains at an early stage
- You gain valuable insights for risk prevention and mitigation in procurement including real-time analysis.
- You take into account current and future legislation in the area of human rights