What is the HRCD and why should I use it?

The Human Rights Capacity Diagnostic (HRCD) is intended to help you assess and improve your company’s management capacity to identify and manage its potential and actual human rights impacts.

Using the HRCD can help you to:

• start conversations about human rights due diligence within your business;
• assess the capacity of the business to fulfil the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and undertake human rights due diligence as described by the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) and other frameworks;
• get guidance on how to take your management capacity to the next level – through designing or improving policies and management processes, engaging stakeholders and rightsholders, building staff awareness and knowledge, improving your communication and more;
• establish priorities, targets and aspirations for your management of human rights impacts, and performance appropriate to your industry, size, geographical spread and other risk factors;
• compare the management capacity of different business units or subsidiaries within the company to manage human rights impacts;
• monitor your progress and improvement over time.

The HRCD (formerly Organisational Capacity Assessment Instrument, OCAI) has been developed by management consultancy twentyfifty ltd. based on over a decade of experience of supporting leading multinationals to implement human rights due diligence. It also builds on work with the Business and Human Rights Peer Learning Group of the Global Compact Network Germany. Its development has been funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

For each question, short descriptions of what corporate practice looks like according to the different levels assist you in making the judgement which level is closest to describing the current management capacity of your company. Moreover, you can decide on the level you aspire to. The difference between where your company is now, and where it aims to be at, is the journey it has to go on.

The completion of the questionnaire gives you a clear overview of your current capacity and aspirations that can be used for further internal awareness-raising and strategy development. While there is a progression from “Non-responsive” to “Demonstrating Leadership” set out in the diagnostic, it is not the intention to suggest that it is necessary for all companies to reach the advanced levels of management capacity. How companies meet their responsibility to respect human rights will vary according to their operational context, size, sector and their specific human rights risk profile. Part of this diagnostic’s utility is to enable you to define what you deem appropriate given the profile of your company.

The level descriptions will therefore not fit perfectly to the particular situation in your company. When answering the questions, please tick the level you feel applies most to where your company stands. While the is no strictly linear progression from one level to the other, higher levels usually include what applies to previous levels and add a different aspect that distinguishes a more advanced due diligence program.

Upon completion of the diagnostic, you will receive a short analysis report. Tailored to your current management capacity level, the report will:

• highlight your actual and aspired capacity levels per question
• provide you with suggestions for how to enhance your capacity according to where your biggest improvement needs are
• point you to relevant available resources to support your next steps

When using the tool, you can find explanations and more information about business and human rights, human rights due diligence and good practices when clicking on these words.

For more information on how to use the HRCD and how the instrument has been developed please refer to the FAQ section.

Terms of Use

The HRC Diagnostic is a free self-assessment instrument. Please read through the terms of use stated below. By starting the assessment you agree to the terms.

• Your responses will be kept confidential and will not be handed over to third parties
• Aggregated results from all users may be used by twentyfifty ltd. and the German Global Compact Network for benchmarking analyses while preserving individual and organizational confidentiality (see for example the analysis of the previous OCAI tool user data from 2012-2014)
• E-mail addresses will not be used for any purpose other than that related to your organization's use of the HRCD
• The HRCD should not be changed, adapted, and administered independently from this web tool without the written permission from twentyfifty ltd. and the Global Compact Network Germany