Internal Audit Tips to Build a High Trust Workplace

Creating a high-trust workplace is a strategic advantage for organisations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Strong trust improves retention, increases engagement, and strengthens resilience when risks occur. Consulting services internal audit functions play a central role in building and safeguarding trust through transparent assurance, constructive challenge, and close collaboration with leadership and operational teams.

In this article for a KSA audience, we share practical internal audit actions you can implement today to strengthen trust across your organisation while aligning with the latest 2025 trends in governance, regulation, and workforce data.

Why trust matters for Saudi organisations in 2025

Trust is more than a feel-good concept. It drives measurable outcomes including employee wellbeing, productivity, and the effectiveness of internal controls. Global workforce data for 2025 shows that only 33 percent of employees are thriving, while 58 percent are struggling, creating a clear imperative for organisations to invest in culture and psychological safety.

In Saudi Arabia, expectations around corporate governance, assurance quality, and ethical conduct have intensified in 2025 through regulatory reforms and industry initiatives. These developments create a strong opportunity for consulting services internal audit teams to demonstrate value beyond compliance by actively supporting leadership in strengthening organisational trust.

Tip one: Build audit plans that are risk-based and trust-oriented

Move beyond a checklist-driven approach and design your annual audit plan around the risks that matter most to employees, regulators, and stakeholders. Leading consulting services internal audit practices use data analytics, employee feedback, and stakeholder interviews to identify areas where transparency, fairness, and consistency directly affect trust.

Prioritise audits of payroll and benefits accuracy, performance appraisal processes, grievance handling mechanisms, and third-party oversight. When defining audit scope, use clear, plain language that explains how the audit protects people, reinforces fairness, and supports organisational values not just financial controls.

Tip two Communicate audit purpose clearly and early

Trust erodes when an audit is perceived as punitive or secretive. From the first planning meeting, explain audit objectives, the methodology, what will be tested and how outcomes will be reported. Use short plain language memos, town hall updates and leader briefings so employees know audits are there to improve processes and protect careers. Share timelines and points of contact so staff can raise concerns or clarify facts before formal findings are issued.

Tip three Adopt a coaching mindset for frontline leaders

Internal audit should act as a partner that helps leaders strengthen controls and people processes. Provide practical guidance on root cause remediation and offer to run short workshops or coaching sessions on topics such as segregation of duties in practice, ethical decision making and incident reporting. When remediation plans are implemented with visible support from audit, organisational trust in governance increases and repeat issues fall. Advisory Companies in Saudi Arabia.

Tip four Make audit findings actionable and empathetic

Write findings with clear business impact, recommended next steps and realistic timelines. Avoid technical jargon. Where findings relate to people's practices, frame recommendations to protect employee dignity and to improve fairness. When possible, include a quick win that managers can implement immediately to show progress while longer term fixes are planned.

Tip five Use data and continuous monitoring to demonstrate progress

Trust is sustained by evidence. Move from one off audits to ongoing monitoring for high risk processes. Dashboards that show trends in control performance, investigation volumes and resolution times provide visible proof that issues are being tracked and closed. Use sampling and lightweight automated checks for payroll, access permissions and expense approvals so leaders can see improvement over time. The Internal Audit Institute's global research shows cybersecurity and digital risks remain top priorities for audit teams in 2025, so include controls that show how employee incidents and user access are being managed. 

Tip six Strengthen independence and good governance while staying collaborative

Independence is a cornerstone of credible assurance. Ensure that the internal audit charter clearly sets out reporting lines to the audit committee and access to records. At the same time, maintain regular, solution focused dialogue with management to make recommendations easier to adopt. Transparent reporting to the audit committee and executive leadership increases stakeholder confidence in the integrity of assurance outputs. The OECD corporate governance findings for 2025 highlight the importance of robust oversight frameworks in Saudi Arabia and the role of independent assurance in raising market confidence.

Tip seven Integrate ethics and speak up mechanisms into audit scope

A trustworthy workplace depends on safe mechanisms for reporting concerns. Make sure audit testing covers the effectiveness of speak up channels, response times to reports and protections against retaliation. Include confidential employee surveys and targeted interviews as part of fraud risk assessments. When incidents are addressed quickly and fairly, employees see the system as just and the overall trust climate improves. Recent 2025 workplace studies show that employee wellbeing and perceptions of fairness strongly influence engagement and retention.

Tip eight Build audit capability for new risks and local context

Saudi organisations are facing rapid transformation. Equip your audit team with skills for digital risk assessment, data analytics and stakeholder engagement. Invest in short training and secondments with operations so auditors understand cultural and business realities. Human capital research for 2025 indicates high optimism in Saudi Arabia for upskilling and reskilling which audit leaders can harness to upgrade capability quickly. Advisory Companies in Saudi Arabia.

Tip nine Engage the board and audit committee with trust metrics

Boards need different signals to understand culture than those used for financial performance. Provide concise culture dashboards that combine quantitative metrics such as survey based trust scores, turnover in key roles and time to resolve grievances with qualitative insights from audits and interviews. Regular and focused reporting helps boards set the tone at the top and hold leaders accountable in ways that employees will notice.

Tip ten Measure impact and celebrate improvements

To keep momentum, measure the outcomes of your recommendations. Track reductions in control failures, improvements in employee confidence scores and faster remediation times. Share success stories externally and internally with clear permission and anonymisation where needed. Celebrating progress reinforces the message that controls exist to protect people as well as assets.

Practical checklist for immediate action

1. Launch a short people risk mapping exercise for the next quarter

2. Add speak up effectiveness to at least two audits this year

3. Produce a simple culture dashboard for the audit committee every six weeks

4. Run one capability building workshop in data analytics for audit staff this quarter

5. Publish an audit summary with practical tips for managers after each major review

Quantitative context for 2025 KSA leaders

Use these 2025 data points when you build the business case for trust focused audit work. Global workplace research for 2025 reports 33 percent of employees are thriving while 58 percent are struggling. Internal audit research highlights cybersecurity and digital risk among the most selected priorities for 2025 audit plans. The OECD corporate governance factbook for 2025 documents recent Saudi reforms that increase expectations for robust oversight and independent assurance. These facts support allocating more audit time to culture, speak up mechanisms and digital controls.

Closing thoughts for KSA internal audit leaders

Building a high trust workplace is an achievable strategic objective when internal audit embraces a modern role that combines credible independence with practical partnership. By aligning audit plans to people related risks, using data to show progress and communicating in plain language, audit functions can raise confidence across the organisation. The regulatory and workforce trends of 2025 make this a timely priority for companies across the Kingdom.

If you would like targeted help putting these tips into practice contact insight advisory for a practical readiness review and a customised three month action plan. insight advisory. Advisory Companies in Saudi Arabia.