EHS audits are crucial for workplace safety. However, audit management has branches that you need to understand properly. A compliant audit evaluates the entire workplace for comprehensive safety, a risk compliance audit ensures that your EHS is totally compliant with the local and global safety rules, and audit risk management ensures that operational risks are identified and measures are taken proactively.

If you look closely at the title, you may wonder that audit, risk audit, and compliance are very different. So, how can you decide which works best?

Well, we get better clarity if we state risk audit and compliance with examples.

If the construction industry is issued a compliance audit for its waste disposal, the Environment Protection Officers will come and perform thorough checks and then provide the results of this gap analysis. This is compliance auditing—checking whether you are compliant or not!

Now, in risk auditing of a similar industry, let us assume an audit for inventory management. The officer in charge provides that we have 500 PPE kits for use and 100 for emergencies. Thus, when the audit takes place, these numbers should be exact, as stated, for audits to pass positively.

If you look closely at the examples, risk auditing enables you to be prepared for dangers beforehand. It technically checks whether you are compliant beforehand.

Let us elaborate and understand this further.

EHS audit management is crucial for organizations’ safety and for evaluating internal and external compliances.

A complaint audit evaluates the appropriate working conditions of people, policies, equipment, and other technical procedures. A risk compliance audit ensures that all three are effectively compliant in their fields.

Audit risk management ensures that operational risks are identified and measured appropriately. Risk-based auditing involves sufficient identification, control, monitoring, and governance, which enables safety officers to efficiently identify loopholes, deficiencies, and grey areas in the system.

For example, a chemical factory must adhere to the ever-changing regulations regarding chemicals and their handling. They need proper audit management for regulatory compliance, hazard communications, inventory management, and environmental protocols. Therefore, risk auditing will ensure that all the above compliances are met according to industry standards and client requirements. Additionally, it will make your organization ready for compliance audits—surprise or planned!

So now that we know the exact difference between risk and compliance audit, let us know their pros.

There are only a few cons when it comes to both auditing processes. Both processes are very crucial. But we need to prioritise risk-based auditing. It makes us prepared for every compliance audit.

Let us dig deeper into why the risk audit approach is better.

Compliance-based auditing requires many papers to be reviewed and documented to ensure compliance with government and regulatory procedures. Though it has a digital version, taking every sample to the lab, going through enormous regulations, reviewing them, and then churning out the results is tedious. And it is not necessary that the results determine that the safety management system is actually effective.

A risk-based auditing approach identifies the areas wherein the risk is actually present. Thus, when you concentrate on the concerned areas, you automatically tend to treat them with the right actions. And this results in you following most of the compliances. By focusing on the high-risk areas, you are definitely pushing your safety management system to its best level.

Conducting audits or maintaining proper documentation is not easy; on the contrary, if you employ manual methods, the task can be excruciating. Lack of employee awareness can also lead to audit failures.

The main challenge in keeping up with audit management is keeping up with every industry’s evolving rules and regulations. Thus, you must be up to date on what the regulations and laws demand.

To make your job easier, it is always better to hire the experts than pay hefty fines. These experts ensure everything falls in place right from the beginning. Plus, they know what specific EHS laws apply to your sector. Audit management software and expert guidance can ensure you’re always right in place when it comes to compliance and audits.

We should have decoded the difference between compliance and risk auditing. Though the risk approach is essential, we cannot wholly ignore compliance-based auditing due to its heavy process.

Therefore, it would be best to use a digital system like EHS software to utilize the best of both worlds. Organizations need to implement a system that comprehensively understands the system’s risks and delivers a compliance profile to meet the required standards and regulations.

Our web-based and mobile-ready HSE software solutions are a comprehensive platform for small, mid-size, and large enterprises to streamline EHS processes and standardize information management.

Solve your EHS challenges and streamline safety operations with our help.