In many migration corridors around the world, nearly all migrant workers pay recruitment fees and related costs to obtain employment. The prevention of such payments remains one of the biggest challenges to responsible recruitment globally.
Unfortunately, despite increasingly ‘hard’ laws and media scrutiny on the issue, the problem persists. Demand for jobs and opportunities increases the risks faced by workers, and migrant workers are three times more likely to be at risk of forced labour than other workers.
And this isn’t an issue specific to a certain part of the world, industry or setting. Labour migration by nature presents a high risk to social sustainability practices; but practical solutions do exist across the supply chain.
In recognition of the complexities of remediating this issue, Impactt offers a suite of Responsible Recruitment services and recently hosted a webinar on the issues, focusing on practical solutions for businesses.
What do we mean by responsible recruitment?
Responsible recruitment, also referred to as ethical or fair recruitment, means recruiting all workers’ lawfully and in a fair and transparent manner that respects and protects their rights throughout recruitment, work and post-termination.
Migrant workers’ journeys are extremely complex; often involving one or several labour recruiters in their country of origin, and several screening and selection processes prior to departing for their destination country. Once they arrive, further tests may be needed. At each stage, workers engage with a number of stakeholders, from labour recruiters and subagents, to employment agencies, medical, training, transport and housing providers and government departments; not to mention their employer. The number of stakeholders involved exacerbates the risks:
- Recruitment by unlicensed or unauthorized subagents. Although businesses may have direct relationships with reputable recruitment agencies, these recruiters will often need to engage a subagent. It is much harder to have visibility of, and complete due diligence on, this subagent. Companies that are not authorised or licenced present an extremely high risk. They may operate without proper oversight and therefore local enforcement agencies are not able to monitor their regulatory compliance, presenting an opportunity for them to operate unlawfully.
- Charging of recruitment fees. Workers are vulnerable to charges of excessive and illegitimate fees. Recruitment fees might be how a recruitment agency gets paid for services around recruitment related costs. It could be things like travel, air tickets, medical etc. But the issue here is when the worker is expected to cover these costs. There are also the illegitimate, unreasonable and undisclosed costs, which fund kickbacks and corruption, and often occur as a result of unlicensed agents or brokers taking advantage.
- Non-transparent employment terms. As agencies are often making efforts to fill as many roles as possible quickly, there may be a lack of transparency about the role, which can create dissatisfaction and exploitation of workers. They may also fall short in ensuring workers have the correct documentation. Workers who are unclear of the terms and conditions of employment are at high risk of exploitation and forced labour.
- Withholding of personal documents. When processing workers applications, recruiters will often withhold workers personal documents e.g. passport, driver’s license, medical records or financial information. This poses a risk to workers as if recruiters retain workers’ documents, this often considered as an act to control their movements and ensure compliance, creating a form of forced labour. It can create a power imbalance between the recruiter/employers and employees, making it easier for them to exploit workers.
- Unsafe travel. Unsafe transportation and lodging arrangements during the recruitment process can pose significant risks to workers, particularly those who are migrating to a new country or region who are required to travel long distances.
Put simply, responsible recruitment means a recruitment journey where workers are not charged recruitment fees, they retain control of official documents and are fully informed about employment terms before making the decision to migrate.
The business case for responsible recruitment
When recruitment goes wrong, it can have huge impacts on your workers and ultimately your business. Recruitment can be decisive in determining workers’ employment experiences and decent work depends on responsible recruitment.
The impact on workers is easy to see: an employee who has racked up debt, been tricked into a job or no longer has their personal identification documents is not going to be happy, healthy or incentivized to work.
Organisations who uphold the highest ethical recruitment practices and working conditions are more competitive and have better market access. Social sustainability is therefore highly significant for companies, and we know this significance will increase.
Impactt’s approach to responsible recruitment
Our approach is grounded in industry frameworks, supporting clients to make use of existing resources to implement responsible recruitment practices. We tailor these to the specifics of each business’ supply chain, and pair our sectoral knowledge with practical prevention guidance and understanding of on-the-ground realities.
The key frameworks are:
- The IOM’s Migrant Worker Guidelines for Employers, which help employers recruit and employ migrant workers ethically and responsibly. These guidelines emphasize fair recruitment practices, clear employment contracts, and ensuring the protection of migrant workers’ rights throughout the employment process.
- Employer Pays Principle: “No worker should pay for a job – the costs of recruitment should be borne not by the worker but by the employer.” Adoption of the Employer Pays Principle across all industries is fundamental to combatting exploitation, forced labour, and trafficking of migrant workers in global supply chains and represents an important step in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal of decent work for all.
- The Responsible Recruitment Toolkit is an online resource designed to help businesses adopt ethical recruitment practices. It provides comprehensive guidance, tools, and best practices to ensure compliance with labour standards, prevent exploitation, and promote diversity in recruitment processes.
We discuss practical steps to responsible recruitment in our webinar on this topic. In summary, we advise:
- Identifying and assessing potential impacts within each tender. By requiring detailed and open tender applications, and benchmarking the information provided against published reports, a business can build a more complete picture of recruitment risks.
- Communicating and collaborating within sectors, supply chains and source countries about the “true” cost of ethical recruitment. This may have implications for prices across the supply chain and requires conversations and agreement between buyers to ensure none are rewarded for continuing to act unethically.
- Tracking implementation and cooperating through Corrective Action Plans for shortlisted agencies. Using OECD Due Diligence Guidance to assess agencies, and mentoring and capacity building as well as clear responsibilities for improvements within recruitment agencies.
- Enhancing due diligence to cease, prevent and mitigate irresponsible recruitment. For example, through strict clauses in Service Level Agreements which set out requirements around transparent information for workers, access to grievance mechanisms and processes for continuous improvement.
Find out more here or contact info@impacttlimited.com to discuss how Impactt can support your business to implement responsible recruitment practices.
