One of the biggest challenges in creating safe and respectful workplaces is changing entrenched attitudes. A code of conduct sets expectations, but genuine culture change requires people to question assumptions, empathise with others, and rebuild everyday respect.
In recent decades, factory workplace reforms such as incentive pay schemes and supervisor training have often delivered improvements in workplace performance. But they are also unintentionally increasing harassment and exploitation, fuelling power imbalances and creating hidden risks.
By rebuilding respect and understanding within workplaces through social psychology techniques and facilitated exercises, organisations can avoid the negative effects of poorly designed reforms, while also achieving real gains in productivity and worker wellbeing.
RESTART is designed to address these entrenched attitudes. Grounded in social psychology, it helps people understand and address the behaviours that lead to disrespect, discrimination, and abuse. Managers and supervisors often unconsciously dehumanise workers under pressure; workers may feel powerless to speak up. RESTART breaks this cycle by creating structured spaces for dialogue, reflection, and shared understanding.
Through guided exercises, storytelling, and facilitated discussion, participants:
By connecting policies to lived experience, RESTART helps entire teams, from factory floor to senior management, embed the mindsets and relationships needed to make reforms work in practice. The result is a workplace culture where dignity, empathy, and accountability become part of everyday working life.
Amid increasing human rights due diligence expectations, RESTART reduces reputational and operational risk, by strengthening supplier resilience and improving the everyday experiences of workers. It safeguards against the unintended consequences of reform initiatives by building trust and respect on the factory floor.
RESTART reduces harassment, protecting workplaces from the unintended consequences of other well-intentioned reforms.
RESTART created calmer, healthier, and more motivated workers, rehumanising relationships, narrowing power gaps, and rebuilding genuine trust in HR processes.
Absenteeism fell. Before RESTART, unclear pay systems forced workers to come in sick rather than risk losing income. After RESTART, workers could take legitimate sick leave without fear of losing wages. This reduced sickness levels and gave factories a more consistent, reliable workforce.
Productivity rose. Thanks to better HR, clearer communication, and calmer workers, not through exploitation or increased pressure. This is a different kind of productivity gain: rooted in wellbeing, not extraction.
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