How to Conduct a Social Compliance Audit
Organizations, government agencies, and businesses (both small scale and big scale) all around the world have a social and ethical responsibility. The accounting and auditing of these responsibilities is what we call a social compliance audit. The Social compliance audit is conducted to verify the information collected regarding the companies ethical and social performance. It also affirms the impact of these policies on the local communities, employees as well as the companies’ consumers and suppliers.
Steps To Follow When Conduction A Social Compliance Audit
- Hire an auditing firm or an individual auditor who specializes in the area of social auditing. Their job will be to evaluate and check the accuracy of the information provided regarding the companies social and ethical objectives in the company’s annual report. You must keep in mind that the auditing firm or the independent auditor that you hire is in no way associated with your organization. Similar to employing staff always hire someone with experience in this field of social compliance audits.
- Always inform all the stakeholders of any audits that the company will be going through. This is very important as it is these stakeholders that are affected either directly or indirectly by the companies’ actions. It is always a good idea to get them involved in the audit process so explain the process to them in advance.
- Determine the goals of your organization in relation to the social and ethical objectives of your company. It is always advisable for the company leaders and social auditors to review the company’s policies in relation to their social and ethical interest.
- Establish methods of data collection to ascertain the company’s progress in meeting its social and ethical objectives. Interviewing stakeholders, employee interviews, detailed tours of the facility can be of great advantage to collect primary data or you may also refer to existing sources of data such as payment schedules, financial deposits, and employee records.
- Depending on the violations involved the auditor can categorize these violations on a rating scale that groups them as non-crucial, crucial and stern. The results can also be categorized in a similar rating scale.
- Once all the relevant data has been collected the auditor will analyze and prepare a summary for the company.
- Make a written report on the organizations force and frailty in regards to gaining their objectives. Recommendations for the future should also be made in the report and the same should be distributed to all stakeholders.
Keep in mind that such social compliance audit actions should be open and easily accessible to all stakeholders. Companies should conduct such social compliance audits for all their branches on a regular basis to make sure that they are meeting their social and ethical standards. If it is noticed that a particular branch is faulting on the company’s standards on a regular basis (usually all branches are given three opportunities) then the company should take some serious steps towards re-establishing the social and ethical standards.
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Category: Business
