Fulfilling IIA Standard 10.2: Proven Audit Talent Management Tactics

Effective talent management brings many benefits and plays an essential role in optimizing audit quality and fostering long-term organizational success. Audit teams that prioritize creating an exciting environment for their team members to work, learn, and develop their careers are more likely to attract and retain quality talent. 

Beyond the clear benefits, there’s added incentive to devote valuable time to developing your talent management strategy: the updated IIA Standards have issued a more prescriptive approach to talent risk management. Standard 10.2 requires that “CAEs must establish an approach for developing and retaining qualified internal auditors” — and makes the board responsible for overseeing this approach.

When audit teams staff their internal auditors appropriately, i.e., based on their availability and competencies, they tend to produce better quality work, minimize the likelihood of auditor burnout, and build trust and credibility with audit stakeholders and other assurance providers.

However, many audit teams are struggling to do so with a shrinking talent pool, increased burnout due to growing demands and limited resources, and a lack of needed expertise in critical risk areas, including cybersecurity and AI.

Luckily, the path to overcoming these roadblocks is not out of reach. Check out four best practices for attracting and retaining audit talent below, then download Future-Proofing Your Audit Workforce: Leveraging AI to Scale Impact for a resourcing checklist and ways AI can help solve the talent challenge. 

Actionable Strategies for Attracting and Retaining the Next Generation of Audit Talent

One of the biggest factors influencing talent retention comes down to employee satisfaction. The IIA’s 2024 Pulse of Internal Audit survey found that 46% of auditors who left their jobs did so voluntarily. In addition to competitive compensation and company culture, organizations should be prioritizing personalized incentives, manager training, creating a feedback loop, and digital enablement. 

Internal audit is built on risk mitigation and process optimization — but are we applying that same mindset to our people? The culture of our teams, the resources we provide, the processes we drive, and the incentives we offer all contribute to influencing talent retention. The following are four strategies for optimizing internal audit talent engagement and retention. 

1. Competitive Compensation and Personalized Incentives 

Offering competitive compensation is no longer a guarantee that a potential audit hire will choose your company. Employees stay for recognition, growth, and personalized incentives. Reframing competitive compensation as the baseline for attracting audit talent can help expand your incentive offerings and improve your chances of winning the “talent war.” Some innovative examples of personalized incentives include: flexibility around in-person, hybrid, and remote work, extended parental leave, increased bonus pools, financial support for CPA certification, employee recognition programs, flexible PTO, and company retreats. 

2. People Skills Training for Audit Managers

Employee satisfaction is largely influenced by day-to-day relationships between managers and their team members. It follows that audit managers in particular can benefit from soft skills training, such as empathy, active listening, and emotional intelligence, to effectively lead their teams. Moreover, shifting from a “supervisor” to a “coaching” mindset can be helpful for building relationships with team members. Holding managers accountable for their direct reports’ growth also ensures employees feel valued and supported in achieving their goals.

3. Building a Feedback Loop

Even the best-intentioned strategies require feedback to improve and be effective — highlighting the critical role of building a regular, constructive feedback loop for your audit team. Real-time feedback fosters employee engagement, which is why organizations with strong feedback cultures also tend to have higher productivity. Create regular opportunities for feedback from both sides, such as 1:1 meetings and comprehensive quarterly performance reviews. It can also be helpful to train managers on how to provide constructive feedback that empowers direct reports and encourages them to seek out feedback in the future. 

4. Digital Enablement

To attract and retain top internal audit talent, companies must adapt their processes and platforms to create a better work experience for their employees. In today’s hyper-digitalized world, forward-thinking auditors are motivated to learn and use capacity-multiplying technologies such as AI, analytics, and next-gen GRC solutions that help reduce manual, repetitive work, and enable them to focus on higher-value, more strategic projects.

“Having visibility into the skills and qualifications of both our internal team members and external partners will enable us to track trends over time, helping us to make informed decisions about capabilities needed, and ultimately drive more effective strategic planning” 

— Ram Vijayanathan, Head of Internal Audit, Pinterest

By investing in these enabling technologies, organizations can offer a more engaging work environment for their auditors to enhance their skills, maximize their business impact, and engage in meaningful learning opportunities.

Empowering the Future of Internal Audit With AI 

Strategic talent management is crucial for your audit function to be effective in an era of increasing demands. Get more resources and practical tips for building a team that’s ready to take on what’s next in Future-Proofing Your Audit Workforce: Leveraging AI to Scale Impact.