Thomson Reuters Foundations's Workforce Due Diligence Package

The context

There is increasing expectations from stakeholders, investors, national and international legislation and trading partners to respect human rights throughout a company’s operations and supply chain. Many companies lack the resources, knowledge, or capacity to implement effective human rights due diligence (HRDD) frameworks. Our project aims to bridge this gap by providing practical guidance, tools, and support tailored to the local context.

The offering

Since 2020, the Thomson Reuters Foundation has been promoting responsible business practices in Thailand and Malaysia by engaging with national actors in the private sector and beyond. 

In response to the needs identified through our engagement in these countries, particularly the demand for guidance on prioritising interventions to meet the increasing requirements of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting mechanisms, the TRF has developed the following package. This package aims to improve businesses’ understanding of their workforce data, increase awareness of potential data gaps, emphasise the risks these gaps pose to operations, and provide guidance on the steps needed to address them. The result of this initiative is our Workforce Due Diligence Package (WDDP)—a free, practical, low-burden tool that helps companies improve their HRDD. The tools provided are:

• Workforce Due Diligence Training (WDDTr): an exclusive HRDD Training to strengthen your capacity to understand key risks, expectations, and regulatory trends, and build the skills to improve your workforce management, and reporting, including an implementation roadmap and personal action plan. The training is delivered via a one-day in person session and ongoing online modules to cement learning over roughly the next 3 months, with an online closing session
• Workforce Due Diligence Toolkit (WDDT):
  • An easy to access and practical survey to help you assess your HRDD policies and practices that comes with detailed guidance to help you answer these impactful questions
  • Feedback on your policies and practices, including:
    • A benchmark report that provides a concise gap analysis identifying priority areas for improvement
    • Suggested actions and a practical roadmap for next steps
    • An optional one-page performance summary to share with buyers or investors
  • Legal Guidance to provide a comprehensive overview of the countries’ existing legal and regulatory landscape as it relates to ESG and HRDD. This detailed legal research offers support to assess companies’ risk from operational, legal, or reputational perspectives.

The business case

• Knowledge building: free in-person training and follow up online to cement learning and build resilience
• Material business impacts: companies that improve labour standards and worker engagement have been shown to record around 6% higher revenue growth, 6–7% higher valuation multiples, and 65–70% higher EBITDA margins among highly satisfied employee cohorts
• Expanded networks: participation also helps SMEs win and retain international buyers, improve access to capital from responsible investors, and stay ahead of tightening regulations — including alignment with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and key local requirements in the region

Resources

• A short brochure that explains the whole project and how companies can benefit from participation
  • There is also a version that outlines the case for participation in Malaysia and in Thailand in the light of the EU Free Trade Agreements
• The survey itself can be accessed in two ways:
  • Via the online portal where all responses must be submitted in English here or in Thai here
  • Via an Excel download that can be used as an offline version for reference only in English here and in Thai here
• Guidance on how to answer each question of the survey
• Guidance on how investors should be talking about these topics and what they should be looking out for

Get in touch

The team is always available to help. Please reach out to Rosie Mackenzie (rosie.mackenzie@thomsonreuters.com) with any questions you might have.

While the current Workforce Due Diligence Package (WDDP) is specifically designed for companies operating in Thailand and Malaysia, the Thomson Reuters Foundation plans to expand its availability to other regions. If you are interested in learning more about the team’s plans, please do not hesitate to contact us.