October 30th, 2017

October 29, 2017

Auditor Certification Pilot Update
We are excited that the pilot for the APSCA Auditor Certification process will take place in Istanbul, Turkey on 9 & 10 November 2017.

Initially, the pilot was to also take place in China the following week, however, following a very productive Executive Board Meeting, it was determined that a postponement will enable us to focus on one event, take key learnings and effectively recalibrate and adjust the process where required before the pilot in China.

The response to participate in the pilot process was positive with over 100 people applying from 26 of our Member Firms.  The auditors selected to participate have a wide range of experience; from less than 1 year to more than 20 years, less than 25 audits to more than 200 social compliance audits, wide spread of education and workplace experience in addition to audit experience.  At least one auditor was selected from each member firm who applied.
The Pilot Exam in Turkey will take a full day and be divided into 3 sections. Upon arrival the participants will be divided into 3 groups and rotate to ensure they complete all 3 sections within the day.
          1.0  Multiple Choice & Short Answers
           2.0  Case Study
​           3.0  Simulated Interview 

 The Simulated Interview group will be divided into 4 groups for different scenarios.  These scenarios have been developed with clear scoring criteria being used by each interviewer.  These scenarios are:

      1.       employee interview
      2.       opening meeting
      3.       closing meeting
      4.       management interview

In order to capture feedback, we will be holding debrief sessions throughout the day with each group and as a collective group at the end of each day. 

We will share more about the pilot performed in Turkey in next month’s newsletter. 

Public Comment – What’s Next?  
As we mentioned in September’s Newsletter, we had a great response to our Public Comment invitation.  The Working and Consultation Groups have discussed the feedback received and to recommend further refinements to the documents.​
The Executive and Stakeholder Boards met the week of 23 October 2017 in the USA to finalise both the APSCA Code of Professional Conduct and Competency Framework for Social Compliance Auditors, and are continuing to make progress.  

More to come and we appreciate all the support received thus far.

Executive Stakeholder Board Meeting, USA, October 2017.  
From Left:  Jonathan Ivelaw-Chapman (Sedex), Laura Chapman Rubbo (The Walt Disney Company), Rochelle Zaid (SAAS), Christian Ewert (FTA), Darrel Doren (BSCI), Christophe Liebon (Intertek), Betty Hutchison (Bureau Veritas), Avedis Seferian (WRAP), Rona Starr (APSCA), Rajan Kamalanathan (Bureau Veritas), Fred Waelter (UL LLC), Randy Rankin (Independent), Petra Herbertz-Crumpler (Walmart), Effie Marinos (SGS).
Photo taken by Greg Gardner (Arche Advisors).

New APSCA Members
We are excited to announce that APSCA membership continues to grow. We have 6 new APSCA members to announce this month:  API Audit Limited, Globalgroup of Companies Limited, Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency, Partner Africa, SIPAS CR-PERU and The British Standards Institution (BSI Group)  

This now brings our membership to 40.  

Welcome to our new members!

General Meeting 2017
A reminder for APSCA firm members that our 2nd General Meeting is scheduled in Koln, Germany on 4 December – 13:00 – 15:00 with time following for everyone to meet and mingle over a light afternoon beverage.

Please follow the link below to our website for further details and to register your participation no later than 30 October 2017 –
http://www.theapsca.org/general-meeting-registration.html

Note:  the password for this page was detailed in the email invitation forwarded to all members.  Should you need this password again please email us:  director@theapsca.org
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APSCA Support Statement
As launched in last month’s Newsletter, the APSCA Stakeholder Board has developed a Support Statement following many requesting how they could more formally offer their support to APSCA’s efforts, beyond the working/ consultation groups.  Please find a copy of the Support Statement on our website: http://www.theapsca.org/support-statement.html
We continue to receive more and more supporters providing their permission to use their name/ logo and would welcome even more of you!  If you would like to offer your support and have your organization’s name / logo placed on our website, please let us know by contacting director@theapsca.org
 

BSR Conference 2017
​BSR held their conference “How Business Leads” in Huntington Beach, California this month. 

APSCA was pleased to participate in a panel focused on “Integrating Sustainability through Risk and Opportunity”.  It was also a great event to catch up with APSCA members.

To see more, check out our “Out and About” page on our website: 
http://www.theapsca.org/out–about.html