A survey tool that analyzes the labor recruitment experiences of H2 workers to help employers & agents learn about and mitigate the risk of hidden fee-charging.
What is the H2 Worker Voice Survey?
Since 2021, LaMP has deployed a survey tool to support efficient & fair labor recruitment practices within the U.S. H-2A and H-2B visa programs. The anonymous H2 Worker Voice Survey is a low-cost, smartphone-based worker survey to proactively learn about H2 workers’ recruitment experiences – including potential hidden recruitment fees.
This tool offers a quick and low-hassle way for employers to:
1. Learn about the H2 labor recruitment practices of recruitment partners directly and anonymously from workers themselves
2. Monitor recruiting partners’ practice and demonstrate “good faith” efforts to learn about illegal recruitment fee collection
Designed for easy deployment to an unlimited number of H2 workers, this survey is quickly distributed at scale. Surveys have been sent to over 20,000 workers across 300 H-2 employers and counting. We aim to continue expanding our collaboration with additional industry partners.
How does it work?
The H2 Worker Voice Survey is an anonymous 7-minute survey that H2 workers fill out on their phone. Questions focus on four overarching themes:
- Clarity and accuracy of information during the recruitment process,
- Travel expenses refunds,
- Fees paid to middlemen or recruiters, and
- Potential debt from the recruitment process
Because the survey is deployed on a large scale, it detects patterns in worker responses, not individual anecdotes. Since the surveys are anonymous, workers are more likely to respond truthfully, giving employees and agents a clearer picture of what is happening during recruitment.
As the survey implementing partner, LaMP signs an NDA so that results are confidential. Where issues are detected, we work with employers and agents to discover and root out the causes.
How to get involved?
To participate, employers and agents just have to share their H2 workers’ phone numbers. LaMP sends a survey link to workers through WhatsApp. Workers have around one week to complete the survey, after which we analyze the data and confidentially share the results. In total, the process takes 6 to 8 weeks to complete.
Ready to join the 300+ employers already using the H2 Worker Voice Survey? Email Pall Kvaran at pkvaran@lampforum.org
To learn more, please find a brief description of this initiative here and a comprehensive report on the methodology and survey results for 2023 here.
This initiative is supported through funding by the Walmart Foundation.