Social Fingerprint: Getting Started in Your Company 

Watch an online course demo: http://youtu.be/OZ5OGzMyG9c

This online course helps a company to measure and improve its labor standards management system and performance. It encourages looking beyond code violations, to evaluating the underlying processes that are essential to a high-level of social performance. It explains the processes in terms of 9 key categories that comprise an effective management system and enable a company to improve:

  • Management System Policies and Procedures
  • Internal Social Performance Team
  • Worker Involvement and Communications
  • Complaint Management and Resolution
  • Training and Capacity Building
  • External Verification and Stakeholder Engagement
  • Level and Types of Non-conformances
  • Progress on Corrective Actions
  • Management of Supply Chain

The course is useful for driving improvement along any labor code or standard. It takes participants through self-assessment questions in each of the 9 process categories and provides a Social Fingerprint self-assessment score (Level 1 through 5) in each of the 9 categories, as well as an overall score. This enables the company to understand how it’s currently doing and what areas it can target for improvement. The course provides 90 tips to get started on the improvements right away.

The course is a useful self-assessment and capacity-building tool for internal auditors and compliance managers. It provides a step-by-step approach to developing and implementing management systems for social performance. Brands and retailers can use this course to measure the social performance of key suppliers or their entire supply chain. The process-based, measure-and-improve approach encourages transparency and dialogue rather than audit-driven compliance. The course is also useful for external auditors, consultants and other professionals who want to understand a process-based approach to labor standards. The self-assessment questions help to understand what types of processes everyone should be evaluating and promoting when working with any company.

The self-assessment takes about 1 hour to complete and the training and tips another 1-2 hours. The course may be accessed on-demand at the participant's convenience. On-screen questions, recorded audio/video and interactive tips help participants to learn at their own pace and conduct self-checks.