April 21, 2009 -
According to "
The Case for Anonymous Hotlines" published in Risk and Insurance,
"Good hotlines are available to callers 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, and always are staffed by a live interviewer. Many agencies
utilize an internal hotline that only operates from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
and then kicks over to voicemail. Unfortunately, the quality of a tip
might be diminished once a caller is relegated to voicemail. Consider
that and the fact that roughly 50 percent of all hotline calls occur at
night or on weekends. An individual seeking to remain anonymous might
try to leave a very brief message by omitting critical details, which
would otherwise have supported the investigation. Some callers might
even change their minds and hang up when they reach an automated
voicemail response, fearing that their voice or caller ID could be
recognized."
The Ethical Advocate
team agrees. Our call statistics are similar, with a substantial
portion taking place on the weekend. This may be partially driven by
the fact that callers have more time to think about the incident during
the weekend (assuming a M-F workweek) and want a way to relieve their
mind. We also receive many calls at 2 in the morning, probably from
those who can't get to sleep while thinking about the incident.
This
brings up the objections identified to the recent Project on Government
Oversight (POGO) report released on March 20, 2009. In the Ethical
Advocate commentary,
we highlight that the POGO team completely overlooked this and other
critical requirements of an effective hotline. But, if taking feedback
from a hotline provider seems biased, POGO should have looked to the
unbiased experts in the industry, such as the American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the previously identified factors in providing an effective hotline, published in 2005.
The
AICPA list identifies many items which are difficult to provide
internally. These include 24 x 365 coverage, multilingual capability,
trained interviewers and no voicemail, a case management system that
logs calls, demonstrates case closure, and has management oversight
capabilities, and the ability for reporters to anonymously follow-up
with administrators via a unique tracking number or user account.
The
POGO report does not take these items into account. Instead, it
investigated one hotline reporting company and then made a sweeping
proclamation related to the entire hotline industry and its services.
If the POGO team wants to provide a complete recommendation to their
stakeholders, the above, and extremely important, hotline
characteristics
must be addressed.