Consultancy and Asymmetric Audit

Consultancy and Asymmetric Audit

US Global Government Services Provider

In 2011 FSI worked with a US Global Government Services Provider ‘the company’ across multiple countries in South Asia.

Challenge

Prior to FSI’s involvement with this project, the client had over the period of 2 years received multiple anonymous complaints from its culturally diverse workforce.  The complaints had reached the US Government contracting officers and the company was in danger of being terminated for cause.

The complaints were consistent in their qualitative and quantative content; all workers had been charged significant fees pursuant to getting their employment with the company and had suffered intimidation at the hands of the recruitment company that deployed them.  The workers and their families in the source countries had been threatened with violence if they exposed the exploitation to ‘the company’.  One report claimed that the death of a worker while on leave in the source country was not an accident and that he had been killed by officers of the recruitment company because he had refused to pay the exorbitant fees that the recruitment company demanded.  The Legal Councel of ‘the company’ engaged FSI to conduct a covert investigation in order to gain tangible evidence of the claims and to advise on a strategy to eradicate the exploitation and debt bondage.

 

The FSI Solution

The sensitivity of the situation required that FSI carry out a covert audit to ensure the perpetrators of the exploitation were not tipped off.  FSI was required to conduct interviews in a manner that provided assurance to all personnel interviewed that their names would be kept confidential from all company personnel except Legal Councel.  It was clear that the solution to end the exploitation would need to be enacted in both the source and destination countries.

To meet the challenge, we provided:

A transition plan that laid out an effective strategy to remove the exploitative leadership and replace them with a benevolent leadership team
An FSI audit team who gained the trust of a number of the personnel both on the project and other personnel who were at home on leave.
A plan to decouple the company from the recruitment company without compromising operational efficiency on the project.
Recommendations for a leadership structure to prevent recurrence of the risk.
Consultancy and training to enable to ‘the company’ to take over the management of the workforce with ongoing advice and support from FSI in the leadership, recruitment administration, payroll, travel, welfare and training functions.

 

Results

After our engagement, the company were able to present a coherent plan to the ultimate client and retain the contract.  Under our guidance they enacted the transition plan and managed to remove the exploitative recruitment company and replace the perpetrators of the exploitation with high quality managers.

Many of the workforce were extracted from debt bondage, terminated their relationship with the corrupt recruitment company and re-deployed to the same project through an ethical recruitment process.

 

Consultancy | Recruitment | Management | Training Support