ANONYMOUS REPORTING
What percentage of women do you think have been subject to sexual harassment in the workplace yet never submit complaints?
The answer staggered me – it is a figure of up to 70%!
Why is this figure so high?
Fear of retaliation or thinking ‘what is the point nothing will change,’ are massive blockers in employees reporting poor behaviours/culture at work, including bullying, harassment, and sexual misconduct.
Combine these employees’ reasons with some employers’ attitudes of ‘what is the point in anonymous complaints, we can’t do anything about them’ and you have a perfect storm of poor behaviours and cultures which go unreported and are allowed to thrive.
The result is these behaviours and cultures in the workplace are just like the precursors in volcanos that can last for weeks months or years before an eruption, and we all know how disastrous eruptions can be! It is usually these eruptions that go public on social media, capture headlines and irredeemably damage the reputation of the private or public body concerned.
However, the real damage to employees and productivity is caused during the build up to any such public eruption.
Relying on a formal complaints system as a measure of workplace culture is just like waiting for an eruption and the chaos that follows.
Just like geologists have developed methods to monitor unrest as an early warning system in volcanoes, employers need systems to monitor any workplace unrest well before behaviour and culture reach critical point.
One method that has been shown to work, in alerting employers to early stage indicators of poor behaviours and culture, are anonymous reporting tools.
…the current statistics for the risk of malicious reporting in the UK relating to sexual violence is around 4%. This low percentage of reports can be further reduced by, trained and experienced investigators, conducting credibility assessments of the evidential weight of the report made.”
Anonymous reporting tools allow employees to speak about concerns that they would not otherwise feel comfortable talking about, giving the employer an unfiltered view of issues, as they arise, and allowing them to take swift action to address those issues by introducing meaningful training or reinforcing existing policies.
In some cases where employers have been notified through anonymous reporting that behaviour and culture is poor to the potential detriment of their employees, a management led investigation (outside of the formal discipline process) can be conducted, using safe space interviews and surveys, to fully understand and address the reported problems.
Anonymity can be used in formal investigations if there is a belief that a witness has a genuine fear of reprisals against them for providing the evidence. Care is needed when dealing with evidence from those wishing to remain anonymous. In particular, gathering from them details of time/place/dates and seeking corroboration of their evidence from other sources.
Whilst it is important to take steps to check that the person’s motives are genuine, employers should not be blinded by the fear of anonymous reporting tools leading to malicious reporting – the current statistics for the risk of malicious reporting in the UK relating to sexual violence is around 4%. This low percentage of reports can be further reduced by, trained and experienced investigators, conducting credibility assessments of the evidential weight of the report made.
Finding out early allows employers to snuff out the potential volcanoes and restore a good working environment for employees.
Intersol Global can train and qualify you to conduct workplace investigations better and be your 'safe pair of hands' for those investigations that demand specialist trauma-informed skills. Contact info@intersolglobal.com to find out more"
