A&R Awards case study: Bupa Group Internal Audit
When the Bupa Group Internal Audit (GIA) team embarked on its “Ways of working” (WoW) initiative it was keen to move the way the team worked into a new phase of continuous development and equip it to deal with the new and emerging challenges it will face over the coming years. It already believed that the team was doing good work, but it wanted to shift the way it thought about leadership and development.
The most important element was that the changes should be made “by internal auditors, for internal auditors” and they were clear that this would be just the start of an ongoing journey, rather than an initiative with a single defined goal.
In 2021 the WoW programme focused on people development. It took a conscious decision to accelerate learning and development activities to achieve its aim of “faster, more effective and sustainable improvement in internal controls”. Four key workstreams – audit leadership, management and delivery capability; a data access and analytics training academy; a GIA digital learning hub; and a capability and goals framework – worked together to help GIA support staff better and encourage everyone to learn and to grow.
Active leadership
The most complex and ambitious element was the creation of the Active Audit Leadership Programme (AALP), a 21-week behavioural transformation leadership development programme created with consultancy BearingPoint. This focused explicitly on equipping GIA managers with the skills to manage in new ways – “upwards, downwards and sideways”. The emphasis was on improving their abilities to manage with a focus on “proactive performance” and on building a collaborative mindset within teams. This was in turn based on the fundamental aim of driving improved operational performance by improving individual competency.
Managers went through an intense period of training and behaviour coaching and were encouraged to try out new skills and then work with consultants and feedback to refine techniques and hone best practice in real situations. Core modules included developing skills in the areas of “Managing Others” (leading people and developing relationships including stakeholder management), “Managing Self” (personal effectiveness and awareness), and “Managing Performance" (managing operations and delivering results).
It was clear from the start that this had to be a sustainable programme that would continue and evolve long after the initial 21-week coaching and training period ended.
Another important development was the annual “GIA Expo” – an opportunity for the entire global team of 100 people to come together virtually for a week to learn, undertake training and development, attend sessions on the Bupa business, and discuss areas of focus for the function, including active leadership, careers and mental health, as well as to talk about their experiences. This time was additional to the percentage of staff time that is already allocated to personal learning and development throughout the year.
“We feel we have to be at pace with – or, preferably, ahead of – the rest of the business and it’s enabled us to focus on evolving what we do to an extent that continuous improvement really is part of what we now are,” explains Kristie Jephson, audit director at Bupa. “Everyone is at different points in their journey and the Expo gets us all on the same page and ensures we all have the same base understanding of our role, but also gives us a chance to learn something new.”
Clear purpose
“The WoW initiative was based on a new group internal audit strategic framework that defined our purpose – why we exist,” explains Jephson. “This not only told us why we do what we do, but also defined it for the rest of the business. From the start, we were keen to drive positive change throughout the whole organisation.”
The framework “set the tone” for the WoW programme by creating a vision of what it wanted to be in future. This definition of what the team should be, do and look like proved a vital tool and has remained constant throughout subsequent changes. “We update parts of it and have added references to other areas that have become important, but the basic pillars haven’t changed,” says Darren Pearce, head of operations in Bupa GIA. “It explains what we do to new recruits and reinforces messages to long-standing staff and it has provided a coherence that has improved staff retention and satisfaction.”
The benefits, of course, did not just come from defining the purpose of the team, but this helped to focus GIA on what it really wanted to achieve in the business. It meant that all the projects within the WoW programme, including those in its learning and development pillar, could be constantly refreshed and evolved, but would remain focused on the same basic tenets.
Impact
The real test of success had to be whether the evolution of GIA was having a tangible impact on the business. Overall, feedback on the team’s performance in its annual stakeholder survey was consistently good, but, importantly, individuals in the team reported lower stress levels because they were working better together, had effective tools to manage stakeholder relationships and fewer barriers to achieving their aims. In survey results, “team engagement” rose by 21 per cent between the start and end of the programme, and “stakeholder engagement” rose by 25 per cent.
Comments from team members included: “Levels of stress have reduced, everything seems smoother” and “Teams are managing the expectations of others, stakeholders and themselves better”. Others said they believed their relationships with stakeholders had improved and planning and prioritising was being done better. Managers believed they were reaching their goals faster.
The chair of the audit committee at the time, Clare Thompson, endorsed its success, saying: “GIA is a strong function which is constantly striving to improve further – its DNA now includes a commitment to invest, develop and motivate its people, and I feel confident in the quality of its work this supports.” She emphasised the value that the audit committee and board placed on being able to rely “on the sustainability of GIA’s robust assurance through the investment that is made in the personal growth and learning of colleagues across the whole function.”
In the wider business, one of the financial and commercial managers offered feedback saying: “I feel over the past year there has been a step up and an increased level of added value interaction. Great to see.”
A general buzz
Since winning the award last June, GIA has further developed the ways in which it provides value to the business. One important and ongoing focus is the embedding of the internal control environment. “This has really supported the advocacy we provide in the business,” says Jephson. “We offer training and discussions at the start of every piece of work to help all stakeholders understand their place in the control framework and explain why we look for specific things. It's really helped our relationships in the business.”
Winning the A&R award helped the team by raising the visibility of internal audit in the organisation, Pearce says. “It shows that our professional body sees us as a team that invests in learning and continuous improvement.”
Moreover, it also generated huge excitement in the GIA team itself – and was explicitly recognised by the audit committee. “There was a general buzz of excitement,” Pearce says. “Winning the award opened up opportunities for us to start conversations about what we do and why we do it.”
The team has taken advantage of the publicity to spread its messages further. “Since then, we have done presentations on how we are evolving and embedding improvement and we’ve had other functions come to us and ask how we do it and whether active leadership could help them to deal with challenging stakeholders and other issues,” he says. “We are now being a source of learning and value and helping to improve leadership, retention and management across the whole business.” Internal audit managers in other organisations have also got in touch to ask about their active leadership and other development projects.
The value of the WoW initiative has therefore spiralled beyond improving the control environment to helping to share best practice more generally across the entire organisation.
“I’ve been so impressed by what the team is doing and how it is supporting development, investing in people and sharing this with the rest of the organisation and beyond,” Pearce says. “If we can share what we’ve been doing with other teams, that’s good for GIA, for the business and for internal audit generally. It’s good for all of us.”
For more on Bupa’s active audit leadership programme, see Audit & Risk issue 67, September/October 2022.
This article was published in May 2023.