Getting Audited

Whenever you mention the word ‘audit,’ it gets everyone on edge! Visions of tax audits rush to the front of our minds with suit clad accountants sporting thick rimmed glasses slinking into your office to quietly demand to see your books. With a stern, set expressionless face, they shuffle through crumpled receipts and punch digits on their oversized calculators, only occasionally glancing up to inquire, “Was that mountain bike really for work purposes? Are you just pretending to be a mountain bike instructor?”
 
It really is an unsettling feeling for people, as nobody likes to have strangers come through and make judgements about their finances or work. However, what if we’re looking at this from the wrong point of view? For the moment forget about tax audits and think about workplace audits. What are they? What should they be for? What benefit can they bring?
 
An audit within the workplace can be for many reasons, but basically they’re to test and assess if what’s being done, is the most effective and safe way of doing things. As a result, this can bring huge benefits to the organisation. However, it needs to involve an experienced and impartial third party. This not only helps remove internal personal agendas, but also allows for a fresh look at processes and procedures which we are often too close to as program developers and managers to see for ourselves.
 
From a safety and risk management point of view, it’s excellent (and essential) to have your programs and systems regularly audited. This is not to strike fear into people and ‘keep everyone on their toes,’ it’s to ensure your organisation is doing the best work possible in the safest manner possible.
 
Having worked for a number of dysfunctional organisations in the past, I’ve seen first hand how desperately they needed someone to come in and ask, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Sometimes, this can work internally. However, it’s always far more powerful to have an independent point of view expressed.  
 
Unfortunately for the places I worked, with a sense of such misguided self-confidence and arrogance, they refused to let anyone take a serious look at what was going on and in two cases it just got worse. This lack of transparency and idea that everything’s ok because someone with a boss hat on said so, only added to the risk profile of the organisations. The reality was that the more they tried to internalise everything, the greater the risks became.
 
Thankfully, most organisations aren’t as bad as this and what an audit will usually find is that there are some great things happening. This reinforcement of what you’re doing well as instructors and program directors, is an excellent morale boost for everyone and a wonderful validation of the great work you’re doing.
 
There are also always going to be areas in which you can improve and the audit can cut through a lot of the organisational blindness to reveal some key areas that have been missed, fallen by the wayside or simply can be improved upon. Again, in most cases, this is just part of a continuous improvement process and shouldn’t be seen as anything personal or daunting.
 
As an outdoor ed professional, I’ve had my work audited and I’ve also conducted external audits on other schools and organisations. The end result of each and every one of these was reinforcement and positive improvement for the programs.
 
Unless you’re an absolute buffoon and have been pretending you can run a program when you have no idea what you’re doing nor any real experience, there’s absolutely nothing to fear from an external audit of your program. For any school or organisation running outdoor programs, it’s essential to have your work regularly reviewed to ensure the best risk management and operational management practices possible, because at the end of the day, you’re better off having an experienced outdoor ed professional coming in, working with you and reviewing your work to help reduce risks and prevent incidents, rather than a team of lawyers soullessly trawling through everything and interrogating you after something has gone seriously wrong!