Outside the box: Could internal audit improve its PR?
Excellent audit work, insightful recommendations, meaningful, engaging reports – yet still you meet people in corridors who don’t know what internal audit does. If this sounds familiar, you may want to spend an hour or two studying the arts of colleagues in PR.
While “spin” and “angles” may sound like the antithesis of the transparency and clarity that internal audit aspires to in its reports, when it comes to promoting the value of the function, style can be as important as substance. And, given that good communication is as much about how the information is received and acted upon, as the actual message conveyed, the process may also throw up some ideas for your report-writing – for further advice on this, see our guidance on “Working with stakeholders”.
For starters, here’s a list of ideas for how to get started. There are, of course, many others and you probably do some of these to some degree already. You could also approach your PR manager for further suggestions or even a team workshop.
1. Make your successes speak for themselves
Too often internal audit successes lead to silence – no company boasts about what might have happened if a risk hadn’t been spotted, processes had not been implemented and plans not put in place. However, improved risk management and mitigation is good news for stakeholders. Furthermore, identifying successes is embedded in Principle 12 of the new Global Internal Audit Standards, which requires internal audit functions to have performance standards and to report on them, both as a basis for improvement and to increase understanding of what internal audit achieves.
So, when your team makes a recommendation that leads to real change, or conducts an audit in a new area or across a wider scope that highlights different risks or indicates better processes, publicise it. It may also educate management about the benefits of discussing strong corporate governance with board members and investors.
2. Find ambassadors
Everyone is busy and managers who have had good experiences of your team and who have benefited from its work won’t necessarily remember to tell others about it. This may change if you ask managers explicitly for their support and for defined actions that they can take to share their positive experiences.
For example, while they are still grateful and interested in your work, or have seen a real improvement from implementing your recommendations, ask for testimonials or request that they mention this at a forthcoming board meeting. Consider setting up a workshop for managers who will undergo an audit in the coming months and ask those with good experiences to say a few words about why their work went well and what they gained from it.
You can also point out that Domain 3 of the new Global Standards requires the audit committee to “champion the internal audit function” and senior management to “support recognition of the internal audit function throughout the organisation”. And while you’re at it, collecting positive feedback is essential if you intend to enter the Audit & Risk Awards, since endorsements are vital to a good nomination.
3. Use your reach
Internal audit gets into every part of the organisation, so use this to publicise what you do, as well as to learn about what other people are doing. Every piece of audit work and consultation is an opportunity to increase awareness of the importance of good corporate governance – and, also of the good work of the internal audit team.
4. Excite interest/curiosity
Too often “audit” is perceived as technical, an offshoot of accountancy with less glamour than “finance”, while “governance” sounds worthy but dull. “Risk”, however, has more exciting connotations. Try to use language which engages non-internal-audit interest and demonstrates your relevance to their jobs.
5. Get people talking
Can you create a “buzz” about something you’re doing? A good PR will get other people to do the heavy lifting by ensuring that the story they’re promoting is passed on by word of mouth. If you find the right story – whether it is a risk-awareness project, or a thwarted cyber attack, or a corporate culture initiative – you can get people asking questions, discussing the implications and spreading your message for you.
6. Put a price on your value
There’s nothing like a big number to get a message home. This is why so many press releases start with “x million…” or tell you that “90% of people like you do xxxx”. It works. Internal auditors are often nervous about putting a specific figure on what the function saves the organisation in terms of financial costs and risks mitigated, or the value of new opportunities that can be seized only because of strong internal audit controls. However, calculating some representative figures can focus management attention on the serious issues and detail.
7. Spot the headlines
Headline-writing is an art perfected by the tabloid media – and it’s less easy than it looks. A good story starts with a headline, whether you are writing a report or a post about the internal audit team’s activities on a company website. To write a great headline, you must first strip away the detail to identify the “main story” from a mass of detail, and then compress this into one line. And it has to attract attention and compel the target audience to start reading. If you can inject humour, so much the better. It takes practice, and not everyone can think that way. You may find that one person in the team is particularly good at it and they become a go-to headline writer for all important communications.
This article was published in July 2024.