Does your hotline ring off the hook with complaints? Is it silent? Are the complaints mostly that the employee thinks his boss is a jerk?
The Network and BDO Consulting published their 2010 Corporate Governance and Compliance Hotline Benchmarking Report. The 2010 report provides an analysis of compilation of more than 500,000 reports from over 4,000 organizations throughout the five-year period covering 2005 to 2009.
Most of the report deal with a per 1,000 employee standard so you can do the math to figure out where your organization sits compared to other companies. They break the employee size into 5 groups: (0-5,000;5,001-10,000;10,0001-20,000; 20,001-50,000; and 50,000+). One interesting item is that report frequency is greater for the smallest organizations than it is for the largest organizations.
Retail has lost its crown as having the most reports to transportation, communication & utilities.
| Industry | 2005 | 2009 |
| Construction | 2.66 | 6.96 |
| Finance, Insurance & Real Estate | 5.61 | 8.28 |
| Manufacturing | 3.40 | 4.10 |
| Mining | 2.32 | 3.81 |
| Public Administration | N/A | 8.66 |
| Retail Trade | 18.00 | 11.09 |
| Service Industries | 7.33 | 10.52 |
| Transportation, Communication & Utilities | 9.67 | 12.80 |
| Wholesale Trade | 11.67 | 7.67 |
| Overall | 9.44 | 8.58 |
One item that has remained steady is that in 71% of the reports, the participant did not notify management before making the report. Personnel management still takes up about half of the reports. Posters are still the top source for creating awareness about the hotline.
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