Motivation for IQA (Internal Quality Audit) Auditors

[Jen Kirley]

Auditing can be quite difficult in an organization where one or more of the following exist:

• Blame is assigned versus an opportunity to improve being recognized.
• The wrong people are being held accountable for problems.
• Quality management is viewed as a chore or burden.
• Peer pressure to ignore problems exceeds the desire to do right the first time.
• The messenger is made sorry for bearing bad news.
• Improvements are ordered, but not adequately resourced.
• Improvements are recognized when performed by certain people only.
• People in positions of power exhibit a "Do as I say, not as I do" manner.
• People take credit for work/improvements that others have done.

This list could go on and on. I hope you can understand my point.

There are two very basic kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is a person's wish to do a thing without involving consequence or reward. When morale is high, intrinsic motivation is arguably easier to find. When auditing does not result in improvements because the organization does not use auditing as a beneficial tool, intrinsic motivation can be damaged.

With extrinsic motivation there would typically be some reward for this added work. The reward could be tangible or intangible. When I had collateral duties while in the Navy, they brought no extra pay but it was well known they looked good in evals and were helpful for advancement.

Extrinsically motivating almost anyone to contribute to quality audits can be extremely difficult when they have reason to believe their efforts are not appreciated, and/or they will be made sorry in other ways such as having to work harder in their other duties because the time to audit wasn't built into their schedule.

And so this is less about anything you could do except to make recommendations to management. So much of this is about culture.

 

[jkuil]

I favour a blended approach. An audit team consisting of a professional lead auditor. Someone who has auditing skills, ensures the depth of the audit and has the skills to write down the audit results.

One or more sme's like representatives of the internal customers or specific subject matter experts from other departments complete the team. They should bring their experience into the audit. The internal customer can investigate the quality of their input, the sme can disseminate their experience throughout the company. Within a company you can develop sme's on specific topics or processes, e.g. an expert on validation, an expert on inspections and testing, an expert lean manufacturing, etc. By adding sme's to your audit team you are rewarding them for their experience. It also establishes a knowledge network within your company and hopefully the sme's will also be consulted when suppport is needed. You can also reward the sme's by sending them to specific training. The audit then becomes a tool to disseminate the training experience.

 

[AndyN]

We have a number of solutions, here, however, we still have yet to determine the cause!

I've seen audit programmes where the most significant problem was that the auditors were given a huge checklist and told exactly what to ask, what to sample etc. so the audit became just a form filling exercise! No wonder the auditors didn't like doing audits! We must first find out the answers to questions posed earlier in this thread.....

 

[Sidney Vianna]

And so this is less about anything you could do except to make recommendations to management. So much of this is about culture.

As long as internal audits are perceived as non value added activities by top management, organizations will do as little as possible. If internal auditors were perceived as business improvement opportunity discoverers and could demonstrate their audits help the organization in improving business results and better risk management, top officers would want more of that and create rewarding mechanisms and removing the demotivating factors for internal auditors.

How can one expect top management to promote something is not perceived as valuable? Until that question is adequately addressed, the vicious cycle of ineffective audits leading to less top management attention, leading to less resources being provided, leading to ineffective audits will continue.

 

[AndyN]

As long as internal audits are perceived as non value added activities by top management, organizations will do as little as possible. If internal auditors were perceived as business improvement opportunity discoverers and could demonstrate their audits help the organization in improving business results and better risk management, top officers would want more of that and create rewarding mechanisms and removing the demotivating factors for internal auditors.

How can one expect top management to promote something is not perceived as valuable? Until that question is adequately addressed, the vicious cycle of ineffective audits leading to less top management attention, leading to less resources being provided, leading to ineffective audits will continue.

And since often top management don't 'get it' until they see some benefit (you can exhort to them the benefits, but it won't change their minds) - it all comes from effective audit program management!

 

[Sidney Vianna]

it all comes from effective audit program management!

What won't happen until there is a driver for it.

 

[AndyN]

What won't happen until there is a driver for it.

Not true at all! There are plenty of people who can demonstrate to management the value of doing effective internal audits, thorugh effective audit program management - long before management find a 'driver! If you understand human psychology you'll know that if you do the same thing over and expect a different result......

 

[Sidney Vianna]

i am thinking of giving them something (not monetary) that will uplift their morale and maintain the enthusiasm in doing the IQA activity.

Create an Award to be selected from all internal audit results. The award should be given to the auditor or audit team that provided the most beneficial feedback from the business perspective. Force your internal auditors to report internal audit results, in terms of conformance to requirements and opportunities for improvement as it affects business processes. Force your auditors to make the correlation between business risks and their findings (positive and negative).

Have the award delivered by the company's president (or top officer) and the ceremony internally promoted. This would send the message that top management is interested in the results of internal audits, PROVIDED they are presented from a business perspective.

Not all internal auditors would be able to operate with this mind-set, but for those that are, it becomes a mutually beneficial relationship (internal auditors and top management).

 

[vanputten]

Remove all barriers that prevent the auditors from doing an effective job. This may allow them to maintain some perceived (or actual) value to the organiztion. Ensure competency so audits provide actionable data to management. Give them useful tools and understanding (training, classes, experience, etc.) that allows them to to do something beneficial for the company instead of completing a pre-made checklist. Ensure that the audit process is effective in providing valuable information on potential future problems.

Selection of auditors should ensure that they come to the position with an interest and intrinsic motivation.

 

[arin_23]

Our esteemed covers have already suggested many ways of "bringing life" to your cross functional internal auditors. I am appending a few more:

1. In the KRA of individual auditors you can add a specific percentage , so that during performance appraisal they are evaluated on that parameter as well.

2. Nominate good performers for next high end quality training offered in the organizational level ( Let his/her performance be one of the selection criteria)

3.Let the best performers present the summary of findings to the top management.

4.Introduce the concept of a lead auditor in internal audit too, the best performers should be chosen as de facto lead auditor in the next cycle.

5.Provide them chance in liasion activities with the certification body, so that the interest factor grows among them.

Regards,

Arin