SA 8000 Consultancy Process

SA 8000 consultancy process

The SA 8000 consultancy process runs as follows.

• Current-state assessment
• Social-responsibility performance is closely tied to the firm's ethical principles and the specific dynamics of its sector. Setting the firm's current performance level against the requirements of SA 8000 is the first and most important step. A preliminary review is run to assess the current state: senior management, middle managers, and employees are interviewed; a site walk is conducted to record the health-and-safety condition, with photographs taken; worker files and legal records are reviewed; and the findings are documented in a detailed report.

Forming the project team

The SA 8000 project team should include representatives from security, administration, health and safety, and payroll. In some cases, including blue-collar workers in the team is useful as well.

Informing the project team

The purpose of this step is to give the team a grounding in corporate social charters and the social-responsibility movement, and to walk through the requirements of SA 8000 with concrete examples.

• Workers' rights
• Social and corporate responsibility
• Social charters
• Key features of SA 8000
• Performance requirements
• These topics should be covered in the briefing

Raising awareness among staff

• The purpose is to inform staff about the firm's social-responsibility activities and secure their cooperation.
• Social responsibility
• Globalisation
• Social-condition requirements (child labour, forced labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, disciplinary practices, working hours, and similar)
• The firm's disciplinary procedures
• Occupational health and safety conditions should be covered.

Preparing the work plan

SA 8000 requires identification of potential threats to worker health and safety. Running a structured risk assessment surfaces and resolves existing issues.

• Risk terminology
• Stages of the risk assessment
• Grouping of activities
• Identification of threats
• Analysis of threats
• Setting the acceptable-risk level
• Control
• Residual risk
• Occupational health and safety risks
• Information on OHSAS 18001 and risk assessment should be shared with the project team.

Documenting the processes

• Preparation of the required documentation
• Formation and briefing of the internal audit team
• Running the internal audit plan and executing the audit
• Starting corrective actions
• The most important feature of management-system standards is the ability to find and close gaps. In social responsibility, an escalation channel should be set up so staff can raise issues effectively.

Start of activities

As the management network goes live, activities are rolled out. Providing staff training at this stage helps build awareness.

Suppliers and subcontractors

SA 8000 expects the firm to extend its social-responsibility principles through its supplier base.

Management review

Senior management reviews the outcomes and performance of the quality-management network and takes input from the team.

SA 8000 certification

Choice of certification body is entirely up to the firm that has built the quality-management network.