Pradeep Kumar‘s passion for ethical trade has an unlikely origin...
Many years ago, before joining Gap Inc. as a junior compliance officer, Pradeep was a colonel in the Indian army, fighting border insurgency.
He explains: "The troops were out on the borders for months together, away from their families. As an officer I needed to make sure that they were treated decently and got their entitlements - is this man spending time with his family? Is this man getting medical benefits and food? I started to take a real interest in human resources issues. I do something similar in the factories today."
Today, as Director of Monitoring and Vendor Development at Gap Inc's international sourcing office in Delhi, Pradeep and his regional social responsibility team are responsible for some 370 factories across Asia. They are part of a wider global network of more than 80 employees, representing more than 25 nationalities, each dedicated to improving standards for garment workers in the Gap Inc. product supply chain. They visit factories, conduct inspections, document violations, and work with garment manufacturers and local stakeholders to improve adherence with the company's standards.
Backdated payment might not seem like much money to some, but to that worker it might represent three or four days' salary.
"I consider myself very fortunate, especially when compared to the situation of most garment workers in India," says Pradeep.
"If my team finds that workers in a factory are owed overtime and we manage to get them a backdated payment, it might not seem like much money to some, but to that worker it might represent three or four days' salary."
Garment workers are particularly vulnerable
He adds: "Garment workers are particularly vulnerable - about 85 per cent are women, and many are migrants. So it is important to ensure that they get the wages and benefits they are entitled to. For example, women are entitled to 12 weeks' maternity leave, but we have come across a few factories where the woman is back at work 3 days after giving birth. These are some of the types of situations we address with factory management."
Few factories, if any, are in full compliance all of the time. Gap Inc.'s goal is to work with factory managers to fix problems where they find them and prevent them from recurring. While huge challenges remain, Pradeep believes that levels of awareness within the industry are slowly increasing.
"Over the years there have been a lot of changes. We have seen things really improve in some factories, though there is always more room for improvement.
"There are still factories that have an old-fashioned approach and may have no proper systems in place. Factories are generally family businesses, and often the father and grandfather are the current managers. But now a new generation is taking charge. The younger generation has qualifications in business studies; they are more informed and they realise the importance of social responsibility."
One of the biggest ethical trade challenges companies face is the fact that those within the business who are best placed to influence suppliers and drive up standards are often the people who are most remote from conditions in the supply chain. Pradeep and his team are trying to bridge this gap.
We are the eyes and ears of the sourcing people.
"We are the eyes and ears of the sourcing people", he explains. "We spend most of our time out at factories, and establish a kind of bond with the workers.
"We have learned that when we work more closely with our sourcing colleagues and deliver a clear and consistent message as a company about the need for factories to resolve issues, factory managers are more likely to take our requirements seriously."
Reaching homeworkers
One of the most successful examples of effective cross-working between compliance officers, sourcing teams and suppliers is Gap Inc.'s innovative approach to monitoring the working conditions of homeworkers in its supply chain. Homeworkers produce the hand-worked clothing and accessories so popular in the UK high street, but because of their informal status they are hard to trace and often suffer poorer living and working conditions compared to formal sector workers.
Pradeep says: "Before now, when it came to homeworkers we didn't have a robust system for tracking our supply chain. So we put our heads together with our sourcing people and our IT department and came up with a solution.
"When our sourcing people place an order in the system, they generate a purchase order. Any order which requires homeworking is placed in a special category, so that our social responsibility team can see which are the homework orders and where they are placed."
We can track the order from the moment it is placed all the way down to the homework centre.
"We can track the order from the moment it is placed, from the Gap Inc. office to the supplier, to the contractor and to the sub-contractor - all the way down to the homework centre. We work with suppliers to ensure oversight of the handwork production and conduct random checks on these orders."
"This has made our suppliers more responsible, as they need to know where homework is going. The supplier has a quality checker, who goes on a scooter to the distribution centre to check on quality. Now we have added to their checklist oversight of the homework supply chain."
From the evident pride and enthusiasm with which he relates it, it's clear that this is the sort of outcome Pradeep and his team thrive upon.
"By innovating and forging partnerships, we have improved transparency and accountability right down the supply chain," says Pradeep.
"It does not mean our supply chain is completely perfect - no one's is. But it's a big step in the right direction."