NAVEX Global's newly released "2019 Ethics & Compliance Hotline & Incident Management Benchmark Report" reveals key benchmarking data from organizations that received 10 or more hotline/incident reports in 2018 - consisting of 2,738 of the firm's customers and more than one million individual incident reports.
Noteworthy findings include:
- Reports of harassment increased by 18% between 2016 and 2018 (8.5% from 2017 to 2018), and reports of discrimination increased 18% from 2017 to 2018. Substantiation rates for harassment and discrimination reports were 41% and 29%, respectively.
- 38% of all reports were received via "All Other Methods" (i.e., not via the hotline or a web form submission), which include walk-ins, emails, open door, etc., and reports submitted via "All Other Methods" had the highest substantiation rate.
- Substantiation rates for anonymous reports remain fairly high at 38% (compared to 50% for named reports); however, in what NAVEX Global perceives as a training/education opportunity for companies on effective anonymous reporting, reporter follow-up rates to anonymous reports dropped significantly to 20% in 2018 from 32% in 2017.
- Reports to hotlines that were inquiries rather than allegations decreased to an all-time low of 15%. NAVEX Global suggests companies encourage use of the hotlines to ask questions as well as for reporting purposes so that the company can offer advice and guidance to potentially head off future problems.
See also NAVEX Global's release; Proskauer's "Workplace Complaints in the #MeToo Era" survey report; and additional benchmarking and other resources on our Whistleblowers and Compliance & Ethics pages. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!