The Joy of the Audit
The fear often in the eyes of business owners and team members when they hear that an auditor is coming in to review a business is an all-too-common sight. Their private world is about to be intruded upon by a stranger who will ask a lot of questions, dig through documents and systems, be very quick with the red pen, and write a non-conformance report longer than the waiting list for the MCC.
Yet I have had the pleasure (yes, pleasure!) of auditors in a variety of settings and have found the experience mostly to be positive and beneficial. Financial auditors for company accounts that needed to be submitted to ASIC. Compliance auditors for pharmacy accreditation through QCPP. Health and safety auditors on work sites. Accreditation auditors for ISO9001, AS/NZS4801 and ISO14001. (And I’ll send a bottle of wine to the first person who jumps on my website and sends me a message via the Contact button, explaining what the three accreditation numbers relate to.)
The misconceptions regarding auditors continually perplex me. (more…)