Recent research from NEBOSH (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health) suggests that more than 50% of health and safety managers are now responsible for managing quality and environmental issues at work.
The same is also true of internal auditors – there is now more and more pressure on auditors to audit the holy trinity of ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 but ensuring competency for each system may be tough to achieve. So what skills do managers and auditors actually need?
This question depends on your overall organisation and level of risk and complexity but here are some ideas of auditor competency that is needed for each system…
Quality Management Auditor
Assuming you are running an ISO 9001 system your internal audit team will need a two day internal audit course as a minimum. It could help to send the team on a one day foundation course as well.
If asked the importance of the one day course – my advice is to rate the individual on a scale of 1-10 for ISO 9001 knowledge. If they rate as a 1-3 then a one day foundation course is required… 4 plus and the individual should be able to comfortably achieve the two day internal audit.
If your organisation uses risk assessment techniques such as FMEA or other quality tools (SPC, Six Sigma, problem solving etc, etc) then it would also help for your audit team to be trained in these techniques.
Environmental Management Auditor
Once again the one day foundation course and two day internal audit course should be viewed as a minimum. If you have a well develop aspect register and these tend not to change then this training may be enough but, an auditor must have an understanding of how to audit environmental aspects as well as procedures.
If you are using your audit system to evaluate compliance, then some kind of training for legislation would be useful in order for the auditor team to assess significant legislation effectively.
If you have more complex aspects or, aspects that tend to change (for example in construction sites) then more in depth training such as the IEMA Associates course will provide a good level of training.
Health & Safety Auditor
Similar advice to that of environmental management auditor – the OHSAS 18001 internal audit course will provide a good overview.
Legislation is important, as is an understanding of risk assessment so, as a minimum, an additional course such as the IOSH managing safely course will provide a good introduction to these areas. If however your hazards are more complex and changing then a course such as the NEBOSH General Certificate should be considered.
Competancy, awareness and training
So having hit your training budget is that all? Not quite – don’t forget that an audit team needs regular exposure to auditing and as an ideal, initially conducting 4-5 audits with a more experienced auditor will be worth the investment in time to build the confidence and competence of an internal auditor.
This is not a sales pitch!
Its easy to say that I would recommend extensive training for any auditor as that is the business of QCS International… the big however is that I often see organisations actually waste money by training people who then don’t use their audit training at all because they don’t feel confident enough to perform audits. The worst case scenario is investing in some training only to find your audit team perform ineffective internal audits.
The bottom line is – an effective integrated auditor needs somewhere in the region of 9-12 days training to cover all three systems effectively – more so if you process/environmental/safety hazards are more complex or change often.
So before you try to get your team to become super integrated auditors, just consider the time, investment and benefits of conducting integrated versus separate system audits.