Advisory Services

Better Work’s staff of locally recruited enterprise advisors are trained not only to conduct assessments, but also to provide advisory services. Following an assessment of compliance needs, Better Work advisors work directly with each enterprise to:

• develop performance improvement committees with management and union/worker representatives,
• create and implement improvement plans that address both non-compliance issues and management systems,
• increase factory performance on subsequent compliance assessments.

Better Work advisors will never be responsible for both assessments and advisory services at any given factory. This distinction of roles ensures transparency and integrity in the programme’s implementation of services.  

The advisory process is shown in detail in the graphic below, which illustrates the 12-month sequence.

While enterprises are responsible for identifying and implementing improvement plans, advisory services ensure a tailored approach that provides direction and capacity building. During the first year of the advisory cycle, advisors provide guidance that helps to build trust with the factory and workers, while identifying simple compliance issues that can be fixed with relative ease. In the second year of the cycle, the advisors shift toward a coaching role, increasing training services and establishing systems that support sustainable improvement. By the third year of advisory services, advisors serve primarily as consultants, working on core labour standard non-compliance issues, while strengthening management systems and monitoring success. Throughout the process, Better Work advisors conduct follow-up visits and update buyers, through progress reports, about steps enterprises have taken to address key non-compliance issues at their facilities. The pacing of advisory services and improvement activities may vary from factory to factory, however, the expectation is that the activities in the cycle will be covered in approximately two to three years.

Better Work enterprise advisors are trained to conduct their duties based on a strict ethical code of integrity, transparency, diplomacy and respect in line with the highest standards of the United Nations.