Key Topic: What Is Social Auditing?

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Social Auditing

Social audits are inspections that evaluate a workplace’s compliance with laws, codes of conduct, and/or other standards on human rights, labor rights, and environmental rights. They are often conducted at supplier workplaces at the request of buyer companies, sometimes as a requirement for the buyer’s continued business. Social compliance auditors can be internal auditors, external auditors, or independent auditors or monitors. Audit professionals should be accredited by institutions or mechanisms, such as trade or professional organizations. 


Auditors’ investigative methods include on-site inspections; examination of workspaces and equipment for compliance with safety standards; reviewing payroll and other documents; and measurement of environmental conditions, such as temperature. Crucially, effective social audits will include interviews with workers, in a location where workers feel safe speaking openly about their working conditions. It is not effective to interview workers in front of their managers, where workers may fear reprisal if they report forced labor, child labor, or other labor rights violations. For the same reason, audits should be conducted unannounced, without notice to owners and managers, so that typical worksite conditions can be observed. Social audits can fail to identify egregious forced labor abuses that are perpetrated under repressive government regimes or by state-imposed forced labor programs. 
 

Social compliance monitoring systems generally follow a continuous and circular process:

  • Monitoring: Gathering data at the worker, supplier, and supply chain levels, with priority placed on the greatest risk areas
  • Analyzing: Identifying compliance patterns across the supply chain and risk trends among workers
  • Improving: Recommending and implementing specific changes to strengthen the entire supply chain’s compliance
  • Addressing: Assigning accountability for addressing issues identified through monitoring, often in partnership with workers
Social compliance monitoring systems involve a continuous process of monitoring, addressing, analyzing, and improving

Social compliance auditors should be:

  • Trained in specific protocols for handling sensitive situations involving children or adult victims of exploitation.
  • Prepared to interact with children, and on behalf of children take measures that are age appropriate.
  • Enacting procedures to ensure that victims of child labor or forced labor receive immediate care and services from qualified individuals or organizations.
  • Nationals of the countries where they will perform audits, as appropriate, because they know the culture, language, and customs of the country; hiring local auditors also contributes to sustainable local capacity building.
  • Auditing regularly and timing those audits for when code violations are most likely to occur. For example, in agriculture, child labor may be most likely to occur at harvest time. In manufacturing, labor issues are most likely to occur when facilities are at maximum production levels.
  • Ready to react quickly if a grievance is received regarding a particular worksite.
  • Certified by APSCA’s Certified Social Compliance Auditor (CSCA) designation, which signifies that an individual demonstrates specific experience, knowledge, and skills within the field of social compliance auditing.