AllVoices Startup is developing an app aimed at office workers’ safety

As the global debate about gender discrimination, harassment and personal boundaries in the workplace escalates, startups are looking for ways to use technological tools to solve these problems.

For example, Los Angeles-based startup AllVoices began developing an encrypted communication platform for office workers. It will be a mobile application through which employees can anonymously submit complaints to their HR department. The startup’s CEO Claire Schmidt told TechCrunch that the company recently raised $3 million through seed funding from various independent investors.

According to Schmidt, she was inspired to create such a platform by the story of former Uber employee Susan Fowler, who published an article about repeated harassment and harassment by her superiors. The main advantage of the application will be the anonymity of the sender of the complaint: victims are often hesitant to take steps to protect themselves precisely because of the fear of publicity — after all, this can lead to subsequent harassment, threats, or even the collapse of their career.

After submitting a complaint anonymously, the complainant will receive text notifications of the subsequent investigation of the incident. The name or any other information about the person who sent the record will not be visible not only to his employees, but even to representatives of the platform itself. This, Schmidt hopes, could spur people to report trouble immediately.

Sixty days after the filing of the complaint, the complainant will receive a notification asking if the company has taken appropriate measures, and if so, how effective they have been. The platform will then send the received response back to the company so that management and HR representatives can get feedback on their work.

The AllVoices app will not only accept complaints about harassment. Through it, it will also be possible to report discrimination due to nationality or health characteristics, rude attitude and bias from colleagues, and other problems.

The company plans to strive to make its product free, or at least release a free version with limited features, to allow anonymous complaints even for employees of those companies whose leaders refuse to purchase a paid version of the application for the organization.