What are Living Wages?
A living wage is the remuneration received by a worker in their context which is sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and their family. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, health care, transportation, clothing, and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events. A living wage might be the same as a minimum wage, but it might also differ.
How do living wages apply to supplier relationships?
More and more companies are looking into securing living wages in their supply chain as part of their sustainability and social responsibility strategies.
For more information on how to set up a living wage program and get involved, take a look at this platform from IDH here.
Who is usually responsible for living wages initiatives internally?
Living wages might sit between functions within a business. Depending on the structure of your business, this topic might be embedded with HR, CSR, Compliance or Business Operations. If you need additional input in regards to this assessment and would like to invite a colleague to fill out this assessment, please refer to this article here on inviting a colleague.
How can I improve my status?
Whether you clicked on 'Yes' or 'No' has less of an impact in this assessment than in others: In this assessment it is important that you did not answer any of the questions with 'No Answer'.
- If you have answered a question with 'No Answer', your status will remain yellow.
- If you have answered the questions truthfully, your status will move towards the green area - no matter what the answer is.
- The more you can demonstrate that this topic is a value which is reflected in your business, the more you will move into the green area of the assessment.
It is not possible to receive a red status in this assessment, but your status will remain in yellow if answers to the assessment reflect that this value is not one which is promoted in the business.