Who is Calling Your Hotline? Learn The Origin of Your Reports
Where Are Your Reports Originating?
As compliance leaders, our main concern is to find out what’s going wrong at an organization regardless of the reporting source. But while the source of your reports isn’t the most vital metric to follow, it’s useful to know whether vendors and past employees feel free to chime in in the same way as current employees.
If the majority of reports are coming from current employees, there could be an issue with accessibility. Maybe others outside of your company don’t know the proper channels for reporting. Or maybe they are simply too afraid to speak up.
The source of your reports could say a lot about your organization’s openness and transparency. With a balanced mixture of reports from current employees, vendors, and those who have left the company, you will be able to better diagnose and solve issues.
Check out Compliance Lines 2020 Hotline Benchmark Report for more info.
What Different Reporting Sources Say About Your Organization
Let’s review what the most common reporting patterns say about your organization.
All Reports Come from Employees
When every report coming in is from a current employee, it could be a sign that your reporting mechanisms have not been made clear to all.
It’s important that anyone who walks through your halls is aware of policies and procedures for following compliance and they feel safe to report violations as they see them happen.
Third party vendors should not be exempt. In fact, they may even add more useful feedback since they are reporting from an outside perspective. They could see things that you and your team don’t notice because you’re too close to it.
All Reports Come From Outsiders
Alternatively, when every report comes from a third party, whether it’s a vendor, a former employee, or even a family member of an employee, it could indicate that your team is afraid to speak up.
Could it be out of fear of retribution? It’s important to examine the possible reasons why your employees aren’t coming forward and offer solutions to increase that percentage.
One of the reasons could be education. Employees may not understand the protocols involved in reporting or maybe they don’t recognize the urgency to speak up. Either way there should be extensive training materials available that cover this issue.
Periodic training is key to helping employees understand the importance of reporting, but education should be offered on a continual basis.
The end goal is to foster an engaged workforce who is committed to resolving serious conflicts fast.
Our Commitment as Compliance Professionals
As compliance professionals, we owe it to our team to be the strategic lever of the organization who sets a high standard and encourages action.
ComplianceLine is happy to report that 54% of our hotline calls come from current employees, while 46% comes from vendors or past employees. We believe this represents a healthy reporting balance and shows our commitment to ingraining organizational goals for everyone involved with the company.
Across the board compliance means that a higher percentage of severe cases are reported, which is always our aim as professionals.
