From 18 July to 22 August 2023, we implemented our first human rights training as part of our participation in the UN Global Compact. Over a period of about 5 weeks, the staff was to watch various information videos and think about them.
Goals and Contents
The human rights training was planned, designed and implemented by Lisa Ben Baruch and Sophia Rohbogner, who also coordinate participation in the UN Global Compact. Lisa is primarily responsible for this, as she came up with the idea of joining and put this into practice with the management.
The two wanted to use the training to create an initial basis in the workforce for human rights and to encourage discussion. The focus was on whether there are also internal or external activities at Es-geht! that pose a risk of human rights violations. In addition, they pursued the goal of making employees aware of the Academy of the UN Global Compact and what it has to offer, and thus achieving greater use of the platform.
The first week consisted only of familiarization with Universal Human Rights, but was more concretely related to Es-geht! the following week. This started with why we benefit from respecting human rights as a company, and went into specifics about our day-to-day business: what people do we deal with and how? Are there risks? How can we address them and what measures seem to make sense to address them?
Follow-up and Feedback
The 5 weeks and especially the follow-up on 22.08.23 shows us that the participation in the training was not as high as hoped. This was especially due to the fact that the training fell exactly in the vacation season. Therefore we had to work with lower capacities. Also, the workload increased significantly, so that there was no time left for the training. Nevertheless, Lisa and Sophia were satisfied with the results and received positive feedback as well as constructive criticism.
The core of the follow-up was not only to discuss the results with the staff, but also to classify the risks that had been identified. For this purpose, we used a risk heat map. It was presented during the human rights training in the UN Global Compact Academy course. Such a risk heat map is shown in the picture above.
The feedback from the staff as well as the wishes for next time will be of great use to us. We will use it in our upcoming trainings on the four areas of the UN Global Compact. Also, we are already looking forward to it, as the positive feedback gives us the motivation to continue. We also take our participation in the UN Global Compact seriously. Therefore, want to implement measures so that we can achieve the common goals.
What do you think? Do you also conduct such training courses in your company?
Your Es-geht! Team