Respect should begin with supervisors

You didn't need to be a social auditor to guess that the workers at the Kent-based fresh produce supplier I visited last week were treated with respect.

From the moment I stepped through the door I was struck by the positive atmosphere. It was partly the cheerful ribbing and teasing that took place among all levels of staff. I also noticed that workers appeared to move in and out of management offices freely. On the factory floor, I sometimes found it hard to distinguish managers from workers.

The workers I spoke to also seemed relaxed and open. Linda said how much she appreciated the fact that people were friendly, and made the effort to help agency workers feel welcome and learn their tasks.

Vita told me how two years ago she'd had to leave her 5 year old son behind in Latvia so she could come and find work in the UK. After a difficult first six months she's now settled in Margate with her son, and says she wants to stay - apparently people over here smile more than they do in Latvia!

Clearly, the company has invested in its workforce, and particularly in building positive communications among staff.

Of course, no company employing large numbers of workers in such a pressurised industry is ever going to be completely free of HR issues.

But this scenario was clearly a far cry from the horror stories we hear so often from around the world, including the UK.

Harassement and discrimination - an intractable problem

They include people at work being harassed and shouted at by managers determined to squeeze every last drop of energy out of them, discriminated against, and forced to work such long hours and under such appalling conditions that some quite literally drop dead with exhaustion.

The ETI Base Code states that there should be no bullying and harassment of workers, nor discrimination on any grounds. Yet these issues are rarely picked up by social audits and notoriously intractable to solve.

ETI members have pinpointed the attitudes and capacity of line supervisors as major barriers to progress. These are the people who manage workers on a daily basis. Many of them started out as ordinary workers - ironically, they are often the major perpetrators of abuse.

Brenda Achieng, HR manager at Homegrown in Kenya describes the problem neatly. She says: "People often get promoted to supervisory roles without receiving adequate training on people management. They then try and manage the best way they can - which sometimes ends in disaster!"

Getting supervisors to understand their role as people managers

One of the keys to unlocking the problem is to get supervisors to understand their role as people managers. The good news is that several new initiatives around the world are starting to make this happen.

In Cambodia, for example, the ILO's Better Work Programme has recently reported how its Supervisory Skills Programme is helping supervisors to 'become firm, fair and effective leaders'. One supervisor who has participated in the training said: "After attending the training I become more patient. I learned about human behaviour and effective communication."

Critically, the ILO notes that the training has also yielded business benefits for employers, including an increase in factory productivity and product quality as well as a decline in staff absenteeism.

Early results from ETI's own Supervisor Training Programme also indicate that it is helping managers, supervisors and workers to develop new ways of communicating with each other.

G's Marketing in the UK, for example, which piloted the training in 2008, reports that supervisors are now much more confident in dealing with ‘people issues'. Says Group HR Director Beverley Dixon: "People are much more ready to discuss issues that arise."

Homegrown is also planning to roll out the training to 400 of its supervisors this year - managers there are convinced that their business will benefit.

In South Africa too, we have just kicked off work with the Wine and Agricultural Industry Ethical Trade Association (WIETA) on a major Comic Relief-funded project to roll out our training to reach an estimated 5,000 workers over the next three years.

Training supervisors is no panacea for all workers ills. But the fact that more companies are investing in it is evidence of a growing recognition that building suppliers' own human resources capacity, rather than simply dictating to them from on high, is key to making progress in helping workers in supply chains access their rights.

It's all about placing ownership of workers' rights back in the hands of employers - where it belongs.