"Do's" and "Don'ts" of auditing a former employer

[arios]

Please share you advice regarding what's good and proper, and inappropriate and not recommended when doing an audit over a site where an auditor used to work. It could be either that your former employer is now the supplier of your present time company, or that you are now an external auditor, and after several years you are asked to perform an audit at your "old folks's" plant.

[adickerson]

First, you need to be honest about the situation to both the group requesting the audit and the audited party. Just so everyone knows what is happening.

Second, you need to review any conflict of interest or non compete contracts you signed. There could be language that could come up if you try to share audit information about the audited party. This just needs to be reviewed so you can cover your liability.

[John Broomfield]

In Reply to Parent Post by arios

Please share you advice regarding what's good and proper, and inappropriate and not recommended when doing an audit over a site where an auditor used to work. It could be either that your former employer is now the supplier of your present time company, or that you are now an external auditor, and after several years you are asked to perform an audit at your "old folks's" plant.

arios,

You should offer the audit client to recuse yourself.

Explain the circumstances and allow the audit client to decide.

John

[Marc]

I smell conflict of interest. I would not audit a former employer.

[Paul Simpson]

In Reply to Parent Post by arios

Please share you advice regarding what's good and proper, and inappropriate and not recommended when doing an audit over a site where an auditor used to work. It could be either that your former employer is now the supplier of your present time company, or that you are now an external auditor, and after several years you are asked to perform an audit at your "old folks's" plant.

The question here is one of impartiality and as for most questions here on the Cove - it depends!

General accreditation body rules are a useful starting point. They say you shouldn't use an auditor if they have had any commercial / technical involvement within 2 years. I've got a couple of examples:

• As a 3rd party auditor I've audited a company I worked for as an employee (about 15 years before) and had the pleasure of auditing my old boss.
• I also went in to audit a company I had provided some audit training for as an independent consultant just over 2 years before.

Now in each of these occasions I went in and did my usual thing. No hidden agenda, no surprises. If you want to be a professional auditor you should be able to take these things in your stride. The latter case was more likely to caudse problems as I was still an independent consultant and was providing contract auditing services and could have touted for more business. But I didn't - you lose more in reputation than you gain in business.

Hope this helps.

[Dr. L. Ramakrishnan]

Hi

If a proper procedure is followed, the Client (or auditee if the client is different from the auditee organization) will be informed of the Audit Team and the organization's approval of the audit team members is sought. If one is an audit team member and was an employee of the client (or auditee) that organization can take a decision to accept (or not) the nomination of the proposed auditor as an auditor in the team. The point I want to make is that the decision to audit an ex-employer is not that of the auditor but that of the ex-employer. If the ex-employer is comfortable with the proposed auditor, there should not be any basic issue in keeping him/her in the team.

With kind regards,

Ramakrishnan

[Ajit Basrur]

I agree with Marc -one should never audit ex-employer

[Paul Simpson]

In Reply to Parent Post by Dr. L. Ramakrishnan

Hi

If a proper procedure is followed, the Client (or auditee if the client is different from the auditee organization) will be informed of the Audit Team and the organization's approval of the audit team members is sought. If one is an audit team member and was an employee of the client (or auditee) that organization can take a decision to accept (or not) the nomination of the proposed auditor as an auditor in the team. The point I want to make is that the decision to audit an ex-employer is not that of the auditor but that of the ex-employer. If the ex-employer is comfortable with the proposed auditor, there should not be any basic issue in keeping him/her in the team.

With kind regards,

Ramakrishnan

Good point Dr L. The audit is a joint process so the auditee can challenge the audit team proposed (as we do all the time! ). As a client you have to have good cause and a lot will depend on the individual and the circumstances they left.

Another example :

When in 3rd party certification we had to assign a new auditor to a client and it just so happened we had an auditor who had worked for them many years previously. As I had a good working relationship with the client and asked them if they would allow Mr X back in as their auditor. 'Let me make a few calls and I'll get back to you' I was told. Sure enough half anhour later the call came back - 'If you send Mr X in as the auditor you can ask him to pick up the certificates and bring them back to your office.'

We didn't send him in and my subsequent dealings with Mr X tells me the client was perfectly right.

In Reply to Parent Post by Ajit Basrur

I agree with Marc -one should never audit ex-employer

Why?