One of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Britain’s history, the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has rocked the country, with recent revelations catapulting the saga to center stage in the media spotlight.

An ITV drama brought to life the astonishing accounts of hundreds of innocent people whose lives were ruined after incorrect data from Fujitsu’s faulty IT system had wrongly suggested they stole money. 

The TV programme captured the public imagination and sparked huge national outcry, applying pressure on politicians to act and move forward with proposed new laws to quash the wrongful convictions of hundreds of innocent Post Office sub-postmasters.

Around 900 were prosecuted and more than 200 sent to prison from 1999 to 2015. 

It’s taken a very long time for the truth to surface. But would it have ever emerged without whistleblowers?

The critical role of whistleblowers

The role of those with inside knowledge of what was really happening behind the scenes has been cited as crucial, alongside the incredible efforts of campaigners.

Whistleblower Richard Roll’s crucial contribution in unveiling the truth about the flawed Horizon software was highlighted in the TV adaptation. His testimony was key in the 2019 High Court Case, which helped prove the innocence of many victims.

An ex-Fujitsu engineer, he was part of a team who had access to Horizon terminals remotely. He’s been giving evidence to the ongoing Public Inquiry in recent weeks.

Mr Roll went on camera in 2015 to tell the BBC’s panorama what had happened behind the scenes.

The challenges of speaking up

The dramatisation showed the difficulties for a potential whistleblower of speaking up. It highlighted the fears and anxieties that come with going up against such large organisations.

And as the full details continue to emerge in the glaring spotlight of the ongoing inquiry, further startling revelations emerge.

More whistleblowers have come forward – with the latest via the Guardian newspaper regarding possible destruction of evidence that might have cleared wrongly accused victims.

How could things have been different?

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,  The Criminal Cases Review Commission, and even the Post Office itself, have described the scandal as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice ever seen in Britain.

Could it have all been prevented before it escalated to this stage?

It’s not clear if misconduct reporting systems were in place within the organisations at the centre of this case at the time. But Mr Roll, in his written evidence, describes certain problems being “hushed up” by managers at Fujitsu during his time working there. 

Mr Roll blew the whistle years after leaving the company by going directly to campaigners.

Hugely damaging for businesses

The enormity of the scandal that has engulfed both the Post Office and Fujitsu is unquestionable.

It illustrates that businesses can easily have blindspots to potentially disastrous headline-grabbing business risks. 

The reputational damage is likely to be gigantic, analysts have said.

Fujitsu Europe Director Paul Patterson acknowledged the damage to the firm’s reputation when speaking to UK MPs recently, as he issued a company apology.

Then there’s the financial implications, with compensation claims in this case still far from resolved but estimated at more than £1bn.

The saga offers a sobering case study for all modern day organisations who aren’t actively seeking to uncover risks and misconduct at source.

How can other brands avoid such a scandal?

One study from The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimated up to 75% of workplace misconduct is never formally reported.

And an Ethisphere research paper found nearly half of employees who observed misconduct in the past 12 months failed to report the matter.

So, there could be many problems bubbling under the surface that organisations are not being made aware of.

For companies seeking to avoid a scandal like the Post Office, the key is to uncover wrongdoing and risks early before they escalate into something far larger. 

Developing an advanced Speak Up culture

To achieve this requires developing an advanced Speak Up culture within the business, empowering employees to report misconduct. And backed by a robust misconduct reporting solution.

Traditional one-size-fits-all channels – like legacy hotlines are not fit for purpose and most incidents are either not reported or surfaced through anecdotal feedback.

Businesses risk compliance failings if processes to surface concerns, investigate cases and report progress are not connected and the workflows are inefficient. Instilling a modern, sophisticated, fully equipped modern case management and whistleblowing system is essential.

It empowers everyone in your ecosystem – investors, employees, vendors, customers – to help you uncover unreported incidents, contribute to resolving them faster and enable you to prevent future wrongdoing. 

How can Vault help?

We believe companies can be protected from major risks – perhaps the next big crisis scandal or lawsuit – if their people are protected too. Our platform delivers the true opportunity to Speak Up.

Uncover risks early by: 

– Enabling the people in your ecosystem to gain access and speak up about incidents by offering multiple reporting channels, including the mobile app and Vault Talk, our AI-powered hotline.

– Capturing actionable insights (rather than unstructured reports) that lead to credible investigations through tools that make reporters feel psychologically safe, including anonymous reporting.

Book a call with one of our specialists to find out more.

The post Why brands risk a Post Office scandal without a speak up culture appeared first on Vault.

What is a Speak-Up Culture?

In a Speak-Up workplace culture, employees are willing and able to ask questions and raise concerns when they witness or experience misconduct. They should be able to do so with confidence that their reports are taken seriously and without fear of retaliation.

For a Speak-Up culture to thrive, there needs to be a countervailing Listen-Up culture. It requires a leadership team and Board that make safe and accessible reporting tools available, listen to the reports with all seriousness, have procedures in place to address them, and incorporate learning back into the business to prevent them from re-occurring. A balanced Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture is vital for a healthy business to thrive without making headlines for the wrong reasons.

Why You Should Review Your Culture

The EU Whistleblower Directive (EUWD) came into effect in December 2021. It directs companies with 250 employees or more working in the EU (including those headquartered outside of the EU but with operations in EU jurisdictions) to make internal whistleblower reporting and resolution schemes available. The Directive aims to protect those who Speak Up about breaches of EU laws from retaliation or recrimination and is a minimum standard that leaves each of the 27 EU member states to define how to establish the necessary protection for whistleblowers.

With the EUWD looming large, corporate misconduct still rampant, and trust impacting staff retention, this Directive should – at the very least – be an impetus for companies to assess their culture and to commit to moving the needle on trust by implementing a Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture that empowers stakeholders to use their voices and that holds leadership accountable to its ethical commitments.

Building Trust

The glue that holds both parts of a Speak-Up, Listen-up Culture together is trust. Leadership teams must trust that concerns are raised in good faith while employees need to trust that they are being heard and protected from retaliation. As Warren Buffet famously said, “Trust is like the air we breathe – when it’s present, nobody really notices; when it’s absent, everybody notices.” Now is the time for companies to evaluate the trust gap between them and their employees.

The news is full of stories of toxic workplace cultures where trust was absent. Some companies that use legacy hotline solutions still fail to provide an environment in which it’s safe for employees to use it or choose not to listen even when employees do use the hotline.

Tone from the Top

When leadership teams or board members turn a blind eye or worse, perpetuate misconduct – when the tone at the top is wrong – corporate culture falters. Therefore, it’s vital that leadership teams and board members adopt a ‘do as I do’ mentality that permeates the organization at every level. When values-based conduct is role-modeled by the leadership team and the Board, a healthy Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture is supported and reinforced in every interaction.

A diverse Board of Directors helps set the Tone from the Top by sending the message that the company is willing and able to listen and respond to the diverse voices of its stakeholders. It is a signal to employees that it’s safe to be their authentic selves and to Speak Up without fear.

More often than not, employees take their cues from their immediate supervisors, so Mood in the Middle is crucial. Ethical leaders are the backbone of an ethical culture, and therefore, managers need to role model ethical behavior. But they also need to be trained on how to create an ‘open door’ policy and listen to and guide their employees, how to escalate reports through the appropriate channels, and how to protect their employees from retaliation. 

Investing in technology

The next step in bridging the trust gap is the adoption of a technology solution in the form of a safe, secure, and agile digital platform that demonstrates a company’s willingness to support a Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture. The platform can also help the company comply with the EUWD’s requirements for establishing a whistleblower scheme and other regulations; effectively deal with reports of potential or actual misconduct, including providing safeguards for confidentiality and anonymity that encourage reporters to report internally first, facilitate getting to resolution efficiently, and identify and address risk patterns and trends through analytics.

The role of Communication

Communication is key to building trust in the system, reinforcing Tone from the Top, and setting the Mood in the Middle. A cross-functional communication plan helps employees and stakeholders know how to report concerns. It reinforces the principles of confidentiality, privacy, and non-retaliation, and clarifies the process and potential outcomes, including fair and equitable disciplinary action. The plan should include a Code of Conduct and related policies, including an investigation protocol, to make sure that stakeholders understand and acknowledge their rights and responsibilities. It should also clarify that leadership is held accountable for its commitment to fair, equitable, and transparent due process.

A Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture is ever a work in progress, so companies need to commit to continuous improvement through employee feedback surveys gauging their experience of the culture and the Speak-Up process. Ongoing enterprise risk assessments and audits, tracking and analyzing performance metrics relative to communications, training, hiring, and retention, among other things, are a crucial part of measuring culture. The insight derived from these elements should be reported on a regular basis to the leadership team and the Board to provide maximum transparency and drive accountability to an ethical culture.

The Benefits of a Speak-Up, Listen-Up Culture

In his 2018 letter addressing CEOs, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink declared that to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies that develop and promote a Speak-Up, Listen-Up culture engender trust with their employees, creating a stronger brand reputation and boosting brand loyalty. They can also get ahead of issues before they become bigger ones, minimize the risk of ethical breaches and incidents of misconduct hitting the headlines, and reduce the toll of investigations, costs, penalties, and damages. As a result, their employees will feel safer, respected, empowered, and committed, which in turn improves productivity and staff retention. Not only are these companies better for it, but they are also models for others to follow suit.

Measuring the Benefits

When companies implement a Speak-Up, Listen-Up program, along with a flexible and agile digital reporting platform, their incident report numbers may rise initially with greater employee trust and awareness. This increase in reports made in good faith, in fact, provides more opportunities to listen, do root cause analyses, and take corrective actions to prevent future issues. The company is also likely to see a shortened turnaround time from report to resolution, a decline in reported incidences of retaliation, and a significant drop in the number of concerns reported externally. In addition, employee survey scores should be higher on questions of trust and confidence and lower on questions of fear of retaliation. Just as important, by creating a centralized, documented, and auditable record of all reports, along with their investigation and resolution, companies can demonstrate their best efforts to be better.

Not yet discovered the secret sauce to a Speak-Up and Listen-Up culture? We can help.

***

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Speak Up culture?

In a Speak-Up workplace culture, employees are willing and able to ask questions and raise concerns when they witness or experience misconduct and can do so with confidence that their reports are taken seriously and without fear of retaliation.

How to build employee trust?

The glue that holds culture together is trust. Leadership teams must trust that misconduct concerns are raised in good faith while employees need to trust that they are being heard and protected from retaliation.

How to promote ethical behavior in the workplace?

When leadership teams or board members turn a blind eye or worse, perpetuate misconduct – when the tone at the top is wrong – corporate culture falters. Therefore, it’s vital that leadership teams and board members adopt a ‘do as I do’ mentality that permeates the organization at every level.

What is tone at the top?

Tone at the top is when values-based conduct is role-modeled by the leadership team and a diverse Board, a healthy culture is supported and reinforced in every interaction, and shows that the company is willing to listen and that it’s safe for employees to Speak Up without fear.

The post What Does a Speak-Up Culture Look Like? appeared first on Vault.

That was the killer quote from a podcast this week featuring Rob Chesnut, recent Chief of Ethics at Airbnb, former federal prosecutor, and author of the book “Intentional Integrity.”

We’ve written about Chesnut quite a bit, as he talks about Vault Platform in his book, but also because he’s one of the most vocal thought leaders that have identified an increased focus on the intersection between the business functions of Compliance, Legal, and HR. Or more specifically how these three functions have significant leverage regarding the direction of a company’s culture and whether the company and its employees act with integrity. 

Furthermore, this is not something only compliance, legal, or HR professionals might talk about. The reality is that that this subject has taken its turn dominating the international press even alongside major events such as the global pandemic. Just this last week another three global brands have made the headlines due to exposures of an ethical nature: Facebook, Mercedes-Benz, and Boeing. The brand and financial damage will be significant and whistleblowers are taking a more central (and protected) role. 

A rising trend of the last few years has seen employees become increasingly vocal about injustices perpetuated by their workplace or employer. Those that have not been able to find a voice through existing channels have become frustrated but increasingly confident and simply created their own. A phenomenon that has significant implications and consequences for business. 

When the US Department of Justice (DoJ) updated its Corporate Compliance Guidance earlier this year it spelled out that the hallmark of a well-designed compliance program is “the existence of an efficient and trusted mechanism by which employees can anonymously or confidentially report allegations of a breach of the company’s code of conduct, company policies, or suspected or actual misconduct.” 

‘Efficient’ and ‘trusted’ are keywords here. When ‘Speak Up’ programs were first implemented, largely driven by regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, the most reasonable method of capturing incident reports from employees was a literal telephone hotline. Since then, not much innovation has been seen as many ethics and compliance leaders had achieved what the regulation stipulated, which was simply to offer a mechanism employees could use to report their concerns about corruption, not one that was meant to be accessible.

The world has changed and today more stakeholders have an interest in Speak Up programs being accessible and effective. 

We have a four-step guide available to the process of implementing a successful Speak Up culture. 

Download it here

The post Business integrity is not optional and silence is the enemy appeared first on Vault.

For nearly half the year, workers have been dealing with small and large disruptions to their daily lives as a result of COVID-19. As is now a common story, younger adults, racial and ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers are experiencing disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use, and elevated suicidal ideation.

Cutting corners on compliance

Although the crisis is re-focusing workplace priorities away from nice-to-haves like yoga and ping-pong to baser essentials like hygiene and safety, the same pressures make it tempting for companies to make shortcuts when it comes to compliance and ethical behavior. Workers also feel under more pressure to turn a blind eye to wrongdoings in fear they make themselves vulnerable to future job cuts. 

The vector for common forms of misconduct such as bullying and harassment has changed in line with new working arrangements, just as large numbers of employees working from home make it harder for legacy systems to spot incidents of corruption or fraud. 

UK law firm Shoosmiths said this week that cyberbullying claims have “increased substantially” since the onset of COVID-19. “With more of us working from home and using online platforms than ever before to connect with colleagues and clients, the blur between home and work life has seen many abandon office etiquettes.”

Back to work blues

But the fact remains that with an increased focus on ‘getting back to work’ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been flipped to prioritize physical and psychological safety over personal growth and career and employers have an ethical, if not legal, responsibility to keep their people safe. 

A CDC study released in August found that 40% of US adults were struggling with mental health issues as a result of the pandemic impact. The percentage of respondents who reported having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey (10.7%) was significantly higher among respondents aged 18–24 years (25.5%), minority racial/ethnic groups (Hispanic respondents [18.6%], non-Hispanic black [black] respondents [15.1%]), unpaid caregivers (30.7%), and essential workers (21.7%). 

Yet the old challenges with encouraging employees to Speak Up remain. Given the stigma still associated with mental health issues, it’s very difficult for employees to come forward and ask what resources are available from their employer, especially if they are fearing for their job.

This mirrors the common challenges with reporting incidents of bullying, harassment, or discrimination – employees worry they will not be taken seriously, or if any action will actually take place. 

Encouraging a Speak Up culture

But just as Vault Platform is lowering the barriers to misconduct incident reporting with a highly accessible mobile app (and an Open Reporting portal for everyone else in the ecosystem), we are working with customers to help them expose other resources they have invested in for employees. 

Recent examples include using the Vault App for employees to discretely and anonymously inquire if there are resources for mental health support or domestic violence, or even to raise concerns about their work environment in light of COVID. 

As the group head of HR for advertising giant M&C Saatchi explained: just making an app on your phone available to raise concerns or ask questions meant that the process felt like “less of a big deal” than using a hotline or sending an email to HR or the ethics team.

The key is to normalize speaking up at work (or home) as this gives employees “the feeling that we are willing to listen and act and that’s really at the heart of what we are doing in terms of accountability.”

Learn more about managing the workplace culture shift in Vault Magazine

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day

Support assets for the US can be found on the SHRM site, here

For the UK, support assets can be found on ACAS, here

The post Declining mental health and the ethical workplace appeared first on Vault.

“Our whistleblowing phone line allowed you to leave an anonymous voice message but the issues with that as a reporting system I found is that you can’t help but wonder who that person is and sometimes you get clues to that person’s identity,” said Emily Hawkins, Group People Director at M&C Saatchi. This can raise biases in the case management and resolution process when anonymity is desired.

“Secondly, it’s hard to follow up and ask for any more details,” Hawkins said, referring to a common problem with anonymous hotline reporting and one of the biggest disincentives to reporters themselves. Without acknowledgment of their concern or follow up as to the action taken, employees are not motivated to make reports in the first place.

“Finally, I think it’s difficult to structure your thoughts to provide evidence when leaving a real-time voice message like that. Even sending an email to HR feels quite formal,” Hawkins said, hitting upon other challenges in legacy reporting systems. Employees are dissuaded from making reports, especially about situations that made them feel uncomfortable because there is a perception that the incident needs to be ‘significant’.

Normalize speaking up to encourage internal reporting

This highlights another challenge forward-thinking companies like M&C Saatchi are seeking to address by ‘normalizing’ a culture of speaking up.

According to Hawkins, “We use Vault Platform as an application that allows you to raise your concerns. It was introduced as part of our culture of accountability as something we wanted to bring to the business as part of our continuous Improvement. How can we know where we’re going wrong if we don’t hear what’s going on with our employees?”

M&C Saatchi adopted Vault Platform to enable employees to submit reports via the mobile app either using their name and identifying themselves, or coming forward anonymously and communicating with their case manager confidentially through a secure messaging channel.

“I felt that having the option to be anonymous and still communicate would help encourage people that have worries about any implications if they were to put their names to things,” said Hawkins. “There is a third option called GoTogether which means that you can submit a report and it’s only unlocked by a member of my team if someone else in the workplace makes a report against the same person. The idea being that you might feel more comfortable coming forward about a particular individual if another person has also done so.”

A culture of confidence

Following the impact of COVID-19, M&C Saatchi began to use Vault Platform to field questions from employees concerned about work but not wanting to come forward personally. Such questions included employees on furlough asking if they could work for another employer, through to questions about the process for returning to the office.

In fact, one of the first questions the company received after rolling out the Vault App to employees was a note from an employee who had found significant benefits to working from home who wanted to propose it as a permanent model.

Here, Hawkins has hit upon the main component of a successful Speak Up culture – normalizing the act of reporting by encouraging ‘less significant’ questions, so that when employees need to raise more significant issues they feel comfortable.

“An example might be an employee who is thinking of starting a family but don’t want to ask their manager, so they could anonymously enquire about the maternity or paternity policies relating to their situation,” Hawkins said.

The group head of HR explained that just by having an app on your phone to raise concerns or ask questions meant that that process felt like “less of a big deal” than using a hotline or sending an email to HR or the ethics team.

“I think it gives employees the feeling that we are willing to listen and act and that’s really at the heart of what we are doing in terms of accountability. We are open to hearing what employees say so should an issue come up we’ll know about it quite quickly,” Hawkins said.

Find out more in this short video

The post What does an effective Speak Up strategy look like in advertising? appeared first on Vault.

According to the Hays Diversity & Inclusion Report 2018 this trust deficit is highest amongst traditionally underrepresented groups, with just 28% of BAME respondents, 26% who disclosed a disability, and a quarter of those treated differently at work due to their sexual orientation trusting their leaders to deliver on an agenda for change.

It’s become increasingly clear that people feel the chips are stacked against them because of institutionalized thinking. Over half (58%) of Hays survey respondents believe their leaders have a bias towards those who look, think or act like them. Furthermore, only 34% consider their leaders to be role models who challenge traditional viewpoints and established ways of working.

There is a global appetite for change

Against the backdrop of movements like #MeToo and Times Up, the global appetite for change suggests that the time has come to take a more expansive view of workplace integrity. This is more than anti-corruption and compliance, even more than transparency, it also extends to universal ethical principles, such as respect, fairness, and honesty. 

Workplace integrity, as part of a healthy workplace culture, is doing what’s right in a professional and ethical context, treating others with respect and dealing fairly with those inside and outside the organization. It should be noted that this expectation of workplace integrity is also facing a higher bar with each successive generation of workers – Millennials expect the companies they work for to be more ethical than the Boomer generation. 

According to the Global Business Ethics Survey (GBES) conducted in 2016, in organizations where workplace integrity is implemented and cultivated as the norm, leaders and employees at all levels know, care about and are committed to upholding professional, organizational and ethical standards and values. 

Bad culture predicts bad behavior 

This is not true where employees are vulnerable to violations of workplace integrity. Four key metrics provide an insight into the ethics environment by highlighting the risks that emerge from lapses of workplace integrity:

• Pressure to compromise organizational standards is an important warning sign of future workplace misconduct.
• Observed misconduct is the most fundamental indicator of the state of integrity in the workplace, and is based on whether or not employees follow the rules and live out core values.
• Reporting of observed misconduct alerts management about the need to address violations, versus silence that allows wrongdoing to continue and grow worse.
• Retaliation against reporters, such as silent treatment, verbal harassment, demotions, undesirable assignments or even violence erodes trust and often deters employees from reporting misconduct, which allows bad behavior to fester and spread.

From over 13,000 global respondents in the data set, 22% had experienced pressure to compromise on organizational standards; 33% had observed misconduct in the workplace; 59% of those had reported the misconduct; and 36% of those had experienced retaliation for doing so. 

The GBES data shows that where the pressure to compromise standards is high, misconduct is also more common. Therefore, organizations that want to look forward with a view to predicting the possibility of future misconduct should look to whether employees feel pressured to compromise their integrity as this is a good indicator.

The post In a silent culture, misconduct is common appeared first on Vault.

The answer might be a resounding ‘yes’ – you feel like you work for an organization that values your opinion and encourages healthy debate. It sounds like the kind of organization everyone wants to work for. 

But let’s just reframe the question with a slightly different context. Imagine someone at work has just done something terrible to you, something that makes you feel humiliated, or insulted, or angry. Or you’ve witnessed an incident in your workplace which makes someone else feel like this. Is your answer still the same? 

It might be. If there’s a definitive incident, you might feel like your workplace culture would support you if you reported it. But what if there’s no ‘big bang’, no one definitive incident, what if you’ve been increasingly uncomfortable with a situation or a relationship over time? Would your answer still be the same then?

It’s often the case that there is no singular event or incident, rather something negative has built up over time and turned you into a less productive, less happy, less healthy human being. This might be repeated insulting or humiliating behavior towards you, a repeated joke that crosses the line of being reasonable. You might be witness to something unethical, even illegal, that makes you feel uncomfortable working with certain people, or even for the organization. 

Let’s say you muster the courage to say something, to Speak Up – you’re not challenging an executive decision or a company strategy, you’re challenging the behavior of a specific person. That’s a big ask, so you’d hope the process at least supports you. 

Do you have a Speak Up culture?

It’s likely that the process will require you to send an email to a generic mailbox, which will return an automated message with a reference and a telephone number to call. This ‘hotline’ will allow you to make an anonymous report to a human in a call center somewhere who works for the hotline operator. It’s a legacy approach and it feels impersonal and alienating. Degrading even. 

There are some companies that are trying to bring the hotline into the modern day, where you talk to a chatbot instead and answer generic questions about the incident. But this is still the same underlying modality and is still impersonal and alienating. 

Can you trust a stranger in a call center, or a robot, at a moment when you’re feeling vulnerable and even afraid for your career?

Any organization that wants to nurture an environment where employees feel psychologically safe, must build foundations on internal trust. If a culture doesn’t support or encourage speaking up, call centers and bots are merely paying lip service to the solution, and people will see right through that. 

In recent years, those tasked with building that environment have witnessed great changes within organizational culture. ‘HR’ is no longer the ‘hiring-and-retiring’ department and its remit has extended to employee relations, diversity, inclusion, ethics, and beyond, as companies that once shouted; “our people make the difference,” realize that they have to work to attract and keep those people because it’s people, especially the ones in the trenches, that really do care about workplace culture. 

You can buy tools to help you build a healthy culture, but you can’t buy culture itself. If you don’t support the creation of that culture organically, there aren’t any tools that will save it. 

You can’t buy culture but you can build it

So, if you work in a capacity where you are managing people or nurturing culture, here are three critical things you can do to build trust and create an environment that encourages people to Speak Up:

• Stop outsourcing 

It’s a common mistake that people would prefer to talk to a third party. They need help and intervention, and that can’t come from an external person paid to take calls on your company’s behalf. To build trust, people need to know that their case is being managed by someone who knows the company and possibly the parties involved. 

Do however use third-party, or non-employer branded reporting tools. This gives people reassurance that your organization takes reporting seriously enough to have invested in a specialist tool and removes concerns over an in-house system that could be open to abuse. 

• Make the process human 

The HR sector has worked hard over the last years to humanize a function that was once seen as very people-unfriendly. Do not expect people to talk to a call center representative or a bot in a vulnerable moment. This makes people feel the same frustrations and alienation as reporting a fault with the company laptop or submitting a request about payroll. It reduces your interaction to a ‘trouble ticket’. People want to know who inside the company is going to help them. They want to have that personal connection. And as management, this is what’s good for your company’s culture too.

Do use technology to make the process as user-friendly and effortless as possible. Humanizing doesn’t mean avoiding tech, in fact, quite the opposite. 

• Let people control the process

One of the biggest challenges when moving ahead with reporting an incident is that once you’ve picked up the phone or messaged the bot, or emailed HR, it’s ‘out there’ and the process has started. Someone might lose their nerve or might have reacted in the heat of the moment, or could be reporting something that is fairly innocuous at the time but is the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

If you let people control the flow of evidence they feel more confident in their actions. Use a system that lets people build up their cases over time, and combine all those little things before submitting, which will help them and HR see the scope of the problem in one place. Then only when they are prepared and ready do they begin the process and get HR involved. 

Do you use a system that encourages people to compile evidence about their grievances at the time and over time? This can save you hundreds of hours in investigation time and resources when it comes to looking into a claim and also puts the entire case into perspective before and after submission, making a better experience for all parties involved.

The post Three ways to humanize the speaking up process appeared first on Vault.