Report Writing and Communication Skills for Auditors

OVERVIEW

Report writing and communication skills form the most significant and critical component of any internal audit consulting and audit project regardless of the size, location, and complexity of the business under review. Yet, there is an underestimation of the importance of these writing and communication skills in today’s governance, risk, compliance, and audit environment.

The global corporate and risk management experience has revealed that the most powerful and value-added approach to gain your executive stakeholders’ buy-in and strongest support is by implementing more influential and impactful executive report writing and communication skills. This strategy would assist Internal Auditors in building strong and trusting partnerships between the organization’s executive senior management and the Internal Audit Managers and Staff.

The Company Board of Directors and Audit Committee consult with and rely on their Chief Audit Executives and Internal Auditors to help them accomplish its business objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes. Engaging and applying strategic executive communications and audit reporting would strengthen the support to/from your senior management and increase the credibility of your Internal Audit Group.

The course has been designed to provide you and your teams with a strong and practical framework of report writing and communication skills. This training course will utilize a variety of proven learning techniques to ensure maximum understanding, comprehension, and retention of the information presented. This includes various exercises and case studies to provide practical application of the tools and techniques. A series of valuable tools and templates will be provided in electronic format – to take away and use immediately.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:

• Understand and identify who are your key readers and their objectives
• Best practices in documenting internal audit reports
• Developing effective internal audit report writing skills
• Conducting influencing and impactful interviewing skills
• Construction of audit findings
• Managing communication styles
• Revising audit reporting tactics
• Finalizing audit reporting and applying powerful communication strategies
• Understand the evolving internal audit reporting culture and its role in today’s increasingly complex working and economic business environment.
• Apply global best practices in your internal audit reporting and communication to the Board of Directors, Audit Committees, divisional management well as, other key internal and external stakeholders.
• Implement practical, high-quality, and effective internal auditing report writing skills, tools, and techniques that would help you, your audit team, and/or compliance team to execute impactful and result-focused communications.

TARGET PARTICIPANTS

• Heads of Audit
• Audit managers
• Senior auditors and lead auditors
• Less experienced auditors
• Quality auditors
• Other assurance professionals such as those in Compliance and QA functions who want to improve their reports

COURSE CONTENTS

1. Audit Reports – Your Shop Window

• The challenges of audit reporting
• The main problems with audit reports
• The need to create an impact
• Analysis of 4 actual reports
• Evaluation of your own reports – using a proven method
• The Executive summary

• Write compelling reports that engage your readers.
• Meet your readers' needs for report content, structure, and readability.
• Follow a disciplined approach for developing each audit observation.
• Identify root causes and recommend appropriate solutions.
• Engage in writing exercises that result in real-time improvement.

3. Best Practice Audit Reports

• The psychology of audit reports
• Writing reports with an impact
• The need to make reports more positive
• How to simplify the content
• Highlighting the issues that really matter
• Improving the review process

4. Keeping the Report as Simple as Possible

• The main report
• Writing a clear, concise report
• Forming and expressing the audit opinion
• Recommendations and action plans
• Finalizing the report
• The need for follow-up – should this be carried by IA?

5. Effective Communication: The Key Audit Goal

• The challenges for auditors
• The characteristics of effective communication
• The impact on the productivity of clear communication
• Interpersonal skills for auditors
• Influencing
• The power of senior management and stakeholder engagement

6. Negotiation and Listening

• The power of Effective negotiation
• Negotiating during each audit phase
• The need for win-win solutions
• Listening - the most important audit skill?
• Types of listening and the importance of IA
• Time Management