What is the value of ESCP’s Progress Visits?

"I will never underestimate the importance of progress visits to our program again...” – this is the first thing I said to my colleague after shadowing a ‘Progress Visit’ on a recent work trip to China.
I am the Marketing & Communications Manager at the Ethical Supply Chain Program, and must confess, before this, I had not fully understood their value. But after seeing first-hand the important role they play in building supplier capability, strengthening trust and making long-term, sustainable change, I felt I had to share.

Progress Visits were first introduced by ESCP in 2018 and are an essential aspect of our certification program. They provide an open forum for factories to share areas they may need help to address as well as the areas they have improved on since their last Progress Visit. Importantly, it is a requirement that factory management attend the visit, this ensures they understand the reasoning and value of making suggested improvements and the process therefore delivers greater long-term impact.

A Progress Visit begins with an opening meeting in which the team explain what the factory can expect from the visit. The team then begin their walkthrough where they spend time exploring the factory campus –including any dormitories, worker canteen & kitchen as well as any warehouse spaces onsite.

The team take photographs throughout the visit of anything that could be recorded as a non-compliance or where improvements could be made to benefit the performance of the supplier. These photographs are then incorporated into a presentation which is shared with the factory management in the afternoon.

Once the factory campus walkthrough is finished, the ESCP team request the working hours and wage records and other relevant information on their workforce. This is reviewed and compared with observations or insights gained during the factory campus walkthrough and included in the management presentation.

Contrary to what I expected, the afternoon’s presentation of findings and recommended improvements was an open and interactive dialogue. The ESCP team engaged each and every representative and management personnel present – making sure they understood the reasons behind the findings and the potential consequences if improvements were not made.

One of the images presented to the factory during this particular visit is below, can you see what the issue is?

I’ll confess, I am not a trained auditor, like many of ESCP’s team, but I couldn’t see the issue. All I saw were papers placed next to a machine. But what I couldn’t see, as it was hidden beneath the papers, was the printing machine’s emergency stop button. This didn’t seem too severe an issue to me, but the team then went on to show how this seemingly minor action can develop into disaster.

They played a clip that went viral online in China, not from a factory in our program might I add, where a worker’s arm becomes lodged in the conveyor belt of a machine. In the video, the worker’s colleagues’ try to help by pulling them out and causing further injury. The ESCP team stopped the video and remarked how no one thought to reach for the machine’s emergency stop button, clearly visible in the video.

In this particular case, it was a lack of training that meant workers didn’t instinctively push the emergency button, which was clearly visible. But the team’s point stood – if you are in this type of emergency situation and you are not able to find the stop button – that is a huge problem with potentially tragic consequences.

The team shared many more real examples relating to other issues identified, engaging with management and workers so they really understood the reasoning behind it, for the ESCP team our work is never a ‘tickbox exercise’, it’s about doing the right thing every day, ensuring safety and increasing management and workers understanding.

I will never underestimate the importance of progress visits to our program and our members again. Suppliers sometimes fear an audit, they are disruptive of course, but our approach is to build trust and respect so audits and progress visits are welcomed and add value to the supplier. In my view, long-term, sustainable change, with management buy-in, simply does not happen off the back of an audit.

A Progress Visit is not an audit, but it reviews the same areas, with the openness and understanding that the team are there to support the factory, not to penalise. It is a really constructive approach which delivers positive change. ESCP’s expert program support and engagement team, responsible for our Progress Visits, spend most of their days in factories doing walkthroughs and explaining face to face the reasons why change is needed, and then supporting factories to implement improvements in a sustainable manner.

If you want to work with factories who understand the value of doing things the right way and are serious about upholding fair environmental, health & safety, and labor practices in their facilities, speak with a member of our team today: memebership@ethicalsupplychain.org

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Still unsure? Read more about the benefits of progress visits
from a long-standing factory member’s perspective...