I’ve long been a stickler when it comes to non-financial auditing and most critical about social audits of suppliers. Others have expressed similar concerns, yet nothing has dampened their popularity or use. However, quality remains a concern. A potential viable alternative may be on the horizon. Bluenumber Foundation and the Initiative for Global Solidarity just released Direct Worker Voice for HRDD: A case study from the electronics sector of using data supplied by workers in India and Malaysia to identify forced labour and respond to human rights risks.
The study
“explores the deployment of a direct worker voice platform in two factories in southern India supplying a major global electronics brand. The initiative aimed to enhance human rights due diligence (HRDD), assess the effectiveness of traditional social audits, and empower workers with control over their data… The platform, MillionMakers™, enabled workers to anonymously share their experiences through a yes/no smartphone survey. Workers were compensated with licensing fees for their data, reinforcing their rights as data creators. The study achieved a 70% participation rate across a workforce of 2,102.”
For me, the most compelling part of the study is the section “Verifying Audits” starting on page 14. It is worth a read, but here is a table summarizing the results:
I don’t know if every implementation of MillionMakers would show this large a discrepancy between worker voice and third party social audit results. But this is one more data point highlighting that those using social audits – whether conducted by industry associations or by auditors hired directly – really should conduct due diligence on the audits/auditors. This could include trying MillionMakers as one part of a multi-pronged approach to improving credibility of and reliance on supply chain responsibility data.
Members can learn more about supply chain/social audits here.
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