Abusive behaviour in the form of discrimination and harassment are two areas covered by the ETP Global Standard (823.15 kB) that aren’t readily dealt with by an audit process. In some areas, barriers may exist that prevent women from securing full time employment and then advancing their careers. Other issues include unfair job and housing allocation, reduced hours during the low season and sexual harassment.
Supervisor and Management Training
In order to tackle these issues, ETP partnered the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) who have developed well respected training for both senior managers and supervisors. Supervisors have direct contact with workers on a daily basis, and as such play a major part in determining how they’re treated. However, supervisors usually have very little ‘formal’ training and often lack the skills or desire to handle sensitive issues like discrimination and harassment.
What’s Included?
Using role play and other interactive sessions the training aims to improve supervisors’ overall people management skills. It also gives them the skills and knowledge to identify and address issues of discrimination and harassment, including sexual harassment.
The benefits
To date over 80 supervisors and 50 managers from 16 Kenyan Tea Development Agency factories have been trained. Benefits to business and to staff include:
- Improved working conditions
- More effective management
- Increased productivity
