If your hotline number is only on a poster in the break room, you’re missing a big opportunity.
Posters are great. Everyone can see them. Heck – many now have a QR code leading directly to the Code of Conduct or other compliance-related policies. But they’re not the only way to reach people. Here are some clever ways to expand the reach of your whistleblower hotline advocacy.
Mobile Phone Stand
The clever folks at Balfour Beatty had a problem. Huge numbers of their workforce never come to an office. In fact, most of them work on construction sites all day. The Balfour Beatty team sourced a mobile phone stand with the whistle-blower hotline number on it. The stand lays flat on the back of a cell phone, then clicks open to hold the phone up (like a snap bracelet for any of you alive in the 90’s).
The hotline number appears every time the person uses the phone, making it highly visible to everyone.
In the Bag
Another company hosted senior leadership meeting focused on compliance and ethics. The take-away gift was a cloth carrying bag with the words, “Ethics is my Bag” emblazoned on it. Inside was a pocket-sized fold-out guide to compliance for managers, including the number for the whistle-blower hotline. Not only did they get to advertise the whistle-blower hotline, they also got senior managers publicly carrying around the message that ethics were core to their culture.
Screensaver
During Ethics and Compliance Week at a company I worked with, they’d put the number to the whistle-blower line as the screen-saver on every computer in the company, so that people could see it everywhere when they walked around the open-plan office. Although this was only a week-long exercise, the impact was profound in highlighting the availability of the whistle-blower hotline.
Payslips
One company I heard from puts the number for the whistle-blower hotline on the payslips of the employees. You can bet the employees take a look at their payslips once or twice a month, and this reinforces the compliance message.
Table Tents
If your offices or manufacturing sites have a canteen, cafeteria, or breakroom with tables for eating meals, try adding a table tent with the whistleblower hotline information on it and a reminder that the company expects everyone to act with integrity.
I recommend using plastic to support the table tent so that it stays nice. This can be a great way to keep the information front and center for folks.
Other Places
In addition to the ideas above, some companies put the whistle-blower hotline number on pens or post-it notes. Others create a business-card-sized hand-out that goes to every new employee, which can commonly be found on employee pin-boards or in their wallet. Still others add the number to the lanyards people wear around their neck to hold their badges, or put them on the clear-plastic covers people use to hold their employee ID cards.
Wherever you put the whistle-blower hotline number, be creative so that employees are surprised. If you’re doing something creative with your whistle-blower hotline, send me an email at kgranthart@diligent.com or add it to the comments. Who knows, your idea may be included in a future blog!