Intertek is pleased to announce an update to the Workplace Conditions Assessment (WCA) Program. We strive to incorporate feedback from our customers, auditors, and industry experts to improve our program and offer an improved auditing solution.  This document outlines the updates to the program which will be applied on all WCA audits starting from June 1, 2021.

Drivers

This update is a part of Intertek’s periodic formal review of the WCA Standard as we strive to continuously improve and remain aligned with industry norms and best practices.  Improvements are driven by the following pillars:

• Raising the bar for supplier expected performance- stricter requirements for high performance
• Trends in the industry - increased focus on modern slavery/forced labor
• Benchmarks- with other leading industry social and environmental programs
• Legal changes- new local labor and environmental requirements
• Feedback from auditors, buyers and suppliers
• Revamped WCA Audit Report with new Intertek branding

Standard and Rating Changes

• The overall methodology, man-day sampling, and WCA Achievement Award criteria have not changed.  Suppliers are still expected to fulfil same requirements related to labor, wages & hours, health & safety, management systems and the environment.   There are some newly added requirements to the WCA Standard but not expected to require significant preparation or financial investment.
• The program will be more stringent due to some rating changes which affects the scoring algorithm.  These topics were selected for upgrading as important issues which align with the industry expectation of suppliers to achieve high performance in the social compliance field.   Upgrade in rating is from either minor to moderate and/or moderate to major.  Note there are no changes to Zero Tolerances.   This means your score will be lower if these issues are discovered during the audit compared to last year.
• Refer to the addendum for details on the WC 3.0 Standard and Rating Changes.

Business Practices and Quickscan

• Business Practices (Integrity, Data Protection, Competition) will remain an optional module for WCA members.  In WCA 3.0, this category will be included in the facility’s overall score and no longer a separately scored module.
• WCA Quickscan 3.0 (1 manday audit) will be launched later in 2021 as an independent checklist from the standard WCA.   In the meantime, the existing Quickscan will remain operational under WCA 2.0.

Revised Audit Report and Logo

• The individual Audit Report has undergone a design change.  The overall layout and content remain the same, but reflective of the new WCA Logo and Intertek branding guidelines.
• New colour and font schema
• New labels added alongside more qualitative descriptors
• Benchmarking data universe has been reduced to include average of results over the last 5 years (2 years for working hour and wage data)
• Reference to repeated findings over time
• Addition of Best Practices
• Sample Cover Page / Revised Logo:

WCA 2.0 Transition to 3.0

• WCA 2.0 Checklist and Report format will remain available for use for approximately 6 to 9 months to accommodate any pending Follow-up or Re-audits associated with the WCA 2.0 Standard to ensure consistency and full finding closure.
• For Questions or Concerns, you can reach out to your Intertek Program Manager, local Intertek office in your country, or email business.assurance@intertek.com.

ADDENDUM

WCA 3.0 Standard Changes Summary

• The following elements of the Workplace Conditions Assessment (WCA) Standard have been modified. For a full description of the entire WCA Standard, please refer to the WCA Supplier Guidance document.
• *NEW! = Represents a newly added checkpoint
• Bolded italic text = Represents the specific change to an already existing checkpoint.

Labor, Wages and Hours Standard Changes
Applicable regardless of law
*NEW! Disclosure of any outsourcing of services to a third party such as janitorial, canteen, transportation, warehousing, etc.	Requiring an equivalent job description outlining terms and conditions in absence of legal contracts for both direct facility employees and third-party agency employees
*NEW! Disclosure of employees coming from North Korea	Employment conditions outlined in the contract or job description cannot be modified in absence of employee consent
Passport or documentation retention not allowed even if within legal limits	Minimum of 125% overtime premium in absence of legal law or collective agreement
Recruitment fees or deposits not allowed even if within legal limits	*NEW! Payments must go directly to employees
*NEW! Reimbursement planning and elimination of any costs borne by employees	*NEW! Employees have a choice whether to pay for housing, food, transport, etc provided by the facility

Health, Safety and Environment Standard Changes
Only applicable when required by law
Drinking water testing	First Aiders govt. required training or certificates
Proper storage of solid waste	*NEW! Fire-fighting team govt. requirements such as number of members, periodic training, etc
*NEW! Govt. required measures to prevent/minimize the soil and groundwater contamination	Legally required health & safety trainings
*NEW! Installation and maintenance of a Pollution Treatment Facility, when required	*NEW! Govt. required 3rd party Environment Impact Assessment Report
*NEW! Govt. approval to remove the Pollution Treatment Facility	*NEW! Govt. approval for final construction projects
*NEW! Govt. required pollution emission permits

WCA 3.0 Rating Changes Summary

The following checkpoints on the Workplace Conditions Assessment (WCA) Standard have been given a stricter rating.  These are not new requirements.  However, incurring a violation will result in a lower performance score compared to previous versions of the WCA.

From Minor to Moderate	From Moderate to Major
Labor Category
Facility does not provide special protection restrictions for juvenile employees	Facility does not review, validate or keep any documentation on file for legal proof of age
Employee representatives have not been freely elected without management interference	Facility or third-party agency collects monetary deposits or recruitment fees as a condition of employment
The facility considers union membership status as a condition of hire or employment	Facility uses monetary penalties as disciplinary mean
The facility has not fulfilled all obligations to agency employees regarding labor protection, compensation, training, etc	Disciplinary actions taken are not communicated with the employees and not recorded on file
Facility does not have written policies that prohibit discrimination (*From Best Practice to a Minor)	Facility does not respect the right of employees to choose to form, belong to or not belong to a union or any other type of employees' organization
	All employees do not have signed employment contracts or equivalent job descriptions from the facility or from a third-party agency
Wages & Hours Category
No pay stubs or similar documentation provided to employees
	Total working hours per week is more than 72 hours
	More than 24 consecutive days worked
	Payment of wages delayed past 5 days
	Wages not paid in legal tender or not directly to workers