CSR in practice: 5 lessons on employee participation learned from Project Salahe

What if people do have something to say, but prefer to remain silent?

Many companies endorse the importance of social dialogue and employee participation. But there is often a gap between intention and realization. Because what if workers do want to say something, but don't feel comfortable actually doing so?

At Hydrowear, we believe it is essential to facilitate social dialogue, and this also applies to our production partners. In Project Salahe, carried out at our supplier in India, we investigated what is really needed to not only encourage employee participation, but also to ensure it is sustainable.

Below, we share the five most important lessons we learned about how to achieve employee participation in practice.

Lesson 1: Trust does not come naturally; you have to earn it.

Setting up a workers' committee sounds simple. But building trust in a factory where employees are used to keeping quiet is complex.

What we encountered:

• Reluctance to speak up
• Fear of repercussions
• Limited belief that ‘speaking up’ has any effect

What worked:

• Training in small, safe groups
• Games and role-playing to lower barriers
• Visible follow-up on suggestions (“your idea changed this”)

Building trust takes time, attention, and repetition. But it is the absolute foundation.

Lesson 2: Training managers is just as important as training employees.

Participation fails if it remains top-down. Managers are crucial, not only to listen, but to take real action.

What we noticed:

• Some managers saw participation as extra work.
• Not everyone knew how to listen properly or deal with criticism.

Our approach:

• Targeted communication training for managers.
• Joint sessions with employees and managers.
• Show results: what did participation yield in terms of productivity, cooperation, and atmosphere?

A strong work culture requires leadership at all levels.

Lesson 4: Culture and hierarchy cannot be ignored, but they can be broken down.

The factory mainly employed women. Many of them combined work with caring responsibilities at home. Speaking in a group or criticizing a manager did not feel natural.

What helped:

• Small, tailor-made sessions
• Playful methods for practicing conversation
• Diverse committees
• Attention to the position of women and less experienced workers

Social safety and equality do not come naturally. But you can actively build them.

Lesson 5: If you want participation to continue, you have to institutionalize it.

Good initiatives often fall by the wayside after a project ends. That's why we opted for long-term safeguards.

What we did:

• Committees incorporated into policy and processes
• Annual refresher training sessions planned
• Childcare and career policy added as structural areas for improvement
• Monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment built in