Empowering worker voice

Can technology be harnessed to empower worker voice? We talk about how the worker voice tool, Inache, helps to address accumulated frustration, unresolved blockages, and untapped ideas in a labor-intensive setting and facilitates simple communication between management and workers.  Listen to interesting insights from GBL folks on what challenges  and worker-behavior factors were considered while developing Inache.  We discuss more about the tool’s reception and case stories from workers themselves.  Visit GBL Ventures to know more about Inache.

Listening to your workers on factory floors can make them feel heard and drive dialogue, productivity, and progress. GBL researchers discuss the importance of worker voice and breaking down the barriers that hold it back.

Do rural women want paid work? How far are they willing to go for paid work? What do they think of flexible and formal paid employment opportunities? How do they view men’s role in household dynamics? We try to find answers to these questions through the lens of the Female Labour Supply project- designed to provide a formal and flexible employment option for rural women. Tune in to the village of Nimdih, where GBL worked with women to understand their needs better. As we unravel more about the project's overall design, we also try to understand whether these distinctive interventions can hold their own in the marketplace.

If rural women can't travel to work, can work travel to them? We explore the complexities of rural women’s work and declining labor force participation. Women face multiple obstacles to accessing work, including a lack of mobility, fewer opportunities, and childcare. Hear from the folks at GBL on their fieldwork experiences in Jharkhand (India) for the FLS, Female Labor Supply, project, which sees in the problem of rural women’s labor participation one possible solution of formal, flexible work.

Even when women sacrifice their own needs for their families’ sake, they still struggle financially. Can the private sector support low-income women workers in maximizing their income? We discuss a salary advance tool by GBL that enables workers to have fast, flexible access to their incomes at their workplace when facing a cash crunch. However, with limited access to and knowledge of digital technology, a Digital Financial Service tool comes with many challenges. So we looked at how technical training can impact women workers’ access to financial support. Tune in to hear more from researchers and workers all in one episode!

Despite having a consistent income source, most workers cannot stretch their earnings until the next payday. For example, they could have a medical emergency that involves more than simply paying medical bills. It may also imply spending money to go to and from the place of treatment. Low-income families face numerous such moments of acute stress. What social and personal factors prevent women employees from stretching their income for a month? What do they do to resolve those financial issues? How can a lack of funds affect them during a time of need? What decision-making authority do they have over their own hard-earned money? Is it possible to lessen these stressors? We discuss these financial challenges faced by women workers in low-income contexts.

Even with comparable soft skills, why are women not considered as supervisor material? Preconceived notions can play an essential role in the low number of women supervisors on factory floors. But, even for those who do become supervisors, these perceptions impact how competent they’re believed to be by others on the floor. That’s just how factory floors function. However, that too, can change! Training in soft skills has been shown to lead to direct improvement in confidence. Skills like improved communication and time management can have a tremendous impact on the way the garment sector functions.    In this episode, we hear from experts- both from research backgrounds and the blue-collar workforce, as to how soft skills can help women climb the ladder in factories. 

What do blue-collar workers have to gain from soft skills? A lot! Think about your own workplace. A conflict that wasn’t handled well. A must-do that didn’t quite get done. Or even something small like a lost email. The responses to all of these matter. They can have an incredible impact on our experience of going to work. Communication, problem-solving, time management, leadership qualities among others are always necessary professional skills. The difficulty is that it is more obvious when the people around us lack these soft skills than when they exhibit them. And when it comes to the high-pressure, high-stakes environment of labor-intensive industries, soft skills can be an important prism to understand existing inequities and how to solve them.

Our first episode is on the garment sector. How it has changed. How it hasn’t. And how the lives of countless women across India are delicately woven to it. In many countries across South Asia, women make up a significant portion of the garment sector’s workforce. More than a quarter in Nepal. 8 out of 10 in Sri Lanka. 60% in India. In Bangladesh, higher still. And in Pakistan, it's the second largest employer of women. What are their stories? Their concerns? Their ambitions? Press play to find out. Music sourced from: SergeQuadrado