Decent Work and Social Auditing Senior Coordinator

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About the Organization

Better Cotton is a global not-for-profit organisation supporting the production of more equitable and sustainable cotton at farm level. We exist to catalyse the cotton farming community with partners, governments and others to continuously drive positive impact by setting standards and facilitating the supply and demand of more sustainable cotton from farm to brand. In just 15 years we have aligned more than a fifth of the world’s cotton with our standard and helped farmers and farming communities thrive. Join us in building a better, more sustainable future for cotton worldwide.

Job Description

Are you passionate about promoting decent work and improving social auditing practices? As our Decent Work and Social Auditing Senior Coordinator, you'll play a key role in Better Cotton’s certification programme. You'll be responsible for providing technical input, developing tools, and ensuring that our social auditing processes are top-notch.

In this role, you'll work closely with various teams to support our mission of promoting decent work. You'll have the opportunity to collaborate with experts in the field, share your knowledge, and contribute to the continuous improvement of our new certification programme. We're looking for someone who is enthusiastic, detail-oriented, and committed to making a positive impact. If you have experience in social auditing and a passion for promoting decent work, we'd love to hear from you!

Job Responsibilities

In this role, you will be responsible for:

Standard Setting, Policy Development and Alignment: 

• Provide technical input during the periodic review of Better Cotton Principles and Criteria.
• Establish minimum compliance criteria for the Decent Work Principle under the Better Cotton Standard, with a defined process for potential derogations based on diverse country contexts.
• Design tools and methodologies to audit decent work indicators, including for worker interviews, document reviews, and site visits. Ensure ethical compliance and accurate assessment of working conditions. 
• Monitor trends and emerging best practices in social auditing, advising both internal teams and Certification Bodies on process enhancements and audit improvements.

Assurance Capacity Strengthening and Oversight

• Monitor and strengthen the capacity of Certification Bodies and second-party Better Cotton assessors to conduct credible and effective social audits.
• Lead calibration exercises with Certification Bodies to ensure consistent understanding and grading of decent work indicators.
• Ensure the overall credibility of Better Cotton’s social auditing and certification programme by maintaining high standards in audit processes and outcomes.

Risk Management and Mitigation:

• Develop and maintain a risk management framework, prioritizing high-risk regions for enhanced social auditing. This will involve maintaining an accurate understanding of contextual decent work risks and challenges and advising on context-specific adaptations to the auditing methodology.
• Regularly review audit outcomes to identify and log recurring risks, adapting social auditing methodologies as necessary to address these vulnerabilities. 
• Ensure that incident management processes include timely escalation, response, and remediation of high-risk issues related to worker welfare and labour rights.

Communication and Reporting:

• Ensuring that assurance, risk and incidents data is duly processed with the lessons learned informing continuous improvement across the organisation.

Education Qualification/Required Skills & Experience

You will ensure the credibility and compliance of Better Cotton’s social auditing programme, providing technical input, developing tools, overseeing risk management, and supporting Certification Bodies and assessors. The ideal candidate will have a solid background in social auditing and a deep commitment to promoting labour rights, especially within the agricultural sector.

You should bring experience in implementing social auditing frameworks, designing strategies to address labour rights incidents, or actively managing such incidents, as well as a proven ability to collaborate effectively with diverse stakeholders. As a strategic, rightsholder-focused professional with a commitment to compliance and keen attention to detail, you will lead initiatives to improve working conditions and promote sustainable, fair, and safe labour practices in cotton-farming communities, ensuring alignment with our standards while prioritising the needs of rightsholders. 

To be successful in this role, you will bring following skills, knowledge, and experience:

Technical Knowledge: 

• In-depth understanding of decent work principles, labour rights, and social auditing methodologies. 
• Experience in identifying root causes of labour rights risks and designing effective verification approaches. 
• Familiarity with how other certification schemes address decent work challenges, manage incidents, and implement remediation processes is an asset. This includes awareness of different frameworks for handling labour rights violations, corrective actions, and monitoring progress. 
• Master's degree in human rights, international development, sustainability, or related fields, or equivalent professional experience. 
• Demonstrated expertise in developing and implementing social auditing frameworks, managing compliance standards, training auditors and overseeing complex audit processes. 

Communication and Coordination Skills: 

• Excellent cross-functional coordination skills, with the ability to align initiatives with the organisation’s broader roadmap for decent work. 
• Strong verbal and written communication abilities to convey complex concepts to diverse audiences, including non-expert stakeholders.  
• Experience working in multi-cultural and international settings.

Analytical Skills: 

• Strong analytical skills to interpret audit data, assess compliance risks, and implement effective corrective actions. 
• Ability to proactively identify risks and create tailored solutions to improve audit and monitoring practices.  

Project Management:  

• Proven project management experience, with the ability to prioritize tasks and manage deadlines effectively.  

Language and IT Skills: 

• Fluency in English is required; additional languages relevant to Better Cotton’s work (e.g., French, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu) are a strong asset. 
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Salesforce and other audit-related tools. 

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