Talking with Tiny Miracles
Namrata Rao is the Monitoring and Evaluation Lead at Tiny Miracles.
Visibility That Starts With Workers
Tiny Miracles’ Approach to Worker Voice
What led you to initiate this project?
We reached out to &Wider a year ago because we wanted an unbiased and ethical surveying method of assessing working conditions and human rights within our factories at Tiny Miracles. We wanted an organisation that could help us with the end-to-end process, right from data collection to analysis and visualisation, to enable decision-making and actions. To add, we wanted the responses to come directly from our workforce and the surveys to be digitally implemented in their local languages.
What specific challenges were you trying to address?
Our main objective was to improve working conditions in our production hubs that align more closely with the needs of our workers as well as global standards. We have 2 hubs in Mumbai and 1 in Alibag. We were looking for an organisation that collects this data in an unbiased manner. While we have our internal MnE system, we felt that workers may not be honest in their responses if the company directly asked these questions. This was crucial as it ensures the credibility of the responses collected. We co-created a survey consisting of 20 questions that can easily be answered in under 5 minutes.
What aspects of the monitoring process did you find most valuable?
We like that they have the IVR and WhatsApp system that collects the data digitally. The survey goes on for about a 2-week period. Workers can respond through simple ‘yes’ , ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’ options.
The surveys are translated into local languages
Their data analysis dashboards and traffic light graphs help us easily understand the data and identify areas of improvement.
Based on worker responses, they highlight areas we are doing well in and areas for improvement for the company. The company is also given a score between 1-10 to see how we performed.
The dashboard enables us to compare different sites and different survey cycles to measure improvements and possible causes.
It is wonderful to have a super-responsive POC who is patient and guides us through the process.
How are you currently utilising the data collected?
It informs us in making decisions regarding improvements to our production units.
For instance, we have followed up on surveys by increasing our offering of financial products, including access to company savings schemes and advances, as well as making changes to our day care facility at one of our sites.
We are sharing the results with the workers’ committees for their review and input into our actions.
Since we do the survey every 6 months, we are also able to see the impact of our programs.
We compare it with our internal MnE trackers and surveys to triangulate data and make meaningful inferences
Right from the start to the end, everything happens in an ethical manner. Informed consent is taken from workers to receive calls, and at no point are any personal identifiers shared.
What has your overall experience been like working with &Wider?
Very positive. Enjoy working with them as they’re prompt in their communication and consistently support the organisation in the survey implementation process. We also find the insights generated through this engagement useful for our internal decision making process