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Anyone who has had to audit the top management team as a part of an environmental audit can apprehend that it may be both difficult and intimidating. If your EMS (Environmental Management System) is certified to ISO 14001, you may understand that internal audit may be a crucial part to measure and improve your activities, and this can typically involve interaction along with your top management team. As long as your top management team could also be busy and less concerned with the every day running of the EMS, there's a danger that the output you receive from them could also be of less worth than you wish and expect. However, does one raise ISO 14001 top management audit questions? What strategies do you have to use to make sure that full worth is received from such ISO certification consultant, and your EMS will improve from the resulting actions?
Planning your audit is the key to success. Make sure that you have got an audit schedule which will be clearly explained to your top management to permit them to clearly perceive what are your organization's needs. Secondly, make sure that you adhere strictly to the terms of the ISO 14001 certification standards, and as a proof you should be able to visualize from top management. Justify the objectives clearly to your top management team, and make sure that proof of compliance to the quality are key goals. This can assist you with both certification and continual improvement of the EMS performance.
Use your wisdom and common sense to persuade your top management. As we tend to learned within many articles related to ISO 14001 certification in a way to guarantee that your ISO 14001 implementation is profitable, it's within the monetary interest of the organization to be environmentally effective, and what top ISO consultant and auditor doesn’t like this?
Finally, always use language that's open-ended and engaging, raise queries that encourage top management to talk out loud and freely regarding the organization as the critical questions specifically relating to narrower audit-related topics. Encouraging top management to talk freely on topics corresponding to organizational context, interested parties or objective setting typically encourages a top manager to talk brazenly regarding the business they're deeply engaged in. This could offer a valuable insight to the auditor.
When you're auditing your top management team, it's sensible to bear in mind that the clauses of the ISO 14001:2015 certification standard remain the idea of your audit. It may also be useful to make sure that your top team has the audit schedule beforehand. This can enable them time to organize and make sure the correct evidences and reports exists for the audit. These ought to embody queries on, and evidence regarding:
Prepare some sensible set of questions which will encourage and allow top managers to address the existing problems and issues freely to you. For instance, questions like “What changes have you seen to the organization's structure context and interested party list this year, and the way do you see that have impact on environmental performance within the next year?” will encourage a broader image than simply scrutinizing this year’s interested parties with last.
“Can you justify how the management review system works and the way environmental objectives are determined by the top team?” is another valid kind of question.
Open ended questioning like this could typically illustrate a number of the thought processes the management team employs behind the decisions it makes. Consequently, this illustrates the depth of leadership and management commitment to the problems that are governed by the EMS itself.
Likewise, an issue like: “How effective do you suppose your environmental risk identification and environmental aspect process is? Are there any major legislative changes on the horizon that will have an effect on the business?” will be massively effective, particularly with international problems like BREXIT in the UK, and therefore the doubts over the trade scenario between China and the USA.
You can realize that talking to top management in a very language they perceive and appreciate will bring advantages to your audit. Highlighting opportunities for improvement typically ends up in reduced price and augmented margin. Prompt the top management that internal auditing could be a positive and cooperative operation where either side will work along to spot gaps, opportunities for improvement and make sure that the corporate EMS and overall performance may be improved as a result.
You have involved your top management in your audit and have found a non-conformity. Firstly, be discreet and diplomatic. Secondly, keep in mind two things: a non-conformity discovered at internal audit is better than one found by your certification auditor, and it provides a tangible opportunity to boost your management system by playacting an efficient corrective action. This is often the time to prompt yourself and your top management that you simply are both on identical aspect. You all wish an equivalent outcome – an EMS that frequently improves, meets objectives, meets the terms of the ISO 14001 certification standard whereas serving to amplify company profits at the lowest environmental cost. Operating along side your top management in a very cooperative fashion can do this a lot quicker and effectively than before.