When you have a healthy ethics policy, an ethics hotline, and transparent oversight, your company will likely collect ongoing data. You’ll measure ethics success and evaluate potential risks as well as collect new insights about which departments or processes need improvement. But are you making the most of all those accumulated insights over time? How often are you reviewing the analytics? Today, we’ll share suggestions and processes to consider so you can make the most of all the ethics data you collect.

Collecting All the Right Datasets

When you have an ethics hotline and additional ethics policy enforcements in place, you’ll be able to collect insights about all kinds of nuances within your company. Based on the anonymous calls that come in and even those that don’t come in, you can create a picture of what your company ethics looks like. If most of your reported concerns, for example, are related to financial processes, you know there could be ethics risks within those finance-related departments. Alternatively, your ethics hotline and reporting channels could be pointing to more loopholes within the hiring and onboarding processes, indicating an area of improvement with human resources. These insights and intel are only going to be helpful if you’re actively collecting the data and analyzing the metrics.

Assigning Data Ownership

To make sure you’re making the most of the ethics data you’re collecting, you’ll need a dedicated team of professionals who will be responsible for gathering and analyzing it. Consider assigning ownership and defining clear roles for ethics data collection. Be diligent about training these personnel to quickly spot anomalies and what to do with the metrics they compile. Having an ethics officer or someone within your HR team take additional responsibility for taking the next steps, making changes, or adopting improvements is also key. All the data in the world won’t be helpful if you don’t have a process for acting on it.

Timelines for Accurate Assessment

Your ethics hotlines and processes could be collecting data ongoing. But if you’re not committing to a regular timeline of analysis, you could miss spotting risks and concerns. Not all companies or businesses will have the resources to assign key personnel to daily logs. But monthly, quarterly, and annual data analysis and reporting are essential. Consider reviewing all the metrics collected regularly, so you can quickly identify where your operations may be lacking. For example, if there is an ongoing history of harassment reporting within a particular department, you may not be able to recognize and isolate the offending personnel or process breakdown until you review the data trends.

Consider a Data Ethics Board

Consider putting together a committee for ongoing ethics risk assessment and data review. These boards can have representatives from legal, operations, IT, compliance, and executive segments of your company. Together, these representatives can provide oversight and interpretation to identify opportunities for improvement and in addressing risks before they become significant failures and costly ethics breaches. These ethics boards can also enforce a consistent approach to preserving ethics policies and company culture.

Another way to absolutely ensure you’re making the most of your ethics data, let Ethical Advocate help with the comprehensive development and ongoing management of your ethics hotline.