The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 mandated that all companies publicly traded in the US establish confidential reporting mechanisms, such as employee hotlines, to allow employees to report compliance concerns without fear of retribution.  Since that time, employee hotlines have been hailed as a best practice for all companies, regardless of type or size.  But what does that really mean for private companies, especially smaller ones?  What are the benefits?  And what are the costs?

At Global Compliance, we don’t simply throw a one-size-fits-all solution at every client.  We’ve worked with hundreds of smaller, private companies, and we know what your needs are.  And we have answers to your questions.
 

Question: How much will an employee hotline program cost my company?

Answer: This varies depending on the complexity of the program, but smaller client hotlines will often cost less than you will likely spend on your cell phone or residential cable television over the course of a year.

Question: For this expense, how many reports would I receive?

Answer:  Our industry data indicates most clients receive reports from 2-3% of their employee populations, a significant number for a relatively small investment.

Question: How long does it take to set up a program?

Answer:  A typical program can be implemented in less than 30 days.

Question: Why is implementing an employee hotline program better than setting up a voicemail or answering a special internal line myself? 

Answer: A Global Compliance employee hotline program offers the following advantages, to name a few:

•  We provide 24/7/365 coverage versus the limited office hours you could provide alone.
•  We have established protocols to ensure confidentiality; both voice mail and direct conversations you might have with reporters carry the risk of voice recognition, which can threaten the reporter’s anonymity, thus decreasing the likelihood of issues being reported .
•  We have a tested process for confidential follow-up; with an anonymous voice mail message, you will never have that opportunity.
•  We provide an independent third party audit trail of when, where, and how information is reported.

Question: Can you help me track concerns?

Answer: How do you track concerns today?  Filing Cabinet? Word or Excel file?  Can you search a person, time period, allegation, location and extract data from the system you use today?  Our Case Management system is included with your service and does all this and more.  Using our Case Management system, you can:

•  View reports from all intake sources and enter new reports for information received internally.
•  Manage case loads by filtering and sorting the report list by date, status, priority, or location, for example.
•  Review initial and follow-up report details.
•  Respond to and request additional information from reporters.
•  Assign Case Manager and Case Investigator roles per case.
•  Document case investigation and resolution details and attach related documents.
•  Track case progress using case status; receive e-mail notification of case activity; view comprehensive audit trail of case updates; archive closed cases.
•  Search for reports using the flexible search function to select criteria and output fields.
•  Analyze report counts and trends using a set of pre-built charts and graphs.
•  Download summary report detail to a spreadsheet.

Question: Can you help me put together Board Reports about organizational compliance activity? 

Answer: Absolutely.  Global Compliance provides Monthly Management Summary Reports that do all the hard work for you.  Please click here to see a sample report.