You would probably never hear a top executive state it on the record, but there is still a mindset in some organizations that the budget for ethics and compliance programs is mostly discretionary. Sure, these organizations will do the minimum the law requires—like maintaining a whistleblower hotline to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley—but will they invest money in optional workplace ethics training or revitalizing their Codes of Conduct when times are tight? Not likely.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just released statistics for the 2011 fiscal year that show why this mindset is so backwards.
As reported by the Huffington Post, the EEOC documented nearly 100,000 discrimination complaints this year—a new record for the commission—while helping alleged victims win $365 million in relief, also a new record.
Is it mere coincidence that these record figures occurred during a recession? Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, explained it this way in the Huffington Post piece, "At times like this, when job loss makes workers especially vulnerable, employers bent on breaking the law are even more likely to do so."
In other words, tough economic times can make standards of workplace conduct a race to the bottom. It’s hard to argue with the numbers, and even executives concerned only with the bottom line should take careful note of the record payouts the EEOC reported. Maybe during a recession some organizations don’t want to spend the money to train employees on how to prevent workplace harassment and discrimination, but would they rather pay out huge sums settling harassment and discrimination cases that could have been prevented?
Before such a worst case scenario comes to pass, every organization should evaluate how it budgets for its GRC program and consider whether it is recession-proof or not. If it’s not, the EEOC can offer thousands—make that millions—of reasons why it should be.