1. Most of the time, management does not communicate properly among themselves. All the Directors and the managers are overwhelmed by the workload, as are the rest of the employees. No one likes to talk to the audit partner, who always has a long face. When instructions given by the Directors and managers do not match the requirements of the audit partner, they withdraw or call off the action immediately, even if it's already in progress, resulting in a waste of time and money for the employees.
2. The Directors engage in dirty office politics and gossip with employees, creating a toxic work environment. Favoritism is rampant; if you are not in their favor, your days will be miserable, contributing to the high employee turnover. There is a lack of respect from management. The audit partner is rude to the Directors and managers, who, in turn, are rude to the employees. One Director even said to an employee: "The employees are just executors, and the Managers and Directors are reviewers. No one should hide things from the audit partner."
3. Many clients have provided feedback that we do not produce value-added outcomes for the engagement. Sometimes, the manager insists on including certain audit findings in the report. The management believes they are doing their best for the client, but they never understand or tolerate the client’s practices and situations.
4. The team is not innovative at all, leading to a lot of manual and time-consuming work. For example, employees are expected to take public transportation to the client office for fieldwork and can only take a Grab from the nearest MRT station to the client office (subject to approval from the engagement manager please note that the reimbursement process is longer than you thought). If you live far from the location, distance is not an excuse. They like to make the team do onsite fieldwork although all the documents kept in softcopy, the documents are sent through email. If the Manager or Directors want to know more about the testing, they command the employee to do it instead of running the test themselves. Sometimes, they may not even know what they want but are afraid of being questioned by the audit partner, leading to many things being handled off the table.
5. Unrealistic audit timelines are provided for every engagement. Management aims to look good in the numbers, ensuring no over-budgeting, which is why they strictly monitor the man-days. In other words, you will have to use your personal time to complete the remaining work. Every employee will experience backlogs during their employment. Most engagements are given one week to complete from scratch to drafting the report. In case of any delay, management blames the employees, never trusting them or believing that the delay was due to the client. They often ask: "What have you been doing in the past fieldwork? Why didn’t you chase the client for the outstanding documents?" They should understand that clients will not cooperate 100% because they also have their daily routine work.