GREAT Ways to Motivate Your Staff:
Shaping an Audit Team that Adds Value and Inspires
Business Improvement
Bruce Turner
AM, CRMA, CGAP, CISA, CFE
Available free of charge:
www.theiia.org/goto/CBOK
CBOK 2015
Practitioner Study
CBOK is the Global Internal Audit Common
Body of Knowledge:
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internal audit professionals in the world.
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CBOK 2015 Practitioner
Survey
• Practitioner Survey Results
– Survey completed April 1, 2015
– 14,518 usable survey responses
• Participation Levels
– 100% representation from IIA institutes
– Responses from 166 countries
– 23 languages
CBOK 2015 Practitioner
Study
CBOK 2015 Practitioner
Study
Age was obtained from 12,780 respondents; Organization Type was obtained from 13,032
respondents; Gender was obtained from 14,357 respondents; Staff Level was obtained from
12,716 respondents.
Introduction
• Effective CAEs position their teams to add value
and inspire business improvement.
• They maximize the productivity and contribution
of their internal audit cohort.
• This report provides GREAT insights on how
CAEs and other audit leaders can improve their
practices for evaluating and motivating internal
auditors.
The motivation of internal auditors can be influenced by a wide range of
factors, including life satisfaction across the course of one’s life,
generational differences, and unique gender needs.
Internal Audit Leadership Drivers
• Stakeholder expectations for internal audit will
continue to evolve.
• CAEs need to leverage a structured performance
management system to shape a motivated, highly
productive workforce that delivers value to the
business.
Introduction (cont’d)
Five critical success factors for shaping an effective audit team:
Goal-Setting
Align personal goals of internal auditors to
internal audit department goals and the
organization’s strategies.
Retaining Talent
Retain talent amidst changing needs of
internal audit and the business
Equipping Employees
Build capability and capacity for internal
audit overall and individually.
Assessing Performance
Evaluate internal auditors against overall
internal audit department performance.
Treating Success
Provide incentives and recognition to
motivate internal auditors.
1. Goal Setting
Align personal goals of internal auditors to
internal audit department goals and the
organization’s strategies to help the
organization achieve its objectives.
Key Insights
• Alignment between internal audit goals and your
organization’s strategic objectives will not
happen by accident.
• Develop your stakeholder relationships so that
you know where your company is heading.
• Use this knowledge to develop your
departmental strategy and then individual
auditor goals.
Achieving Alignment with Stakeholders
CBOK Research: Planning Sources
Tips for Setting Personal Goals
• Provide sufficient time for audit leaders and
auditors to develop and agree upon goals.
• Establish meaningful goals that are clear,
measurable, and achievable.
• Set goals that are commensurate with an auditor’s
capability.
• Align individual goals to audit department and
organizational strategy.
• Equip auditors with necessary skills to meet goals.
• Provide auditors with motivation to meet goals.
Action Items
• Undertake formal analysis of the organization's
strategy.
– Establish a stakeholder relationship management program to
understand business drivers, pressures, and strategies of the
organization in the establishment of the audit plan.
• Align internal auditors' personal goals with the
organization's strategy.
– Align the personal performance goals and objectives of internal
auditors and the mission, objectives, and audit plan of the
internal audit department.
– Analyze external research of industry trends, emerging risk
issues, and other hot topics, which lead to incorporating suitable
topics in the audit plan.
2. Retaining Talent
Retain the right talent amidst changing
needs of internal audit and the business to
help to build an effective internal audit
team.
Key Insights
• You cannot ignore generational differences in
your talent management strategy.
• Adapt your approach to the different priorities for
Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and
the upcoming Generation Z.
• Remember more women are joining the
profession, and their priorities will also need to
be considered.
CBOK Research: Generational Mix
Generational
differences affect all
elements of workforce
management, including
recruitment, teambuilding, management,
motivation, change
management, and
optimization of
productivity.
CBOK Research: Experience
CBOK Research: Future Intentions
The Changing Landscape
• Different motivational
drivers exist among the
generations.
• Boomers often held “a job
for life” providing a pool of
career auditors.
• Generation X and
Millennials are likely to
change jobs or careers
more frequently.
• Generation X has taken
on more leadership roles
as Baby Boomers shift
into other roles or retire.
• About 57% of CAEs are
now from Generation X.
• Millennials currently hold
nearly half of all the
internal audit staff roles.
Growing Ratio of Women
• Talent management
should include a
consideration of growing
ratio of women in the
profession.
• Gender gap has been
closing in all but two
regions.
• Specific motivators of
women will need to be
recognized as they’re
being developed to
undertake more senior
roles, for example:
– Work/life balance
– Workplace stability
– Flexible working
arrangements
– Working from home
CBOK Research: Females
Action Items
• Establish a talent management strategy that
promotes innovation and aligns with stakeholder
needs, diversity ideals, audit plans, a
competency gap analysis, and succession plans.
• Adapt motivation strategies for different
generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X,
Millennials, and the upcoming Generation Z).
3. Equipping Employees
Build capability and capacity for internal
audit overall and individually to help
deliver value.
Key Insights
• If you are not building new competencies within
your staff, you are probably falling behind.
• As you find competency gaps, fill them through
the “buy, build, retain” approach.
• Professional development will not only help the
internal audit function as a whole, but also leads
to greater job satisfaction and motivation for
individual auditors.
CBOK Research: Training Programs
Include core features:
Level of formalization:
•
•
•
•
•
• 74% of larger internal audit
departments have structured
and documented training
programs (those with more than
Internal audit skills - 68%
Orientation - 54%
Business knowledge - 53%
Critical thinking - 30%
Leadership skills - 27%
50 employees)
• 45% of smaller departments
have them (4 to 9 employees)
Training programs with existing core features will remain, but are likely
to become a subset of professional development plans which have a
broader strategic focus and encompass non-training initiatives.
Workforce Plan
A comprehensive workforce plan for the internal
audit department should incorporate:
• An internal audit strategic competency plan and
associated competency process
• A three-pillar approach for filling competency
gaps through buy, build, and retain
• An internal audit capability model, tailored
specifically for your organization
Competency Plan
Professional Development Plan
Tailoring the Learning Approach
• CAEs need to be flexible in
tailoring formal and on-thejob learning delivery
approaches for respective
generational audiences:
– Traditionalists and Baby
Boomers prefer traditional
classroom style.
– Generation X is more likely
to embrace a self-directed
self-paced approach.
– Millennials prefer integration
of technology and media into
learning such as webinars.
Action Items
• Establish a comprehensive workforce plan for
the internal audit department.
• Develop and implement a professional
development plan that includes key
development opportunities for the department
and individual auditors.
4. Assessing Performance
Evaluate internal auditors against overall
internal audit department performance to
drive optimal contribution by the internal
audit department.
Key Insights
• Younger generations want more immediate
performance feedback.
• Many CAEs have embraced a constant
feedback and learning loop.
• Organizations are moving toward outcomesbased work (rather than hours spent at the desk)
for measuring performance.
• Align the contribution of individual internal
auditors with departmental key performance
indicators and balanced scorecard elements.
Assessing Individual Performance
Internal audit’s
performance evaluation
techniques will need to
embrace more outwardfocused measures that
reflect how well the audit
effort has added value and
helped to improve the
organization’s operations.
A performance culture is driven by having absolute clarity of purpose of
what your organization is trying to achieve.
CBOK Research: Common Measures
Outward Facing measures
Examples of More Timely
Feedback and Learning Loops
Engagement
Feedback
Career
Mapping
360-Degree
Profiling
Fireside
Chats
Skip-Level
Interviews
Professional
Training
Targets
Coaches
and Mentors
Personality
Type
Evaluation
Formal performance assessment processes typically cover
competencies, delivery against performance goals, and continued
professional development needs.
Action Items
• Adopt balanced scorecard reporting (or similar)
linked to the performance assessment of
individual internal auditors.
• Complement existing organizationwide formal
performance assessment process with a suitable
constant feedback and learning loop process for
internal auditors.
5. Treating Success
Provide incentives and recognition to
motivate internal auditors and help boost
productivity.
Key Insights
• Suitable rewards system embraces extrinsic
rewards (such as bonuses) and intrinsic rewards
(such as recognition, more challenging work, and
mentoring).
• There are many creative (and fun!) activities to
increase employee
engagement―communication, leadership
development, organizational culture, teambuilding, and rewards.
• Use a variety of approaches to appeal to different
generations.
Types of Rewards
Extrinsic
Intrinsic
• Includes money,
• Reflects the value
bonuses, special gifts,
derived from one’s
and other benefits.
work.
Compensation alone provides limited motivation.
CBOK Research: Bonuses
Who Receives
Common Criteria
• Global average (67%)
• Ranges regionally
(between 60% and (82%)
• Prevalent in large entities,
(at 78% for those with
more than 10,000
employees)
• Less prevalent with public
sector (40%) and not-forprofit organizations (54%)
• Personal performance
(78%)
• Company performance
(74%)
• Completing the audit plan
(36%)
• Achieving the budget
(20%)
Reflecting on Intrinsic Rewards
Employee Engagement Elements
Communication
Activities
Leadership
Development
Building
Organisational
Culture
Reward
Schemes
Team Building
Activities
A good employee engagement model will recognize the different needs
and expectations of team-members and give appropriate intrinsic rewards
Action Items
• Establish a suitable rewards system that extends
beyond compensation to encompass intrinsic
rewards.
• Implement employee engagement model to
motivate different auditors across the team.
Closing Comments
• Contemporary audit teams often have
multidisciplinary skillsets and varied work
experience.
• There are increasing differences in workforce
characteristics like gender, multiculturalism, and
generational factors.
• Demands and expectations of the internal audit
profession will continue to evolve.
Closing Comments (cont’d)
• Bringing teams together and
motivating them takes a
willingness to learn, adapt, and
try new things.
• The five strategies from GREAT
Ways to Motivate Your Staff will
help you along the way.
The full report includes ideas that you can use to motivate your staff and a
list of resources to help you implement the action items.
The Five Strategies
•
•
•
•
•
Goal setting – to help the organization meet its objectives.
Retaining talent – to build an effective audit team.
Equipping employees – to deliver value.
Assessing performance – to drive optimal contribution.
Treating success – to boost internal audit productivity.
CBOK 2015 Releases
IIA International
Conference
Governance, Risk, and
Control Conference
South Africa Conference
IIA Financial
Services Exchange
ECIIA Conference
All Star Conference
Southern Regional
Conference
ACIIA Conference
IIA Midyear
Committee Meetings
Jul. 2015
Aug. 2015
Sept. 2015
Oct. 2015
Nov. 2015
Dec. 2015
Driving Success
in a Changing
World: 10
Imperatives for
Internal Audit
Navigating
Technology’s Top
10 Risks: Internal
Audit’s Role
A Global View
of Financial
Services
Audits:
Challenges,
Opportunities,
and the Future
Who Owns Risk?
A Look at
Internal Audit’s
Changing Role
Auditing the
Public Sector:
Managing
Expectations,
Delivering
Results
Delivering the
Promise:
Measuring
Internal Audit
Value and
Performance
Staying a Step
Ahead: Internal
Audit’s Use of
Technology
Combined
Assurance: One
Language, One
Voice, One View
Responding to
Fraud: Exploring
Where Internal
Auditing Stands
Mapping Your
Career:
Competencies
Necessary for
Internal Audit
Excellence
CBOK 2016 Releases
GAM Conference
SoPac Conference
Leadership
Conference
IIA International
Conference
Jan. 2016
Feb. 2016
Mar. 2016
Apr. 2016
May 2016
Jun. 2016
Engaging Third
Parties for
Internal Audit
Activities:
CAE Career Path:
Characteristics
and
Competencies of
Today’s Internal
Audit Leaders
GREAT Ways
to Motivate
Your Staff
The Skills Most
Desired by IA
Managers for
Their Staffs
IIA Standards:
Conformance
and Trends
Integrated
Reporting
Strategies for
Successful
Relationships
Interacting with
Audit
Committees:
The Way
Forward for
Internal Audit
Maturity Levels
for Internal
Audit
Departments
Around the
World
Certifications
Held by Internal
Auditors
Ethical
Pressures
Faced by
Internal Auditors
Quality
Assurance and
Improvement
Program Trends
Regional
Reflections:
Africa
Organizational
Governance:
Internal Audit's
Role
Women in IA:
Representation
and Trends
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