Construction software platform Compliance Chain and ethical consultancy firm Align Ltd, have partnered to improve ethical labour practices by offering onsite ‘Lived Experience’ Modern Slavery assessments.
Align Ltd specialises in ensuring ethical practices and a transparent supply chain for social impact-driven businesses, not-for-profit organisations, and public entities; whilst Compliance Chain supports public and private sector clients to track, monitor and deliver effective social value plans.
‘Lived Experience’ assessments, provided by Align, are conducted by lived experience consultants who have been exploited previously. Lived experience consultants are vital to the assessments, providing an important perspective and experience in what could be a challenging and delicate situation for workers.
The partnership offers a unique take on Modern Slavery assessments, by harnessing digital tools that enhance transparency and active prevention within construction projects. Clients who use this service through the Compliance Chain platform will also gain access to the Just Good Work app, ensuring organisations have an ongoing picture of what is happening onsite.
Just Good Work is an interactive mobile platform - powered by FiftyEight, a certified B-Corp that helps individuals make good choices for better work abroad.
The platform is free for workers and enables them to understand their rights and responsibilities throughout the process alongside good advice on safe recruitment, migration, and employment in their new workplace.
As modern slavery remains a serious global issue infiltrating the construction industry, Compliance Chain, Align and FiftyEight offer a unique partnership in combating unethical practices and exploitation.
Whilst Align conducts Lived Experience, honest assessments of the activities on site, Compliance Chain can provide practical advice to companies on the steps they should take to protect workers, and a digital tool that allows them to track their social value delivery.
Before, during and after the assessment has concluded, companies can access the Just Good Work app, which offers workers protection and advice whilst providing companies with live worker feedback, giving real-time insights across their supply chains that fill in the gaps between audits.
This offering is exclusive to clients who use Compliance Chain to track their social value delivery and can be requested through the platform.
Adam Cochrane, Head of Operations at Compliance Chain commented:
“We are honoured to be working in partnership with Align and FiftyEight to deliver practical and meaningful modern slavery assessments to our clients.
“Our Modern Slavery assessments protect workers at its core. Through lived experience assessors and ongoing monitoring through digital solutions, ensures that companies can access practical advice and detailed steps they should implement to protect workers.”
“Companies that currently track and measure their social value using Compliance Chain can easily request a modern slavery assessment through the platform, with the added reassurance that they will be able to access real-time insights between audits.”
Phillip Clayton, Chief Executive Officer at Align Ltd added:
“We are proud to partner with Compliance Chain and FiftyEight to offer this innovative approach to the construction sector.
“We believe that any approach that does not include those with lived experience will lack robust outcomes. The most effective prevention methods come from the meaningful inclusion of those with lived experience. They are uniquely placed to assess risks on site; having experienced exploitation, they know what the signs and symptoms are and can bring unique insight to prevention and risk mitigation.
“With companies looking to go ‘beyond audit’ this method alloys prevention technology and lived experience insight in an end-to-end site risk management process delivering tangible results and evaluation side by side.
We hope this will set a new standard in the construction space.”
Quintin Lake, Executive Director at FiftyEight added:
“Our aim with Just Good Work is to get it into the hands of as many workers who can benefit from it as possible and this partnership helps accelerate that for the construction sector. As workers better understand what is okay and what isn’t through information in their own language, real-time insights about their experience can help shine a light on both good practices and where improvements are needed to proactively prevent modern slavery for workers and companies alike.”