The Network in the News

Ensuring Employees Report Misconduct Internally

October 04 2011

by Andrew Singer, editor-in-chief, Ethikos

Industry data suggest that most employees still want to ‘go internal’ when they see something wrong, according to Luis Ramos, Chief Executive Officer, The Network, Inc. (Norcross, GA). They prefer to tell a manager, an ethics officer, or a human resources specialist about misconduct rather than go ‘outside’—to a government agency like the SEC, say.

There are some practical things corporations can do to ensure that this happens. First, make sure that employees are “keenly aware of [ethics and compliance reporting] programs and that they can access them,” Ramos tells Ethikos. Repetition is critical. “Employees forget if you don’t keep telling them about it.”

Second, employees need to feel that you’re really doing something with the information that they bring forth. One of the comments often heard from employees who report outside the organization is: “I reported it internally, and nothing happened.”

Ironically, a lot is often being done behind the scenes about which a whistleblower may be unawares solely because the investigator has stopped communicating with the reporter. This need not happen. New technology has been developed that allows investigators to communicate with anonymous reporters, such as online chat sites. One can update the whistleblower on developments in a broad sense without divulging confidential information or dispensing a fully detailed report. Even partial information can create a certain “comfort” level so the ‘reporter’ believes that something is really happening.

Third, the company has to really emphasize its non-retaliation policies. The whistleblower has to feel he or she is not being singled out, punished, ostracized, and — if not exactly treated like a hero—at least have the sense that they have done a good thing, behaved responsibly, and helped the company.

There are also ways a company can show that it values reports, such as writing up ethics cases (with names and places ‘scrubbed’) in a company newsletter or on the company’s intranet site, e.g., “an employee brought this to our attention, this is what came of it.” The company can recount some of the good ‘effects’ from the individual coming forward—e.g., “this is what it saved us,” in reputation and financially.

The basic idea is that the individual be “singled out for praise—not scorn,” says Ramos, even though the whistleblower is never actually identified by name.

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