In the aftermath of whistleblower Frances Haugen's shocking interview with 60 minutes, Facebook's stocks plummeted downwards falling nearly 5%, formed the basis for eight new whistle-blower complaints to the SEC, and prompted lawmakers around the world to intensify their calls for regulation of the company.

Facebook was forced to apologize and promise to do better in the future. The company also announced new measures to protect user data. But in the eyes of much of the public, it was too little, too late.

This case became a teaching moment for many companies who scrambled for solutions to ensure that the same did not happen to them. Companies that face or could potentially face similar challenges can mitigate them with a robust and proactive employee feedback strategy.

Many Companies Turned to Whistleblower Hotlines

A whistleblower hotline (also called an ethics hotline) is a system for employees and other stakeholders to report any unethical or illegal behavior. This can include fraud, abuse, misconduct, waste, or violations of any laws or regulations. Whistleblower programs are meant to help companies detect and prevent unethical behavior while maintaining regulatory compliance with multiple federal laws in the United States meant to protect whistleblowers and mandate specific requirements for handling complaints, including the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act SOX. Organizations that fail to meet requirements mandated in their districts face hefty criminal and civil penalties. 

Unfortunately, many whistleblower hotlines are considered outdated, non-user friendly, and ineffective. In fact, according to a recent AllVoices study, 55% of employees don't believe that whistleblower hotlines are anonymous, and yet 56% of employees would be more honest in providing feedback if they knew their feedback could be submitted 100% anonymously.

On the backend of a whistleblower hotline, outdated reporting systems make case tracking and trend analysis incredibly time-consuming, if not impossible. Many hotlines also have no means for following up with a reporter, leading to incomplete reports that cannot be addressed and frustrated employees who see no resolution to their shared issue.

Whistleblower hotlines and the federal regulations mandating them are landmark achievements on the road to employee safety, but they aren’t comprehensive solutions.

What is an Employee Feedback Management Platform (EFMP)  

An Employee Feedback Management Platform (EFMP) is a single, comprehensive platform where cases are received, delegated, followed up on, and resolved. These platforms allow for efficient follow-up and ongoing dialogue to help people and HR teams easily manage complaints and organize data. 

EFMPs are intuitive, secure and provide a structure that fully complies with legal requirements such as SOX and SOC2 compliance. They also provide case management features that allow users to delegate reports, source additional details, track investigations and easily track and organize data from all reports. 

How Do Whistleblower Hotlines and EFMPs differ? 

Standalone whistleblower hotlines are single channels used for reporting complaints, usually through a telephone line or email. Telephone whistleblower hotlines allow employees to blow the whistle by making a phone call. Whistleblower email addresses allow employees to file complaints by email. These hotlines address the legal minimum requirements.

Employee Feedback Management Platforms are comprehensive systems centered around employee feedback and intelligence. They meet the legal whistleblower hotline requirements but are much more modern and accessible and allow for reporting and tracking solutions. 

Why EFMPs are the Winner

You can meet minimum legal requirements with a simple phone-based whistleblower hotline, but the risk of non-usage does not outweigh the benefit of a slightly lower price tag. Although whistleblowers offer some anonymity – standalone hotlines are much less secure because they do not provide adequate end-to-end encryption between the whistleblower and the person who receives the complaint. 

Single-channel whistleblower hotlines are also less cost-efficient as they do not have integrated tools that allow administrators to create custom surveys, ask follow-up questions, assign reports, input cases, review analytics, and resolve issues before they become problematic. All of this must be done manually or on-site, which will eat up valuable resources.

The benefits of an EFMP far outweigh the costs. Case management tools automate the process of attaching evidence, both text and images, generating reports, identifying trends, and ensuring compliance with GDPR and other laws in effect. Additionally, all activity can be logged according to whistleblower guidelines.

Why AllVoices?

AllVoices is used 12x more than the traditional whistleblower hotline. Why? Because AllVoices takes it a step further than just whistleblower compliance. Our platform doesn’t just stop at legal compliance, It’s user-friendly on both the front and back end, we ensure anonymity, and cumulate all incoming reports into streamlined reporting dashboards for easy employer use.

With AllVoices you can:

• Source real-time anonymous employee feedback
• Communicate with employees via encrypted messaging
• Track and resolve cases on platform with our case manager feature
• Develop and employ anonymous Pulse Surveys for proactive data collection
• Analyze all incoming data for actionable insights and trends
• Easily integrate resolution processes with your existing HRIS system 
• Promote workplace communities of psychological safety and trust

Schedule a demo today to learn more about how AllVoices can help you create a best in class, and legally compliant culture of employee engagement and feedback.