Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hi everyone. You've got questions and we've got answers. Welcome to another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. The Business Ethics Leadership alliance, or bella, is a global ethics and compliance community that provides exclusive access to helpful data, benchmarking events and other resources to advance your ethics and compliance program.
One of those resources is bella's Concierge Service in which members can submit any question regarding ethics and compliance and our internal experts will provide an answer plus helpful resources with more information.
Now, while we invite everyone watching and listening to join bella, we know that there's no competition in compliance, so we're using this program to thematically respond to high level questions from the BELLA community for the benefit of ENC teams everywhere.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: I love this question Bill, as you know because it combines a couple of my favorite things speak up manager preparedness and a forward thinking ethics and compliance team that is wondering how can I do this better? So gold stars across the board as longtime listeners of the program will know. Bill, we have the evidence here at at the sphere that at the end of the day, managers are absolutely the linchpin around which everything else that you is going to spin. We know from employee data, self reported employee data that for every one employee that called your helpline, six of them said that they brought an issue to their manager and more often than not they were not thrilled with how that process went and it's largely because the manager didn't know what to do. So a couple of thoughts on this one. First off, as the ethics and compliance team, I really hope that you are involved in your manager preparation process. So that means you are part of the manager training infrastructure at your organization. You are talking to managers when they become managers, you are talking to managers when they have been managers, and you are talking to managers when they become even more senior managers. In other words, you're not just one and done on your manager training, you're part of the ongoing dialogue. So look at your manager training process. How have you talked to managers about what it is that they need to do when an employee brings them a concern?
Also and equally importantly, how have you taken on board the fact that adult learning research tells us that if we can't use something within the first six weeks of learning it, 70% of it is gone. So not just how are you training managers at that moment in time when you're talking to them, but when something happens, how are you preparing them? How are you using your communications channels to regularly talk to them about the fact that their employees are probably bringing them questions and concerns and they're not on their own when that question or concern comes up. So really making sure that you're reinforcing that message, that you're using your communication channels to do it. If you are lucky enough to have a strong ambassador liaison program, use that to talk to your managers about these issues. Whatever way in which you can get in front of your managers, maybe it's your er, team or your people team, whomever it that is in front of your managers, making sure that you're having conversations with your managers about the fact that this is happening. They might not hear it as a question or a concern, but their employees are bringing them questions and concerns. And so they need to make sure that they are handling things accordingly. So that's a big piece of the puzzle.
Last thing would be because there's a way we could flip this question on its head and say when something has happened in your part of the business, how do you want managers to respond to. And here I would strongly encourage our listeners to think about what they can give managers as a leave behind. Because I can tell you from personal experience, when you come to me and say we're opening an investigation in your part of the business or your team or this issue, I'm just going to go white noise, right? Everything else, when you say those words to me, particularly for the first time, it's all just going to go to static and when you leave, I'm going to have almost no recollection of what it was that you told me. So is there a leave behind? Right? Do's and don'ts. Here are the things to do and not do. Here's my phone number. I'll be in touch on Tuesday. Right? The more you can give managers so that they have guardrails. Because the other thing we know from self reported employee data is that the people who are most likely to be involved in retaliatory behavior are either your manager, him or herself or the people on the team. And your best defense against that kind of retaliatory behavior, ostracism, reputational damage, things like that, is your manager. So much like your managers are the linchpins around which all your speak up culture spins. Your managers are also the linchpins around which any retaliatory behavior is going to spin. And you want to find a way to put some, some, some sand in that wheel as fast as possible. So having something you can give the manager here are things to look out for in similarly situated teams. This is where we see, you know, kind of retaliatory stuff start to happen, Keep an eye on this person. Remember, speaking up as an act of courage, that kind of stuff.
Critically, critically important.
So, Bill, first off, I. This is becoming a bit of a trend with our Bella members where we're getting these incredible compound questions.
So, you know, my junior high English teacher hated compound sentences. And, you know, would, would, would always make me break them into, into two. But I love a compound question. So. Because really, what this question is getting at, if you listen to what the person is asking, is they're concerned about retaliation possibilities in two places, right? One is post survey. So that's fascinating because what that could potentially mean is they're dealing with either investigation or either rather engagement surveys or culture surveys where there's a possibility that people think that the survey is not anonymous, right? Where the company is doing something to potentially figure out who left the nasty comment about the CEO. And look, we have seen this, right? We just have to go to the Barclays CEO whistleblower issue from a couple years back where, you know, you actually had a CEO try to unmask a whistleblower. So this stuff happens.
But it's very interesting to me that this is a Bella member that is thinking about the possibility of watching for signs of retaliation, both after, you know, concerted survey work, like a culture survey or an engagement survey, and then also post investigation. Because we don't always think about all of the other places where employees could potentially be running into negative consequences for having the courage to share their opinion or, you know, speak their, speak their mind.
So thinking that through, you know, the kinds of things that we end up thinking about when it comes to watching for signs of retaliation. And we do have up to date data on this in the sphere because we just, of course, switched the data year. So I can tell you that, you know, of the six options we have in this, in this question, most companies are using at least three. So it's important not to have too much reliance on any one mechanism to check for somebody being potentially exposed to retaliation. So you might, for example, be very reliant on a manager. Makes total sense. We know that managers are often involved in allegations of retaliation, and a manager is often the very best person to prevent any kind of retaliatory behavior. So you might be doing things to remind managers of what is and is not expected, not only during the investigation, but after the investigation is closed. You probably should, for known reporters, be keeping an eye on changes in job status. Does this person suddenly go from being a high performer to getting bad performance Reviews might be something to dig into. Does this person suddenly go from being an indispensable member of the team to on a RIF list? Might be something to dig into. Right? So those kinds of things are pieces of information you as a compliance team can get your hands on.
But the other thing I will say for the, for the Post investigation piece in particular is if it's a known reporter and they have developed a rapport with the investigations team, just give them a call.
Right? We see this practice all the time inside of organizations that are part of the Bella community where three, four, five months after an investigation is closed, the person from the investigations team just drops them a quick call and says, just wondering how you're doing, what's going on, how's the team?
You know, particularly if, if like so many investigations, the person is continuing to work with the person that they raised the concern about. Right. There's a, there's actually, it was interesting a couple years ago we saw a huge movement to, to pull principles of restorative justice into work environment situations so that people could start to think about how to take a team post investigation and get them to a place where they can continue to work together.
And that's particularly the case anytime that you are talking about a team where there is a, you know, a very specialized skill set. So if you have nuclear engineers, right, or you have rocket scientists, you know, groups in base, you know, in professional sports, this is a big, this is a big concern, right? How do we get people to a place where they're comfortable raising their hand because they know that they won't face negative consequences as a result of having raised their hand and then make sure that we've really created that environment where we can continue to see employees speak up. So kudos to the Bella member for thinking about this, for it being something that's on their radar screen, for thinking about those kinds of places in the employee experience cycle where somebody could potentially run into a potent, into a retaliation issue. Because, you know, we just saw the EEOC released Here in the US their data on 2024 charges and retaliation is still the most commonly charged behavior at the eeoc. It outpaces harassment, discrimin, etc. It really is, you know, it is something that employees do, unfortunately, experience. So making sure you're monitoring for it and looking for the places where you can get a sense it's happening, it's a, it's a good, it's a good thing to have on your, on your, your work plan when you have a.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Situation where you know, despite all best efforts on the part of the system, you still know who's saying something and what they're saying is something that really strikes you to the core.
What advice do you have for managers and leaders? To have to somehow have that pause and to stop and to not go into retaliation mode, especially when you know who is making the comment.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yep, it's, and it is such a human instinct, Bill, you know, to both, both to, to have that, that moment of, you know, being stung by what someone has drafted. But, but also to want to know who, who wrote this. Right. Who wrote this? And, and that's part of the reason. And, and you're, you know, you're quite on the, on the verbatim comments in particular. You're quite right. Like, like, you know, it is, we all have a voice that can show up in our writing and there are certain catchphrases that if I put them in an email, even if I don't sign the email, you're going to know that it came from me.
So I think you have to talk to your leadership team before you share verbatims and, and, and have that conversation that requires that, that pause to say, look, information is a gift.
Sometimes it's a gift you want to throw back in the face of the person who's giving it to you.
But if you can, if you can divorce your ego from it, information is a gift. And that is the work as a, as a people leader to be able to say, I am being given this information because the person who is giving it to me wants me to do something with it.
Now, I may or may not end up doing with it what they want me to, but I am being offered this because there's no survey on the planet that requires you to fill in a verbatim, Right? The verbatims are always optional. And so if somebody's taking the time to write something into the comment box of a survey, take a breath, right?
Set aside the ego pause, your knee jerk reaction to be like, well, that person just doesn't know what they're talking about and accept the information for what it is, which is an opportunity to improve.
The good news is that you substantiate a claim of retaliation very similarly to the way you substantiate any other kind of issue that might be brought to the attention of the compliance team.
So often what ends up happening because of the gap between what an organization has trained managers on around retaliation and what employees experience as a form of retaliation, there can be a gap there. So we often when we hear from employees who say they've experienced retaliation, it's some of the softer forms that are listed in the EU whistleblower directive as examples of retaliatory behavior. So it is, I got pulled off the good projects, I stopped getting invited to meetings. People started looking at me funny, right? Those are the kinds of things that we traditionally hear from employees that they are concerned about when it comes to a retaliation claim.
So, you know, some of those can be a little hard to investigate. Particularly people are looking at me funny. But conversations with managers, with coworkers, can kind of give you a sense as to whether or not people have been giving somebody who raised a concern a wide berth in, in a fashion that would cause concern to the organization. So utilize your existing investigation protocols and be grateful that you even have a claim of retaliation to investigate in the first place. Because when we talk to compliance teams, it is one of the things that rarely gets reported, in part because people are nervous already, right? So I raised a concern. Now people appear to be retaliating against me. Well, I'm certainly not going to raise a concern again because I'm just going to make my situation worse. So more often than not, Bill, the way that these kinds of claims of retaliation end up coming up is they come up because of a proactive follow up from the compliance team. So another thing I want to highlight with this particular question is that practice of proactive follow up. That is how you're going to find out if there are corrosive behaviors that are happening that are going to undermine or erode your culture, your speak up culture in a given part of the business. So really thinking about how do I follow up with known reporters, how do I follow up with witnesses, how do I make sure that there is nothing happening in the organization that is going to undermine people's willingness to tell me that they have questions or concerns. Because again, as I said, more often than not, somebody's not going to, of their own volition, tell you they're being retaliated against because they're already afraid of experiencing retaliation.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Now, Erica, I can imagine the answer you're going to give me to the question I'm about to hit you with, but I'm going to ask you this question anyway. Do you mind if I hit you with a follow up question, Bill?
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Again, I never mind you hitting me with a follow up question.
Follow up questions are fantastic. Go for it.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Well, this is a really good one in part because to be fair, this is actually a separate question from a different Bella member But it ties so closely to what you just talked about. I thought I'd fold it in.
And the question is, can a hotline be used to retaliate against someone?
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a.
This is a really interesting question that came in, Bill. And it was a.
It took me back for a minute to the early days of ethics and compliance programs being kind of broadly set up across organizations. So, you know, we're talking kind of early 2000s now.
And there was something that I came across at that point that I know still happens inside a lot of organizations, particularly organizations with substantial workforces that are looking for ways to. To address grievances with managers and leaders. And at the time, I was working with a utility company that had a very substantial represented workforce, and they were having a problem with what, at the time they called. And what I learned has been continued to be called the practice of hotlining, which is basically, I'm mad at my manager. I think my supervisor's a jerk. I'm not going to go through the normal grievance procedures because I have this new thing that's available to me to raise concerns directly to the company. So this, of course, was sort of post Armades Oxley when companies were setting up hotlines. So I'm going to call the hotline instead and complain about the behavior of my manager. The reason why, if you look at any code of conduct today, you see a note in there about good faith. Right? We will not allow retaliation against someone who has brought a concern forward in good faith.
And that kind of behavior of hotlining. Right. Calling the hotline to complain about a manager in a scurrilous fashion, that is not good faith. And so, you know, yes, we absolutely see it. We see the practice of hotlining continue.
We see employees calling and sort of, you know, making knowingly false reports about individuals that they have some sort of a grievance with.
And, you know, it is something that compliance teams have to root out. And my recommendation, when we see it happening for companies is you have to tell the story of why this is wrong. You have to communicate using, you know, real fact patterns anonymized to protect the innocent about this kind of behavior, because it is definitely something that people are inclined to do.
So your substantiation rate, bill, is basically the rate compared if you take your overall number of issues that come into your. Whatever your case management system might be. And I would caution everybody listening to us that has not already listened to, how should I be thinking about my intake methods? How should I be triaging my Investigation protocols. How should I be thinking about root cause? Right. All of those Bell asks, that Bill and I have done over the course of the last year, they all fit inside of this, you know, particular thing. So however it is that your issues are coming in, whether it's through your managers, your hotline, direct outreach to your ethics and compliance team, your HR business professionals, one of the things you should be tracking is how many of the things being raised to me turn out to be accurate. Right. How many times do. Does. Does my team find themselves in a position where they don't have enough information to say, yes, this thing that was alleged has happened? And there's a lot of different things, strategically, that your substantiation rate over time is going to be able to tell you. One is going to be, how do I think about substantiation rate differences based on which investigators are looking into an issue? Are there particular types of issues that get raised that are more likely to be substantiated than others?
Is there a substantiation difference based on whether something is raised anonymously or if I know who the person raising the concern might be?
How am I looking at my substantiation rate by location? So are there particular parts of my business where I find it's really challenging for me to say, yes, this thing that was alleged happened. And then one of the other things that I like seeing companies do, Bill, that we have started to see over the course of the last couple of years more and more is companies looking at their substantiated and unsubstantiated cases in the aggregate and asking themselves for the unsubstantiated ones in particular, what caused this person to raise this concern? Right. I was able to substantiate that misconduct happened. I was not able to substantiate that discipline was warranted, but someone felt like something wasn't right. So I'm going to raise my hand and what was that thing?
One of the stories that I've told often when I speak on these topics, Bill, is I was talking to a compliance officer many years ago, and they kept getting calls to the hotline from this one particular location. And it was individual employees of a factory complaining about the food in the cafeteria, calling the hotline, calling the hotline. The food is, you know, the food's dreadful. The food's making me sick. The food, the food, the food.
Finally, the general counsel comes to the compliance officer and says, look, I know it's not a code issue. Just get out there and figure out what the heck's going on with the food, like, go to the cafeteria and see what might be happening.
And so general counsel gets on a plane, flies to the country of at issue, gets off the plane. And it turns out employees were calling about the food because the manager at that particular factory was taking their identification papers when they arrived at work and not letting them to have them back until they had achieved certain milestones from a production perspective.
So he thought it was a cafeteria issue. It turned out to be a slavery issue. Right. A human trafficking issue.
And so that is my cautionary tale for unsubstantiated concerns because before he got on the plane, like, they would call the caterer. No, no, no, everything's fine. Nobody's complaining about the food like, everything's fine. Turns out he had a much, much bigger issue. So substantiation versus non substantiation is absolutely something you should be thinking about strategically and looking at that data to say, what else is this going to tell me about what may potentially be happening in my business?
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Well, Erica, as always, very, very grateful for you to come onto the program and answer these questions. This time was a great question, fantastic answer. But also thank you for sharing that deeply compelling story because it's such a powerful real world example of how these things have an impact and why they matter. So thank you very much for sharing that.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely, Bill, my pleasure. And to the Bell member who brought us this particular question, thank you for completing our investigation.
I don't even know if it's a trilogy at this point, Bill. I feel like we've answered investigation questions, you know, across six or seven different questions, but this was one we hadn't gotten to yet. So thank you for. Thank you for bringing it forward.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: To learn more about Bella, Visit@the sphere.com Bella to request guest access to the member resource hub and to speak with the Bella Engagement director.
If you have a question you would like answered on this program, contact the Bella Concierge service and we'll get to work on it for you right away.
This has been another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. Thank you so much for joining us and we really hope that you've enjoyed the show. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify and be sure to tell a colleague about us as well. Every like comment and share really helps this program. That's all for now, but until next time, remember, strong ethics is good business.
