PILLAR THREE

Speaking Up

PILLAR THREE

Speaking Up

What it is we aim to measure:

This section addresses several important challenges: What is the strength of your organization’s “speak-up” culture? Do obstacles exist that prevent employees from stepping forward? If so, what might they be?

Topics covered in the assessment:

Perceptions of misconduct observed and measuring the willingness to report
Reasons why employees choose to report – or not to report
Outcomes experienced after reporting misconducting
Awareness of, and confidence in, the organization’s position on preventing retaliation

Why it matters:

Mitigating people-created risk is key to the success of any ethics and compliance program. Establishing a culture where employees are comfortable raising concerns about suspected misconduct (intentional or accidental) is critical in that endeavor. In almost every instance of consequential misconduct, “somebody knew what was going on,” but many don’t speak-up for several reasons, including fear of reprisal, a lack of confidence in the organization acting on the report, or an unwillingness to negatively impact one’s coworkers.

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PILLAR THREE

Speaking Up

What the data says:

For the companies we work with, this pillar often offers signiﬁcant opportunities to improve, particularly when it comes to levels of comfort in reporting observed misconduct.

92%

of participants indicate a willingness to report misconduct if they were to observe it, hypothetically speaking yet

52%

of employees who observed misconduct in the past 12 months reported the matter.

Employees who reported a concern were

six times more likely to go to their manager than to use the reporting hotline.

78%

of participants who are aware of their company’s non-retaliation policy believe that their company enforces its non- retaliation policy while

87%

Of these participants believe their manager complies with the policy.

The key takeaway from these statistics is that employees inherently believe they’d do right thing if misconduct occurs, however when faced with misconduct, many did not. As a result, it is incumbent upon the organization to foster a culture that allows employees to act on the instinct of ‘doing the right thing.’ Given that employees most often report to managers, it is vital to ensure that managers are properly equipped to navigate how to respond when a direct report raises a concern, who to go to for help, and how to prevent retaliation.

PILLAR THREE

Speaking Up

How Ethisphere clients have used the data/insights:

In our deep dives of the data, we have been able to identify micro-cultures that exist across an organization. These micro-cultures are heavily inﬂuenced by regional and functional differences.

Taking this data and cross-referencing it with demographic data, we are able to establish context for the strength of the “speak-up” culture. These insights enable organizations to identify opportunities for targeted manager training and functional communications to ensure the central ethos of the organization permeates all micro-cultures and that all employees feel comfortable using their voice.

Top Tips for Your Program:

When measuring comfort in speaking up ask follow-up questions that help determine which reasons are in the forefront of employees’ uncertainties surrounding speaking up. Are employees not willing to report out of a fear of reprisal? A lack of support from peers and management? Concern over a coworker’s wellbeing? These results will drive how you remediate.

Your organization likely provides anonymous and confidential reporting channels, but how credible are these channels perceived? Take the pulse of segments of your employee population on whether they believe these channels are truly anonymous and confidential.

Proactively set expectations for the reporting and investigation processes for all employees about what to expect if they unfortunately ﬁnd themselves in a position where they’ve observed misconduct. Sharing aggregated reporting data to illustrate how others are coming forward also helps eliminate ambiguity as to what can happen when a report is made.

Resource: The Power of Storytelling