Organizations constantly work to safeguard the health, safety, and legal rights of their workers, as well as the community and environment in which they conduct business and the families and communities of the people who work in their supply and distribution chains. This process is known as social compliance. Concerns about worker labour rights, just labour laws, the mining and use of conflict minerals, as well as general environmental and sustainability issues, may be addressed by social compliance and social responsibility.
Sustainability, which encompasses ethics (or how people and animals are treated), the environment, and the economy, is another name for social compliance. A means to prove a company's compliance with social compliance standards is through social compliance auditing. A baseline for compliance monitoring is provided by documenting processes and behaviour. Socially responsible investing (SRI) decisions can also be influenced by ethical conduct and audit reporting.
Retailers and manufacturers, often known as purchasers or brands, are the principal social compliance auditing practitioners. Brands can keep an eye on the social practices of their supply chain through audits, such as upholding corporate purchasing standards of conduct and abiding by regional labour, health, and safety legislation.
What is a social compliance audit?
A social compliance audit, also known as a social audit or an ethical audit, is a technique to learn more about a company and make sure it complies with socially responsible standards. An impartial auditor typically conducts audits. These audits are typically carried out by auditors at external locations like production facilities, factories, farms, or packaging facilities. Also, some organizations take the help of a social compliance consultant to make the audit and certification process easy.
The internal audit or self-analysis that an organization conducts to understand how the organization itself influences the society in which it operates is referred to in some sources as a social audit. In addition to the more traditional factors like pay structure, perks, and work culture, a company may analyse its charitable giving, volunteer work, energy use, and green initiatives, such as recycling and composting, when it conducts an internal audit.
What exactly is the objective of a social compliance audit?
A facility audit is carried out to confirm and prove that a facility complies with local laws and regulations as well as established standards for employee safety, health, and freedom of movement. Audits confirm that facilities are moving toward continual improvement in working conditions as part of a long-term auditing program. The following areas may have the potential for improvement, according to audits:
- Underage labour
- Collective bargaining
- Discrimination
- Document review
- Dormitories
- Environment
- Freedom of association
- Harassment and abuse
- Health and safety
- Prison or forced labour
- Wages
- Excessive work hours
The role of the auditor in a social compliance audit
A Social Compliance auditor may be hired by a third-party company or work as an employee of the purchasing company when conducting an audit. To get beyond linguistic and cultural hurdles, the latter method is frequently required. The auditor gathers information and documentation, which they then present to the facility and the client, or the brand. Although the auditor is allowed to offer ideas, it is their responsibility to be objective. The SA 8000 auditor training may help to understand these facts as opportunities instead of non-compliance as a problem or issue.
Strong interpersonal and communication skills are necessary. Along with that, the auditor should have some investigative skills. The breadth of expertise needed for the job includes anything from the comprehension of payroll and working hours to familiarity with labour law. They must be able to communicate with management as well as with workers, who can be at quite different levels, she says. Auditors who exhibit this adaptability and thorough understanding of the workplace have backgrounds in a variety of auditing-related professions, including human resources, accounting, law, and investigative journalism.
Additionally, an auditor's job might be physically demanding. The need for quick turnarounds between sites in various cities or even different countries can make the travel requirements alone demanding. Auditor reports must be written at night after auditing throughout the day, frequently with a constrained turnaround time.
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The compliance consultant would be involved in analysing the areas of vulnerability and the different questionnaires for their clients and then recommending the necessary actions to remedy them.
They will also analyse the architecture of the client’s network, review their policy and their documentation procedure while providing recommendations based on technical deliverables.
For all of this, the compliance consultant would be developing strong relationships with the client by having interactions with them to understand their business and prepare the necessary reports at an operator, managerial and an executive level.
The compliance consultant would be expected to have about 5 years of experience in the industry and hold a bachelor’s degree in the relevant fields.
This job is high profile and will require a positive attitude.
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