Enhancing Internal Audits: Strategies to Eliminate Bias and Strengthen Your Audit Team

Posted by Zosi Learning

Internal audits are essential for maintaining robust food safety management systems, ensuring compliance, and fostering continuous improvement. However, bias in the audit process and a lack of diversity in audit teams can undermine the effectiveness of audits, leaving critical risks unaddressed. To eliminate bias in internal audits and build strong, cross-functional audit teams, organizations must adopt strategic approaches.

This blog explores strategies to diversify audit responsibilities, ensure independence, and transform audits into value-added activities that go beyond compliance. By implementing these internal audit strategies, you can strengthen your audit program, foster continuous improvement, and drive organizational success.

Watch: How to Avoid Prejudice in Internal Audits

1. Organize a Cross-Functional Audit Team

Diversifying Audit Responsibilities

Internal audits often rely heavily on Quality Assurance or Environmental Health and Safety managers. While these departments are critical, over-reliance on a single perspective can create blind spots. Diversifying audit responsibilities by including other departments—such as maintenance, procurement, and operations—brings fresh insights and broadens the scope of the audit process.

For example, a maintenance team member can identify equipment-related risks that might go unnoticed by a quality auditor. Similarly, procurement teams can highlight vulnerabilities in supplier management. These varied perspectives ensure a more comprehensive evaluation of risks and opportunities.

To deepen your team’s auditing skills, explore our Advanced Internal Auditor Training.

Involving All Organizational Levels

Incorporating team members from all organizational levels—including line supervisors and equipment operators—enhances the audit process by promoting inclusivity and leveraging firsthand operational knowledge. Line operators, for instance, can pinpoint process inefficiencies or safety concerns that management might overlook.

Widespread participation also fosters a culture of safety and quality. Employees are more likely to embrace audit findings and corrective actions when they are directly involved in the process. Following audit team best practices ensures the effectiveness and inclusivity of this approach.

Learn how to build an effective team in our Building an Internal Audit Team blog.

2. Create Independence in the Audit Process

Separation of Duties

Independence is a cornerstone of independent internal audits. Auditors should not evaluate areas they manage or develop, as this creates conflicts of interest. Implementing a separation period—such as two years—between involvement in a program and auditing responsibilities ensures objectivity.

For example, if a manager was responsible for developing a new supplier approval process, they should not audit that process until a sufficient amount of time has passed. This practice aligns with industry standards and promotes unbiased evaluations.

Adhering to Audit Standards

To maintain credibility, internal audits should align with established standards such as those outlined by GFSI or ISO. These frameworks emphasize independence and provide guidelines for structuring audits to minimize bias.

By aligning your audits with these standards, you can enhance your team’s effectiveness through Internal Auditor Training.

Independent internal audits also improve trust within the organization. When employees know that audits are impartial, they are more likely to take the findings seriously and collaborate on corrective actions.

3. View Audits as Value-Added Activities

Beyond Compliance

Internal audits should not be viewed solely as compliance exercises. Instead, they should serve as tools for identifying opportunities for improvement and preventing potential issues. Value-added auditing goes beyond ticking boxes—it examines processes holistically to uncover inefficiencies and risks.

For instance, an audit of a packaging line might reveal not only compliance issues but also opportunities to reduce material waste or improve throughput. By addressing these findings, organizations can achieve operational and financial benefits.

Learn more about enhancing your audits in our 5 Factors to Guide Effective Internal & External Audits.

Leveraging Diverse Perspectives

Cross-functional audit teams bring together diverse viewpoints, enabling organizations to uncover hidden risks and opportunities. A procurement specialist, for example, can provide insights into supplier risks, while an operations manager might identify workflow bottlenecks.

These varied perspectives also encourage creative problem-solving. A team that includes members from different departments is better equipped to develop innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Encouraging Continuous Improvement in Audits

Embedding continuous improvement in audits ensures that findings lead to actionable changes. Use audits to track progress on corrective actions, identify recurring issues, and refine processes over time. This proactive approach transforms audits into a strategic advantage.

To strengthen your processes further, consider Advanced Internal Auditor Training.

Conclusion

Eliminating bias and building a cross-functional audit team are pivotal steps in enhancing your internal audit program. By ensuring independence in the audit process and transforming audits into value-added activities, organizations can drive continuous improvement, foster a culture of quality, and maintain robust food safety management systems.

Take the first step toward strengthening your audit team by exploring Zosi Learning’s training resources: