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Do your employees know what modern slavery looks like?

Training your workforce will help reduce modern slavery risks in your business and supply chains.
group of men wearing safety helmets and high visibility jackets

More businesses are making an effort to build anti-slavery strategies. Key decision makers are more informed than they once were on modern slavery risks in their business and supply chain.

However, not everyone is aware of modern slavery, the signs to spot and the real risks within every business. Can you confidently say that your employees are informed about modern slavery?

Training your workforce will help reduce risks and give them the knowledge they need to be a part of the solution.

The power lies in your people

Investing in modern slavery training for your employees is key. Your workforce is the engine that fuels your business. If you truly want to eradicate modern slavery from your supply chain, you must educate your employees.

Providing your workforce with modern slavery awareness training will help to ensure they can confidently spot the signs of modern slavery when they see or suspect potential cases. When your employees are better informed on what modern slavery is and how it manifests, they will also feel more confident to report any concerns.

Having the courage to report potential cases is what can help stop modern slavery in its tracks. This kind of collective action is the most powerful way to reduce – and hopefully, one day erase – modern slavery cases.

The benefits of training your workforce

Raising awareness of modern slavery within your workforce is paramount in this era. As a society, we can no longer turn a blind eye to unethical working practices. By informing your employees on modern slavery, you are nurturing sustainable practices that can have many organisational and individual-centred benefits

Training your workforce can reduce the risks to your workers and your business in the long run and help you remain legally compliant.

Providing training also:

      • helps to increase supply chain transparency when workers know the signs to spot and how to report;

      • gives employees the confidence to flag concerns;

      • helps improve your brand image and business reputation;

      • can strengthen investor assurance as a business that evidences a commitment to ethical practices;

      • can help to stabilise your supply chain;

      • proves your business is serious about tackling modern slavery.

     

    Extend beyond your employees

    It’s not just your immediate workforce that needs to be aware of what modern slavery looks like, but your suppliers and contractors too. Due to the complexity of supply chains, transparency decreases, and risks increase the further down you go. Having a long-term modern slavery training strategy that includes your supply chain ecosystem is inherently more effective.

    Making a commitment to tackle modern slavery

    The road to a slavery-free world is one of continuous improvement. It’s a journey that requires frequent attention and adjustment. Providing modern slavery awareness training to your employees is fundamental in addressing exploitation.

    Implementing ongoing worker education into your anti-slavery strategy will strengthen your approach, empower your employees and protect your business.

    Unseen UK ensures businesses and statutory agencies get the most relevant and high-quality training possible. We have trained thousands of people using the latest data and real-life case studies from our UK Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline, reaching 50,000 employees through our online training in 2022 alone.

    Do you want to be part of the solution? Get in touch with Unseen Business today.

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    Justine Currell

    As I came to understand more about the issue, including through a visit to an Unseen safehouse, I knew I needed to do more to stop this abuse and exploitation.

    For the last five years of my Civil Service career, I was the Modern Slavery Senior Policy Advisor in the Home Office and led on development of the Modern Slavery Act, including the transparency in supply chains provision and business guidance.

    I joined Unseen to lead the development of the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline, and Unseen’s work with businesses. I am regularly called upon to present at national and international conferences and use my experience of working with Ministers to influence other governments internationally to take action to address modern slavery and, in particular, business supply chain issues.

    In my spare time I enjoy keeping fit, music, reading and travelling.

    Andrew Wallis

    What ultimately compelled me to act was a report on how people from Eastern Europe were being trafficked through Bristol airport to the USA. Kate Garbers, who went on to be an Unseen Director, and I wrote to all the city councillors, MPs and the Police Chief Constable challenging them on the issue. The challenge came back to us: this city needs safe housing for trafficked women. And so Unseen began.

    But we never wanted Unseen to be just about safe housing. We wanted to end slavery once and for all, and that remains our driving focus.

    I chaired the working group for the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark report “It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to Fight Modern Slavery”. This is now acknowledged as the catalyst behind the UK’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015. It was a great honour to be awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours that year. On the other hand, I’ve also been described as “the loveliest disrupter you could ever hope to meet”.

    This job has taken me from building flat-pack furniture for safehouses, to working with businesses to address slavery in supply chains, to delivering training, raising awareness and advising governments around the world.

    When not at work, I enjoy travelling, spending time with my dog Harley, cooking, supporting Liverpool and Yorkshire CC, music (I’m a former DJ) and endurance events such as the Three Peaks Challenge and Tribe Freedom Runs – which I vow never to do again. Until the next time.