Posted by Stephanie Gallagher, JD
stephanie.gallagher@corporatecompliance.org
Not since 2002, when Time Magazine dubbed whistleblowers the person of the year, has there been so much interest paid to blowing the whistle. Many fear that incentives for whistleblowers from the U.S. federal government will encourage employees to circumvent internal reporting. Reports that the SEC whistleblower office is receiving thousands of calls only add to the concern. This has provided encouragement for organizations to advertise their internal helplines more, and to reassure employees that they are safe in raising issues on helplines or directly to managers or the compliance department.
A survey was fielded in April 2014 to determine if reports to helplines were increasing. A 2011 survey by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) demonstrated that 90% of compliance professionals surveyed reported that their employer had a helpline, and that was true of 99% of publicly traded companies. The question now was whether the increased attention paid to whistleblowing had led to increased reporting of incidents. The survey also explored the trustworthiness of anonymous reports. According to the NAVEX Global 2014 Ethics and Compliance Hotline Benchmark Report, a substantial 60% of helpline reports are made anonymously.
The results of the survey are available for free here.
[bctt tweet=”@theHCCA @SCCE Helpline Calls and Incident Reports – A Survey by the SCCE and the HCCA #compliance #whistleblower”]