Wim Schouten, Senior Manager Internal Audit: "Within Internal Audit Achmea, we are in a state of flux and try to follow the developments within our field as closely as possible."
"Where possible, we even try to anticipate this. It's very important that we add value, do the standard work as efficiently as possible, and with that we're not going to be surprised by robotization of that work."
"The auditors of the future not only possess audit knowledge and experience, but in fact also have competencies and personality traits, which contribute to flexible and anticipatory response to changes. They possess guts in execution, can act in a short cyclical manner, are fully-fledged discussion partners of management and advise on developments and risk management of matters that really (will) matter."
"Internal Audit Achmea now has a solid core of senior auditors with a lot of experience and good competencies. Now is the time to complement this core with young motivated academics, who will keep us up to date by contributing up-to-date knowledge and skills. These people must possess the right (audit) competencies and personality traits and have an affinity with the auditing profession, but certainly not all have to come from the traditional education corner. After all, the core of experienced auditors is ample within the department. Coaching and willingness to learn the audit profession is, of course, desirable for the newly entering academics."
"The desire to focus on developments and risk management of issues that really matter sometimes runs aground because in cause analyses we get bogged down in areas where the auditor finds it difficult or afraid to apply his methodologies, established patterns and learned approaches. Examples include investigations in the areas of attitude and behavior, marketing and strategy. The attitude and behavior/culture aspect in particular has been the cause of major problems in recent echelons at financial companies and rarely recognized as such by an internal audit function, let alone reported. Regulators are now paying great attention to this; the AFM itself is deploying behavioral scientists. As Internal Audit of a large financial company, we too felt that this discipline would be a desirable addition to our team. Since we ourselves do not immediately attract the attention of behavioral scientists on the job market, we asked AuditPeople to find a number of suitable candidates for us.
How do you like the collaboration so far (with the trainee and/or AuditPeople)?
Wim Schouten: "After receiving several resumes and personality descriptions from AuditPeople, we selected, interviewed and hired two behavioral science graduates sequentially from AuditPeople. During the agreed period, AuditPeople provided in-house training, additional mentoring and personal coaching. During that period, we were able to establish suitability and mutual click and decided on an acquisition. We are very satisfied with how this turned out."
If you would like more information about the AuditPeople Traineeship, please contact Sander van Oosten (sander.van.oosten@auditpeople.nl or 06-18804323).
AuditPeople (www.auditpeople.nl) is a specialty service provider that provides internal audit functions with capacity and expertise.