The internal audit function of a global insurance company wanted to reposition their relationship with the business. The team needed a streamlined, impactful audit report process as well as strong writing and presentation skills to land clear findings and place the focus on actions.

The challenge

Internal audit has a powerful role inside organisations to reduce risk and raise performance. Audit findings are vital for crystallising actions and improving the transparency of how the business is operating. They are also sensitive, often causing difficult conversations and defensive responses that get in the way of what’s most important: acting on the findings. Audit report summaries that were overly long and dense were also undermining the relationships with stakeholders. We were tasked with equipping 400+ auditors around the world to be clear, direct, succinct and considerate communicators.

What we did

The project had two elements:
• developing a concise and consistent audit report template
• developing and delivering communication training for the global team

Our first step was to talk directly to a cross-section of the audit team and stakeholders to understand their perspectives, problems and priorities. One output of this process was a clear recommendation for a cut-down report design that would focus attention of auditors and readers on the most important aspects of an audit.

With executive buy-in for this new report, we refined and tailored our communication training modules specifically to the particular needs and demands of auditors, helping them become better writers, speakers and summarisers while guiding them through the adoption of the new audit report template.

With a mix of virtual and in-person sessions, we took individual groups of auditors through a range of modules including:

• the importance of being an auditor
• the essential stages of great writing that don’t involve any actual writing
• techniques for simplifying language
• using story structures to convey findings with impact and clarity
• the art of confident, in-person updates.

Our audience covered a range of seniority, time-zone and first language. We delivered to teams in the UK and Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia including live translation sessions in Japan. We also trained experienced auditors across the team to be better editors of their colleagues’ work, creating a self-improvement culture that would keep standards rising.

The triumph

The Chief Internal Auditor said: “We reviewed several training providers, and Write the Talk were the stand-out option in terms of their approach and content.” Our recommendations for the new report template were accepted across the business with almost no changes. Client feedback surveys of attendees reported 96%+ of attendees satisfied or very satisfied with the training.

As a result of our work, we’re supporting the client with other aspects of their strategy to build a new engagement framework with the organisation at the most senior levels.