Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) Best Practice Guidance

7.3.3 Planning Interviews
Workers should be selected only by the auditor. Ideally worker selection should be balanced, taking account of
any underlying issues e.g. shift, pay rates, worker category, job role.
Wherever possible, the identities of interviewees should be kept confidential. Where this is not possible, a
sufficient number of employees must be selected for interview to enable confidentiality of feedback to be
maintained.
Identities of workers, e.g. names or ID numbers should never be included in the audit report.
Details of the number of workers that should be interviewed and the methods of selecting them are covered in
Appendix A5: “Audit Length, Sample Size and Timetable”.
Note: The first selection of interviewees is made during the site tour as selection from documentation assumes
that all workers on site are documented. If interviews are carried out prior to document review, any issues raised
can then be checked against employees’ records to gain supporting evidence.
CHECKLIST - INTERVIEW DESIGN
The following best practices should be considered when selecting workers and planning interviews:
l Workers interviewed are representative of worker type and departments within the employment site. The
worker interview samples includes different contract types of worker i.e. permanent, temporary and agency
workers and include different shifts and types of work where possible.
l Interviewees should be selected by the audit team and never by management; In making the selection,
the auditor considers:
l The gender balance of the workforce.
l The spectrum of ethnic, national, linguistic, migrant or religious groups.
l Youngest and oldest workers.
l Different departments, including security and canteen workers as well as production workers.
l Different levels / grades of workers and supervisors.
l Worker representatives.
l Health & Safety committee representative(s).
l New employees / trainees (to evaluate training quality).
l Workers in all pay grades (i.e. lowest pay grades, highest pay grades) in order to evaluate wages
and working hours.
l Pregnant women.
l Workers in potentially hazardous jobs e.g. with machines or chemicals.
l Employees from different shifts.
l Workers not wearing uniform.
l Workers who have taken leave recently.
SMETA Best Practice Guidance (4-Pillar Version 4.0, May 2012)
l Workers whose records show specific issues such as disciplinary action.
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