During this festive period of exchange and discussion about our mental health, I’d like to bring you a subject that isn’t often discussed in the auditing community, but which I believe is a major issue both in terms of the quality of the work carried out and the results obtained.

Beware of audit fatigue.

Auditors and auditees are human, I hope I’m not teaching you anything here, and like all humans there are aspects to consider for their well-being.

An auditor’s job is to observe, listen, validate, verify and confirm the state of a system. Whether it’s a billing, accounting or management system, such as an incident management system, or IT security.

In addition to finding evidence or artifacts, the auditor must document these in a complete, precise document that offers added value to the auditee.

As you can see, this work is repetitive and requires a great deal of energy to stay on the lookout for details that must not escape the auditors’ notice, since it is precisely they who must uncover any elements that are non-compliant or that could compromise the proper functioning of the system under evaluation.

As the work is repetitive, requiring patience, popularization, reflection, judgment and a balancing act between customer satisfaction and maintaining a good relationship with the auditee. This leads to auditor fatigue.

For the auditee, things aren’t any easier either, especially if he or she is audited on a regular basis and to different standards, which will also tire him or her out.

The resulting audit “fatigue” can lead to serious problems being overlooked, or discoveries being “desensitized”.

For example, when auditees become accustomed to receiving non-conformities or opportunities for improvement, they come to regard them as routine, with the result that routine or day-to-day tasks are given higher priority than potentially serious non-conformities.

I’ve encountered this situation a few times in my career, and I have to admit that the items that tire me the most are the clients’ ability not to answer questions or to look for a way to pass the audit, without providing any relevant information.

For the auditor, asking the same audit questions and getting disjointed answers, as well as arguing with the auditees to obtain the precise information sought, can be tedious.

On the other hand, it’s difficult for some auditees to answer properly, especially if they don’t understand the purpose of the questions or the type of response required.

Possible solutions?

  • Have a clear and precise audit plan of the type of information to be obtained for each item.
  • Expand the team of auditors and auditees to share the work and stimulate conversations. It’s through these discussions that auditors will find the right answers.
  • If possible, vary the work between auditor and specialist, e.g. don’t carry out audits every day for weeks on end, but act in different capacities.
  • Divide up the work for the auditee (e.g. cover themes with different people)
  • Maintain a healthy lifestyle, i.e. sleep, exercise and eat properly.