At a glance

Over the past five years, FLEX has worked alongside outsourced workers, businesses, suppliers and civil society organisations to test what it takes to put workers at the centre of human rights due diligence in practice.

We started with a simple question: what happens when workers’ knowledge and experiences are brought into the decisions that shape their working lives?

Our experience showed that this can lead to meaningful change—but hearing from workers is only the beginning. What happens next depends on whether businesses, suppliers and others have the relationships, structures and decision-making processes needed to act on what workers share.

What we learned

• Worker experiences need somewhere to go. What workers share needs clear routes into the teams and processes with the power to act—from operations and supplier management to procurement and contract renewal.
• Responsibility may be shared, but action still needs an owner. In outsourced services, buyers and suppliers both shape working conditions. Asking who is best placed to make a change can help turn shared responsibility into practical action.
• Start with what matters to workers—and what can realistically change. Practical improvements can address immediate priorities while building the confidence and capacity needed for more ambitious change.
• What exists on paper and what workers experience are not always the same. Policies and supplier reporting show how systems are intended to work; worker evidence shows how they are experienced in practice.
• Trust and independence must be designed into the process. Workers need to understand who is involved, what will happen to their information, how they will be protected and what they can realistically expect to happen afterwards.
• Lasting change means connecting better practice to the systems that sustain it. Improvements are more likely to last when they become part of how organisations make decisions, manage suppliers and renew contracts.

This report is not a blueprint or another HRDD framework. It is a practical account of what FLEX tried, what worked, what challenged our assumptions and what we would do differently.

Download the full report to explore the lessons for businesses, suppliers and civil society organisations working to make outsourced services fairer and more accountable.