Having an Ethics Reporting Service allows your employees to anonymously report sensitive ethical issues such as Sexual Harassment, Workplace Safety, Drug and Alcohol abuse, Hostile Working Conditions and Acts of Discrimination.
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Knowledge
A compliance hotline often alerts Employers to problems in their organization of which they were not aware. This knowledge can help employers head off many potentially costly issues such as lawsuits or loss of business due to unethical behavior.
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Deterrence
Publicizing the company's use of an anonymous hotline makes those contemplating doing something unethical less likely to attempt it in the first place.
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Eliminates fear of retribution
Employees who witness unethical behavior can be reluctant to engage in whistleblowing while at work regardless of promises of confidentiality. There is an inherent fear of being overheard, emails being intercepted or concern someone will see them making the report. An Ethics Hotline allows the user to make a report outside of the workplace 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without the fear of retribution.
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Improves opinion of Employer
The existence of an Ethics Reporting Service assures employees the company does care about their concerns, and strives to promote an ethical workplace.
According to The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) 2018 Report:
Organizations with Ethics hotlines experienced frauds that were 50% less costly and detected fraud cases 50% more quickly.
- Typical organization loses 5% of revenues each year to fraud. Total losses caused by fraud for the cases in this study were more than $7.1 billion.
- Median loss caused by frauds in the study was $130,000 – 22% of cases involved losses of at least $1 million
- Median duration – time from when the fraud commenced until detected for cases in the study was 16 months
- Tips are consistently and by far the most common detection method. Over 40% of all cases were detected through a tip and employees accounted for approximately 53% of all tips that led to discovery of fraud
- Organizations with hotlines were much more likely to detect fraud through tips than organizations without hotlines (46% compared to 30%).
- The smallest organizations (< 100 employees) tend to suffer double the losses per incident due to occupational fraud.
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Collusion helps employees evade independent checks and other anti-fraud controls, enabling them to steal greater amounts.
* The median loss for one perpetrator was $74,000
* Two individuals committing fraud together caused a loss of $160,000
* Three or more perpetrators caused losses of $339,000
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Vast majority of occupational fraudsters are first time offenders; only 4% had been convicted of a fraud related offense prior to committing the crimes in the study. Additionally, only 9% of fraudsters had previously been terminated by an employer for fraud related conduct.
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“Our research has consistently established tips as a major source for detecting fraud, and the presence of hotlines can have a substantial impact on reporting.”
Read the entire report
here
One negative incident can cause years of damage to you companies reputation. Even an honest mistake by an employee can result in an ethics concern, an issue with a customer and can turn into something much worse if left unchecked. SAFE Hotline will let you deal with reported issues before they escalate out of control.
- Lessens Damage to Corporate Goodwill
- Fewer Lawsuits
- Fewer Violations and Fines
- Projects Managements desire for an Ethical Workplace
