High turnover rates are costly. Ethics hotlines help improve employee retention, saving your business both time and money. Plus, hotlines improve your overall work culture.

Keeping great employees means investing in their well-being. Proving you value an ethical workplace shows employees you care. Part of that is creating a way for employees to report ethics problems as they arise.

Make Employees Feel Safer

Toxic workplaces make employees feel nervous, anxious and even afraid. They might be harassed by others, discriminated against or asked to do things that go against their own ethics, such as helping hide fraud. Without a safe way to report these problems, employees may choose to quit versus dealing with the stress and trauma.

An ethics hotline helps improve employee retention by giving employees an easy and effective way to report ethics issues immediately. As your company handles the problem, employees feel safer and stay with the business.

Employees Value Ethics

For many employees, working for an ethical business is more important than their salary. This is because employees don’t want to compromise their own ethics just for money. So, if your business cuts corners, discriminates, takes bribes or any other number of ethical violations, employees are likely to leave.

The problem is, you might not realize all the unethical behavior going on within your own company. Giving employees a way to report things they find unethical gives you a way to uncover issues and resolve them. Then, employees are more likely to stay and recommend your business as a highly ethical place to work, attracting more employees.

Make Employees Feel Heard

Sadly, reports to HR don’t always go as planned. Instead, they’re swept under the rug. The worst case scenario is the victim is blamed and punished as a way to discourage future reporting. This happens often due to HR bias and a lack of anonymity. Plus, HR is required to let their own managers and company owners know about reports.

This fear of not knowing who to trust makes employees stay silent. An ethics hotline helps improve employee retention by giving employees a voice. Train employees on how the hotline works and how the process works once a report is filed. Explain how employees are protected. As reports are filed and the appropriate action is taken, employees finally feel heard and valued.

Create A Fair Workplace

Few things make an employee leave faster than an obviously unfair workplace. This might involve certain employees always getting promotions over others or salaries being highly inconsistent. For instance, a woman may make less in the same role as a man who happens to have less experience.

Employees want to be treated fairly. However, you may have staff that doesn’t quite agree. This is where an ethics hotline helps. Employees are able to report what they don’t believe is fair. Then, your team investigates to uncover what’s going on. After that, appropriate steps are taken and gradually, things become much more fair and employees are treated more ethically.

Investing in an ethics hotline is a key to improving employee retention. It’ll also help you attract even more talented employees.