Checking a garment factory for social compliance means verifying, from records and in person, that the people making your goods are of legal age, paid correctly, working lawful hours in a safe building, and free to raise problems and to leave. The check combines a document review, a walk through the site, and private interviews with workers away from management. A certificate on the wall is a starting point, not the check itself.
What a thorough check covers
- Age documents: identity and age proof for a sample of workers, including the youngest looking and the most recently hired.
- Wages and hours: payroll, time records and payslips for several months, compared with each other and with the legal minimum wage and overtime rules.
- Contracts and paperwork: written terms of employment, and confirmation that workers keep their own identity documents rather than the factory or a contractor holding them.
- Freedom to leave: no locked exits during shifts, no deposits, no debt tied to the job and no restrictions on resigning.
- Fire and building safety: marked exits, alarms, extinguishers, drill records, electrical condition, structural approvals and whether the building is used as it was approved.
- Grievance mechanism: a way for workers to complain that they actually know about, and evidence that it is used.
- Subcontracting: whether any process, or any part of your order, goes to units you have not seen.
- Worker interviews: a sample of workers spoken to privately, on and off site, to test whether the records reflect reality.
How to read the records
Cross-check everything. Hours on the time clock should match hours paid, and wages on the payroll should match what workers say they received. Double books are the classic problem, with one set for auditors and another for the real shifts. Look at production records too, because output that could not have been made in the hours recorded tells its own story.
Ask about peak season. Many factories look fine in a quiet month and run heavy overtime in the weeks before shipping. Ask to see records from the busiest month of the past year and compare them with the month you are visiting.
Timing and follow-up
Do a check before you place the first order and again at intervals, with at least some visits unannounced. Agree a corrective action plan with dates for anything found, and verify closure in person rather than accepting a photograph. Minor issues fixed quickly are normal in any factory. Refusal to let you interview workers privately is not, and it is usually a reason to walk away.
How we handle it
We carry out social and technical audits ourselves, with worker interviews away from management, and we report what we find without softening it. During inline visits we also watch for undeclared subcontracting, because that is where most compliance problems hide. We keep one approved supplier plus one backup so a failed audit does not stop your programme, and we send weekly updates. A free 20-minute sourcing review is the easiest way to start.