What’s the one thing I hate to hear coming into HR at an organization? 

Me: When is the last time you’ve done a self-audit? When is the last time you had someone else audit your files?

Them: *Earth shattering, rock concert deafening silence. *

Me: Nooooooo

At the very least (and I mean, VERY least), you have to do a self-audit of everything in your department once a year. What does a self-audit entail?

• Checking your processes to make sure they are followed.
• Checking your files to make sure they are complete. 
• Check for possible red flags that indicate incomplete information.
• Clean other areas to make sure vital documentation isn’t outside its proper place.

The downfall of a self-audit should be obvious: while there may be some interdepartmental accountability, it certainly doesn’t get us there.  After Enron and other scandals where finance departments often did soft audits on themselves, we have to progress from a self-audit into a full blown audit run by an outside, disinterested entity.

What can that give you? A full out assault on your practices, procedures, files…as much as you want.  And you want that. You want it all. And then you want to your department to see it, your CEO to see it, your stakeholders to see it. Why? The company should be satisfied with the level of protection it is getting from your built-in checks and balances.

Why do I bring this up now? Oh, no biggie. Just a HR manager that was fleecing the company for a ton of cash:

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai crime branch on Friday arrested assistant HR manager of Deutsche Bank, Gautam Deepak Baan, for allegedly defrauding the bank.

According to the police, Baan, who was at the Lower Parel branch, used to handle the suspense account of the bank. Money is first deposited in the suspense account of the bank and later transferred to the salary accounts of employees.

“Salary accounts of employees who have left the bank should be closed, but instead of closing their accounts, Baan used to transfer the money from the suspense account to the salary accounts of the employees, and then transfer the money from there to his own account,” said senior police inspector Vasant Tajne of NM Joshi Marg police station, where the bank registered a complaint against Baan a few days ago.

A self-audit and full audit of this practice would have caught it. I am guessing that Deutsche Bank has multiple audits of its financial records but didn’t have adequate checks on their HR practices until it was too late.

When you don’t audit, you are using the HOPE method of doing HR. As in, HOPE everything is okay. That doesn’t work for me and I hope this lesson helps illustrate the importance of accountability.