If you can’t seem to find internal auditors with some experience for mid-level career positions, you’re not alone, and you’re not imagining the scarcity in the marketplace. There’s a shortage of internal auditors with 5 to 10 years of experience. Worse, many organizations are dissatisfied with the skills of their existing internal audit team.
What’s behind this problem and how can it be addressed?
The Current Situation: Few Are Happy with Current Situation
A study released by Deloitte sheds light on the situation. According to the results of the study, just 13% of Chief Audit Executives are very satisfied with the skills of their current audit team. More than half responding to the study expressed outright dissatisfaction with their teams. How can this be?
We could blame poor leadership, but there are some wonderful CAEs out there, and many organizations have strong leadership, yet weak teams. The real problem lies in the fact that there are few university-level programs that educate people for the internal auditing profession.
Most internal audit professionals begin their careers with a general accounting or finance degree. They end up specializing in the internal audit function by accident. A job opening appears and they take it, entering the audit department as junior level members.
When they reach the mid-career stage, however, many either leave the audit team or seek jobs elsewhere. This leaves a gap within the mid-level ranks.
The trail to the audit team is also one that is not well known to most college graduates. Many graduates with degrees in accounting and business look for work in the for-profit sector. The internal audit function is a relatively hidden profession within the larger sphere of accounting that many might be attracted to if they only knew it existed.
The Remedy: How Can We Encourage More and Better Internal Auditors?
The problem seems clear enough: lack of a formal education pathway into the professional and a lack of clear progression in a career path once established. Lack of awareness for the job’s many interesting facets is also part of the problem.
To remedy this situation, nonprofits might consider the following steps:
- Recognize that the internal audit department provides a valuable and important function in your organization: Ensure that everyone knows the importance of internal audits and why they aren’t just checks and balances for finances, but are viewed as a valuable aspect of business development. The internal audit function can help nonprofits successfully analyze their finances and plan better for development. They are a vital, integral part of the finance and accounting teams.
- Support professional development: Offer professional development to your existing internal audit staff. More than half of internal auditors surveyed by the Institute of Internal Auditors, for example, admitted that they lacked training in cyber security, a growing threat to nonprofit organizations. Such training is relatively easy to find online or through many organizations and could bolster your nonprofit’s ability to defend against attacks. These and other professional development opportunities could help your current auditing team feel engaged and motivated, both of which reduce employee turnover and improve retention rates.
- Talk to undergraduates: Consider contacting the chairs of the local business colleges and ask if you can address business and accounting students on career day or in their accounting classes to share with them what the internal audit function is like and why there are so many opportunities for young, smart graduates in the field. Someone out there may just need a nudge in the nonprofit direction to find a rewarding career as an internal auditor, but they won’t know the career path exists until it is shared.
These are just a few of the steps you might wish to take to help improve the situation among internal audit teams at your own nonprofit and to support the profession in general.
Internal auditors provide so much assistance to a nonprofit, that it’s hard to imagine an organization without them. Yes, the shortage of mid-career talent is real, but we can do so much more to fix that problem then we are doing now. With the right steps, we could improve the situation and help more people enter the field.
Welter Consulting, Your Bridge to Solutions
Navigating the many options available to you for technology resources can be tricky. There’s always something else tugging at you for attention. Where do you start? How do you decide?
Welter Consulting offers a bridge to solutions that work for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact Welter Consulting at 206-605-3113 for more information.
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