ASQ CQA – 3 Auditor Competencies

1. 3 Auditor Competencies

Of subsections in auditor competencies and these are auditor characteristics onsite audit, resource management, conflict resolution, communication and presentation techniques, interviewing techniques, and team dynamics. So these are the topics which we will be discussing in auditor competencies. Let’s start with auditor characteristics, which is the first topic here. So here in this section, we will be talking about auditor characteristics.

What are the characteristics that make an auditor effective? Effective in achieving the target or effective in achieving the goal? What this auditor or lead auditor is expected to achieve? In auditor characteristics, we will be talking about the requirements or the experience required for CQA or IRCA registration. CQA or the certified Quality Auditor certificate is provided by the American Society for Quality. So you prepare for that exam, going through the course content in this course and then reading some books, and then you appear in the exam. And once you pass that exam, you get CQA or certified quality Auditor Certificate.

The second one here is IRCA. IRCA are also called as. Irka is International Register of Certified Auditors. This is a UK based organization. So for IRCA registration, you need to go through IRCA approved course. IRCA approved courses are five days in class course. So if you are going for IRCA registration or IRC registration, you need to look at IRCA approved course in your location, go for five days in class training, and then once you have that training, then you can register yourself with IRCA under different categories and we will talk about those categories as well.

As we go further into this lecture, after talking about CQA and IRCA requirements and experience, we will be talking about personal behavior of an auditor and the competencies as an audit team leader. So what are the competencies an audit team leader should have? So the second and third part, which are the personal behavior and audit team leader competence. We will be talking about these two things in the next video. So let’s focus on CQA and Ilka requirements and experience here in this video, let’s talk about CQA. So if you want to know more about CQA, you can go to Asq. org, and at that site you can look at requirements related to CQA. What all are the eligibility requirements for CQA exam?

So if you qualify for that, then you put your application with ASQ and once ASQ approves your application, then you need to prepare and then go and sit in an exam. And once you pass that exam, you get CQA certificate. So here are the eligibility requirements for CQA. You need to have full time and paid experience. So part time and unpaid experience doesn’t count here. And for CQA, you need to have eight years of on the job experience in one or more of the areas of CQA body of knowledge which is mostly related to auditing.

So you need to have eight years experience in this field. And then you need to have minimum three years in decision making position. So you need eight years of experience. But then you can get waiver from eight years of experience depending on your qualification. So let’s say if you have a bachelor’s degree, in that case, four years get waived off. So instead of eight years, four years experience is good enough. So this is something related to CQA exam. Now, coming to IRCA or IRCA registration. In IRCA, there are number of grades. So in CQA, you just get one certificate that you are certified quality Auditor. In Irka, there are a number of grades. Provisional internal auditor, internal auditor, provisional auditor auditor, lead auditor and principal auditor. We will talk about these six grades in the next slide as well. Irka looks at each management system separately. So Quality management system is as per ISO 9001, environmental management is as per 14,001. So whatever certificate you are getting, you are getting for a specific scheme. So if you apply for, let’s say lead auditor, you will be lead auditor for quality Management system. Or you could be lead auditor for environmental management system. So these are two separate things. Whereas in CQA, you just get certification related to your auditing skills. In CQA, you are not tested for a specific management system. In Irka, you are tested for a specific management system. For example, quality management, environmental management, energy management, etcd. And then here, if you look at that, what all you need to do? So if you look at the provisional internal auditor and internal auditor for these two certifications, or for these two registrations, you need to have completed IRCA internal Auditor course. And for other four, you need to have completed IRCA Auditor Lead Auditor course.

So these courses are approved by Irka. And as I said earlier, IRCA Auditor lead Auditor course is five days in class course. This particular online training will not be sufficient for you to get Erica registration. You need to go and do five days in class training. So now coming back to the two sets of these certificates, the first two are related to internal auditing and other four, the bottom four are related to external auditing, which is second party or third party auditing. And what are the requirements related to that? There are number of years experience. So you can go to Quality. org. That is the site which will give you information related to Erica. You need to do certain number of audits before you get registered as a particular auditor. So for provisional auditor, there is no specific requirement related to number of audits. So if you just completed ERCA approved auditor lead Auditor course, you can get yourself registered as provisional auditor.

And then once you have done certain number of audits, you need to make a log of that, what audits you have done, where you have done, what is the contact person you need to submit that log. And once you have met specific requirement number of days, then you can go for registration as an auditor. And then if you have done some audits where you have acted as a lead, which was done by number of auditors, and if you have accumulated specified number of days of audit, then you can go for lead auditor certification. And then once you have sort of come out of regular auditing, then you can go for principal auditor. These are the people who are highly experienced and they do not conduct audits anymore.

So you can go for any of these certification depending on what training you have taken and how many audits you have done. And these audits are to be done after taking the course. Ilka is slightly complicated, but CQA certification, you just apply for the certification, prepare for the exam, sit in the exam, and then you get the CQA certification. And that’s the reason most of people go for CQA certification. So after talking about this, next two things are the individual characteristics of an auditor and the skills or the knowledge which auditor needs to have as a lead auditor? We will talk about that in the next video.

2. 3A Auditor Characteristics

Which are personal behavior of an auditor and audit team leader competence. Let’s start with personal behavior of an auditor. So here I have listed down some of the behaviors which an auditor should have to be successful in the audit profession. And these behaviors have been taken from ISO 19,011 2018 version let’s quickly go through these. The first one is is ethical. The auditor needs to be ethical. Needs to be fair. Needs to be truthful, sincere, honest. So if the auditor doesn’t have these characteristics, then the result of whatever this auditor does will always be doubtful. So auditor definitely needs to be ethical in the behavior. The next one is auditor needs to be open minded and should be willing to accept different points of view. Not my way is the highway. So whatever I say is right. Whatever other party says is wrong, that’s not something which will work in auditing. Because in auditing, you are dealing with different people, different organization.

So you need to have an open mind. Auditor needs to be diplomatic. When you are dealing with different individuals, you need to be diplomatic. Not to hurt the feelings of other people, not to damage the relationship. That’s something which you need to be as an auditor, be diplomatic. Another characteristic of an auditor is be observant. Because auditor has to look at number of records, number of things which are happening in the organization. Auditor is watching. Auditor is looking at number of things, watching how the process is being done. So auditor needs to be observed and look at surroundings. What’s happening around the next one is auditor should be perceptive and should be able to understand the situation in which this particular auditor is auditor should be tenacious. Tenacious means the auditor should be persistent and focused on achieving objectives.

So in audit scenario, the auditor might want to divert your attention, take your focus out of the target which you are looking at. But as an auditor, you need to be tennisious. You should be looking for what you are looking for. So keep your focus on the main target. Whatever is the objective of the audit, the auditor should be decisive and should be able to take decision in a logical and systematic way. The next one is auditor should be self reliant. So the auditor should be able to act independently. Because you really cannot get support all the time. So when you are auditing a particular function, particular organization, you are all alone. So the auditor should be self reliant rather than relying on someone to help him or her. Another one is the auditor should be able to act with fortitude. And fortitude is the courage in pain or adversity. So that is the meaning of fortitude. So the auditor should have courage, in pain and adversity. So every time things might not be the way you want those to be.

So in the audit, there will be disagreements. In audit, there will be confrontations. So auditors should still have courage to deal with those situations. So even under those adverse situations, the auditor should act responsibly and ethically, should not get pressurized by audit or any other people. The next one is auditors should be open to improvement and should be willing to learn from situations. Auditor should be culturally sensitive. You have to be sensitive to the culture of audit. So there are different cultural aspects which you need to be aware of. So let’s say if you are going to Middle East and doing an audit, there is a prayer time.

So during that prayer time, people will go for prayer. So you should be respectful to those cultural aspects when you are dealing with different cultures. And the last item here in personal behavior of auditor is that auditor should be collaborative because the auditor has to work with different team members. So if your audit team is bigger so there are number of auditors, each auditor should be able to work in collaboration with each other. So if you find something, share that with other auditors. If other auditors find something, then you modify your auditing strategy according to that. So these are some of the characteristics or some of the personal behaviors of an auditor. This list could be never ending list, but these are something which you need to have as an auditor. Be ethical, be open minded and so on. So these were personal behaviors for an individual auditor. And then what about the team leader? So if you are an audit team leader, you need to have something more than individual auditors. So these are some of the skills or knowledge you need to have as an lead auditor or audit team leader, you will need to manage resources.

So if in your team as an audit team leader, you have two members or three members, whatever members you have, you need to manage the audit process using those two or three members in the team. So you need to manage your resources according to situation. As an audit team leader, you should have a good understanding of conflict resolution. When you do audit, there will be conflicts. So how do you address that? How do you handle those conflicts? So you need to have that skill or you need to have that knowledge on conflict management. Another skill or knowledge which you need to have is related to communication and presentation.

You should have good communication and presentation skills because you will be presenting these findings. You will be talking to the management of auditing organization and so on. Interviewing skill is another thing which you need to have. So this one is applicable for both auditors and lead auditor. And then you need to be aware of team building. All these points which are listed here on this slide. We will be covering these in this course. So some of the topics we will be covering in more details and some of the topics we will cover in less detail, but we will cover all these five topics which are listed here, which are requirements related to audit teams.