What do we mean by adding value during an audit?
It’s not unusual to hear a company’s leadership team say that they have an expectation that auditors ‘add value’ when they conduct an audit of their business. Does that interpretation of what is included in an audit fit with the role of the internal auditor? It might, but auditors should be wary of being seen as having all the answers, they don’t, but they can certainly help managers and process owners come up with answers. What about external audits, is it implicit in a certification body’s assessment that they add value? Other commercial forces may be a play but ultimately certification body auditors must abide by the rules of ISO 17021, the criteria to which they themselves are accredited by UKAS.
Is it possible to add value without compromising the integrity of the audit or providing consultancy? In principle, all audits should add value, but it’s not always as straightforward as that.
If we define ‘value’ as something beneficial, something important or useful rather than focusing on the ‘monetary’ aspects of the term, then where we ‘add value’ can be interpreted as the extra benefit or usefulness to be gained.
So, if audits can be considered as improvement tools, then surely, it’s a must that we ‘add value’, a ‘shall’ if you like. If the standards being audited are truly integrated into the business processes and are well understood as mechanism to deploy risk-based thinking then if an audit assists in achieving strategic objectives, then it could be said to ‘add value’. Conversely, other organisations may have simply created a templated set of procedures and documents that do not reflect the reality of the way the business actually works, and simply add costs, without being useful. In other words, they do not “add value”. Is the end game for the business to put just what it has to in place to gain certification, in other words a non-value-added approach or does it promote a value-added approach where it asks a question such as “How can we use our ISO 9001-based quality management system to help us to improve our business?”
How to add value during an audit.
To ensure an audit is truly beneficial or ‘useful’ to an organisation first we need to think about perspective.
A certification body, or third party, audit should be ‘useful’ in that it provides information or intelligence on the extent to which a business can meet its objectives. Similarly, the audit may highlight faults, deviations or weaknesses or indeed may point to examples of best practice or improvement opportunities. If it is a quality audit then customers and the organisation’s ability to satisfy customers will be examined (something for another day but an emerging theme in customer satisfaction is the concept of customer experience). Overall, the ‘confidence’ gained from an audit should add value in that the credibility of third-party certification (UKAS accredited of course) enhances value in the award of certification. This approach is likely to be found in an organisation where processes are embedded within a framework aligned to a strong culture of quality and other management disciplines. A strong management system culture could include elevated levels of awareness, commitment, collective attitude and behaviour of the organisation with respect the management systems.
Where a business has little or no management system culture, then expectation may drift into advice that can be given by the auditor on how to implement aspects of the system or how to fix any weaknesses or indeed non-conformances.
Auditors must be wary of providing consultancy, indeed ISO 17021 the standard to which certification bodies must conform does not allow it. What is allowed is clear communication as to what the issue is and why it’s a problem. If a business can recognise that auditors cannot be consultants, then perhaps it can develop the tools to address the non-conformances and see real benefit in its management system. In other words, it can take the real value from the audit. Replace this paragraph with your article text. To insert your image, click the placeholder to the right, then click Image. You can also modify the link below to point to your website or place where additional information can be found.