Re: Terminating an Internal Audit
Mr. Bonville (Bob) (not the 'other' Bob!)
Why were you doing the audit? Giving notice is O.K but only just. It seems to me like you're expecting them to jump to attention just because you're doing an audit! Did you consider doing any more than issuing (what they treat as) a warning?
My guess is, you didn't involve these folks in the planning and preparation for the audit. What issues were you going to make the scope of the audit? Anything that was on their radar screen? Anything that was of importance to the customer, regulatory compliance or the bottom line? Or their acheivements of internal objectives?
If not, then I believe that 'as you sow, so shall you reap'..........If you don't put in the effort to make the audit important to them, they will hardly see any reason to respond to your telling them 'I'm on my way......"
Sorry to be blunt, but in over 20 years of auditing in many scenarios, I've witnessed all kinds of well meaning auditors get 'wrapped around the axle' over such issues. The fact is, it's your behaviours, (IMHO) right from the get go, which result in their responses of apathy and indifference to the QMS.
It's a perfectly normal and predictable human trait - so, as auditors, if we expect this to happen, we have to accommodate it and plan for it.