Yes, you read it right, I am already so "in" the NN world that I am talking about "our" own quality requirements and "we are going". In fact, NN is no stranger to me, because from late 2011 to late 2015 I worked at NN in the Shared service center department as Finance manager of NN Life and of NN Non-Life. Lovely to run into all your old colleagues again. However, it is especially nice to see how NN has completely separated itself from ING Bank and is now an independent, big player within the Dutch financial world, instead of being the little sister of the big ING Bank. Looking at CAS, the level at which work is done is also very high. Not just with something like a handbook lying in a cupboard somewhere, but a fully integrated and within all countries uniform own NN audit methodology up to and including its own electronic filing and taken care of to perfection. Profi hear!
And when you then have to assess all these different files, from different audit disciplines, from different countries, across different product lines, from insurer to (NN) bank, from policy to execution or governance? Then it's a bit of a shock, but precisely because of that professional approach and my old knowledge of the organization, the penny drops quickly. Sometimes you have to translate emails from Hungarian or Japanese, but that's what makes it fun. Automatic translation is very handy, but sometimes Google translation or Word translation are not very good. The conversations with auditors from all countries and all disciplines for your background knowledge of the audit are also fun to have. You learn a lot from the way of thinking and working in another country, while still working in a uniform way. And how often within 1 day do you have a Hungarian and a Romanian colleague on the line, while in the corridor you hear Russian, Turkish or Filipino talking from your audit colleagues?
Looking at IIA Nederland's new Scaling guidelines (document judging quality reviews), you can see that IIA Nederland has made quite a change there. Some things feel very rigid, which makes you wonder if this is really necessary because you don't have audit risk. IIA Netherlands, however, asks how we as an internal audit department are valued by our stakeholders and whether we can still improve our added value. If you read this, you will also better understand why some things are suddenly tested so strictly by IIA Netherlands.
Fortunately, we are going for the 8+ and I will be fully focused on that in the coming months with my colleagues. You will see the results on the IIA Site if we pass the quality assessment!
Erika Osinga, Interim Audit Supervisor via AuditPeople