Social Audits: Are You Covering Your Bases? QIMA

Economic indicators of the organization must be audited, and required actions should be should if there is a case of any irregularity. This not only put a positive impression on the customers of the company but will also attract investors. View a demo to get familiar with Time Doctor’s employee-friendly workforce analytics features. Social compliance is one area where collaborating with your competitors is better for everyone.

1. There are many examples that show how people find issues with projects and practices.
2. That said, the specific responsibilities aren’t uniform in a global supply chain.
3. The Responsible Jewelry Council (RJC) was formed by the leading mining and retail companies in the jewelry industry to set ethical standards for the watch and jewelry industry.
4. View a demo to get familiar with Time Doctor’s employee-friendly workforce analytics features.
5. The best way to ensure a third-party auditor has conducted themselves competently is by checking that they are a member of APSCA (Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors).

In the best-case scenario, profits rise as consumers prefer to deal with socially responsible companies. Some brands that have begun with a sustainable outlook have done consistently well. Other legacy companies have assumed a social compliance mentality and even produced sustainable consumer products, which the public buys but which leaves investors less impressed.

Rather than considering non-compliance as problems or issues, the auditor may consider these realities as opportunities. Some companies share the results of its analysis with the public, whether the results are positive or not. Publishing a plan to become a more socially conscious corporate citizen can boost the public impression of a company. Evidence of abusive or illegal treatment within your company or supply chain can damage your company’s brand. Likewise, showing concern for sustainability down the supply chain can raise your corporate reputation and polish your brand.

2.1 Information and Documents Required by Social Auditor

“They’ve got to talk to workers but also be able to talk to management, which can be two very different levels,” she explains. Auditors who display this flexibility and comprehensive knowledge of the workplace come from backgrounds as varied as human resources, accounting, legal, investigative journalism, as well as other auditing-related fields. Although we sometimes use the terms social responsibility and social ethics interchangeably, they mean different things. Ethics, from the Greek word ethos, meaning moral character, is about conscience and morality in an individual’s or organization’s life. Ethics may provide the motivation to pursue corporate social responsibility, which concerns following law or policy. Social audits are optional, which means that companies can choose whether to release the results publicly or only use them internally.

2 Difference between Social Audit and Financial Audit

A social audit is a formal review of a company's endeavors, procedures, and code of conduct regarding social responsibility and the company's impact on society. A social audit is an assessment of how well the company is achieving its goals or benchmarks for social responsibility. After an audit, you will review the results and corrective action plan with experts. The next step will be to address any major or minor issues with your team and the supplier.

Your supplier managers should conduct regular check-ins on corrective action plans and ensure compliance with yearly social audits. SMETA is an internationally-recognized methodology that provides visibility into all responsible business practices. The audits are broken into four pillars that utilize the ETI base code (more information below). Labor standards and health and safety are mandatory pillars, while comprehensive environmental assessments and business ethics are add-ons. Human rights due diligence legislation has steadily emerged since 2015 across the globe.

Overcoming challenges in social compliance

These global initiatives address universal social development issues and call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Make sure to verify the processes by visiting the workplace; otherwise, a small mistake in the social auditing report might leave the accuracy of the whole report in jeopardy. In the next step, key issues which are required to be analyzed and tackled through the social audit process should be defined.

Salesforce.com (CRM) is a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest enterprise software companies in the U.S. As part of its social audit and assessment, the company has strived to use 100% renewable energy globally. The company lists its findings including an annual Stakeholder Impact Report on its website.

But, before your business begins a social compliance initiative to review other organizations, you need to understand what you expect of them and what you expect of your own organization. By continuously striving to meet and exceed their social responsibility benchmarks, companies can improve their public perception over time; social audits help companies achieve a balance between profits and ethics. Companies can benefit from social audits when assessing or onboarding new suppliers and maintaining relationships with current suppliers. When performed regularly, you can ensure and measure the ethical compliance of your manufacturers. With QIMA, you will receive a custom compliance dashboard to track progress and see the status of your supply chain. Social audits can uncover human rights violations by sending assessors to check health, types of social audit safety, labor practices, and more in a facility.