A service for Licensors, Brands and Retailers striving to build more ownership and accountability with key vendors and licensees related to compliance responsibilities.

Sustainable compliance necessitates moving away from a traditional “policing” model towards a “partnership” model whereby key vendors and licensees are encouraged to take ownership of their own supply chain performance. Level Works believes that this philosophy is not just a trend but also an essential evolution of the social compliance field and its core objective of elevating workplace conditions.

Key Benefits:

• Increase capacity for improvement: vendors and licensees learn the skills to drive compliance improvement objectives;
• Re-direct time and resources away from individual factory details towards macro program objectives;
• Migrate responsibility for compliance performance closer to the factory floor.

PHASE 1: Buyer / Licensor SCOP Program Structure

Level Works will help you evaluate your current program or develop a new SCOP program structure. Having worked with many licensors and brands, Level Works has in-sight on best practices to match unique company variables and priorities. To help you develop a credible SCOP program, we recommend the following steps:

1. Create benchmarks by reviewing all current internal compliance program activities
2. Develop Supplier Incentives for participation
3. Develop Supplier Expectations including those related to corporate training, management, factory communication, monitoring, corrective action activities, and KPI reporting
4. Identify Key Suppliers that have that have or are willing to commit the resources needed to take ownership
5. Evaluate Past Key Supplier Performance by reviewing past reports, attitude towards factory compliance, and questionnaire response
6. Engage Key Suppliers to discuss incentives and willingness participate
7. Provide corporate capacity building to interested suppliers ; see “Vendor Tool Kit” for examples

Phase 2 Supplier Tool-kit: Building Ownership & Capacity

Level Works helps vendors and licensees establish labor compliance programs and processes for monitoring and making improvements at the factory level. Level Works advocates for processes that provide maximum transparency with the goal of making real – and realistic – progress. We have tools and training that can be integrated into an existing system, or we can help with the fundamentals of policies and data tracking. No matter where a vendor or licensee starts from, we can help it reach the expectations of demanding clients.

Step 1: Self-Assessment:

• Fill out Level Works' questionnaire
  • Factory on-boarding process
  • Data collection and storage
  • Customer liaison
  • Persons in charge: compliance, sourcing, quality
  • Schedule on-site visit

Step 2: On-site Interview:

We interview compliance staff, sourcing staff, and quality staff to fully map out:

• labor compliance responsibilities
• current policies and their implementation process
• how data is stored, tracked, evaluated, and reported
• how staff learn and improve on the job
• what expectations do different clients have, and do they conflict

Step 3: Building the Management System Elements :

1. Labor compliance policy: create a Code of Conduct policy that meets all customer and stakeholder expectations.
2. Risk assessment process: identify the priorities for supplier monitoring and how resources will be assigned.
3. Persons in Charge: based upon the standard business processes, assign responsibilities for
   1. Overall labor compliance: senior manager in charge
   2. Factory intake / labor compliance assessment
   3. Country labor law collection
   4. Remediation verification
   5. Data tracking
   6. Communication to customer
   7. Follow-up according to schedule
   8. Termination
4. Goals and metrics: set a business plan for the current year and assign objectives to be met. Decide upon metrics to be used for reporting internally and to customer.
5. Internal training and factory training (curriculum provided)
   1. Sourcing staff: introduction to Code of Conduct
   2. Factory training: Code of Conduct / Remediation / Reporting
   3. Feedback channel for labor compliance questions / concerns
6. Audit process
   1. Audit format (standard version)
   2. Corrective Action Plan tracking sheet (provided)
7. Reporting
   1. Which documents are kept and how are they stored
   2. Zero tolerance issue reports to customer
   3. Periodic summary of remediation steps
   4. Annual report to customer

Step 4: Review and Launch:

After deliverables are finalized and in use, Level Works will have a wrap-up teleconference or meeting to assess whether the system is in place and to do a final review of the interaction process between the vendor/licensee and their customer.

For more information, please contact Level Works at info@ level-works.com .

Specific assignments are determined in conjunction with the vendor or licensee. Each program is different and Level Works will seek the most cost-effective method of working together.