Why Carry Out a Social Audit? | Human Resource Management Solution

Having a social audit carried out when you are a manager of an SME responds to two challenges.

• First of all, a performance issue. The social audit aims to improve the management of its human resources, but also its social climate.
• Then there is a security issue: the social audit, therefore, aims to better protect against risky practices. It also makes it possible to initiate corrective measures when such practices have been identified.

These two issues are always present, even if one can sometimes take precedence over the other.

The social audit of an SME can intervene:

• In prevention: This is particularly the case for regular audit procedures and continuous improvement processes. The company relies on the results of the last audit each time; it then assesses the implementation of the recommendations made and their effectiveness.
• Correction: This is the case when the manager of the company or his HR team wants to secure processes that they know are too vague or poorly managed.

 

The specific challenges of a social audit in a medium-sized structure

Carrying out a social audit is still too often reserved for the sale/takeover of a business!

Organizations of all sizes have an interest in provoking a social audit of their HR management.

The smallest or medium-sized ones have an even stronger interest. You just have to see the complexity of the rules to be implemented! In addition, the smallest SMEs are in fact often undersized in HR management. With employees or managers who take charge of the HR component, more by default than by expertise.

The social audit, therefore, allows them:

• To assess the compliance of HR practices with the rules and conventional texts in force;
• To study the social climate and social indicators:

Carried out at regular intervals, the social audit gives many advantages to the company manager:

- First, to identify more quickly and more effectively correct any risky practices,

- Then, improve the efficiency and regularity of its HR management,

- Finally, measure the evolution of its social climate.

Perform a social audit to secure your HR practice

Security issues:

SMEs have to comply with heavy, complex, and subtle social regulations. Securing decision-making and HR actions requires the implementation of clear and precise procedures. However, medium-sized companies are not the best equipped in terms of management and HR expertise.

Over the days and the growth of the company, habits are established. Decisions are taken on more or less solid foundations.

The sources of legal insecurity are indeed everywhere: contracts, remuneration, working hours, employee health and safety, career development, social dialogue…!

The multiplication of risks

Risks exist in all areas of HR management. They are numerous and can have serious consequences.

Some examples among many others:

• Taking a disciplinary sanction without valid internal regulations entails a risk of cancellation of the sanction and payment of damages (companies with more than 20 employees);
• Signing an employment contract with exorbitant clauses or which does not comply with conventional and regulatory texts can cause the CDD to be reclassified as a CDI, from part-time to full-time, nullity of the measures taken, etc.
• Set up a day pass without (your choice):

1. Collective agreement to provide for it,
2. Individual agreement of the employee concerned,
3. Establishment of personalized monitoring to assess and control workload, rest periods, the right to disconnect,

entails its nullity. The results? A return to the calculation of working time on the basis of 35 hours per week. A risk of overtime recall and concealed work violations ...

Organize professional elections without (your choice):

1. Call on all the trade unions concerned to negotiate the pre-electoral memorandum of understanding,
2. Display the invitation,
3. Respect the notice period between the posting/invitation and the date of negotiation
4. Respect the balanced representation of men and women on candidate lists

This opens a significant risk of cancellation of the electoral process or elections.

Perform a social audit to improve the performance of your business

Evaluating the regularity of HR practices and questioning HR processes during a social audit also allows your SME to improve the understanding of social indicators: the multiplication of breaks in trial periods or resignations, the increase in absenteeism, repetition of incidents or accidents at work, tensions within teams, excessively diverse management practices, disputes or threats of litigation ...

Indeed, these elements, put together, have a direct impact on employee involvement, motivation, and therefore their individual and team performance.

Finally, from a purely economic point of view, securing HR processes, streamlining, or even automating certain procedures will make it possible to rationalize management costs, reduce the risk of litigation, and therefore the financial cost for the company.

To remember :

Performing a social audit has three advantages.

First, it allows you to identify :

• The practices in force in the company, and to evaluate them;
• The positive points ;
• Areas for improvement.

It is at this moment that recommendations can be made to move from observation to action. In this, social audit turns out to be a real performance accelerator.

It also allows the management team to integrate the company's HR practices and policies into a long-term growth strategy.

Find the Human Resource Management Solution to carry out a social audit.

Finally, it helps the HR team to better manage the human capital of the company by improving the individual monitoring of employees and the development of their careers.