 |
 |
|
| A Publication of the Office of Compliance Services | Winter 2016 |
| compliance counts | ||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
Reporting, Non-Retaliation and Your Compliance Program
|
|
|||||||||
Features:Compliance HelpLine: The Top 5 Myths By Tessa Lucey, Director of Compliance Services.
Policy Spotlight: Non-Retaliation & Whistleblower Protections
Chatter: Anonymous Letters vs. Anonymous HelpLine Reports
Annual Compliance Survey Raffle Winner!!
(Pictured L-R: Director of Compliance Services Tessa Lucey, Raffle Winner Becky Fredericks, Assistant Director of Compliance Services Erica Heffner) | ||||||||||
One of the key elements of a compliance program, and one that can mean the difference between a program being "effective" vs. being merely "window-dressing", is its reporting mechanisms. Because it is such an important element, we decided to dedicate this issue of COMPLIANCE COUNTS to reporting and non-retaliation. In my experience, I've found that the most common reasons that people don't report wrongdoing are either (i) lack of knowledge on how to actually report, or (ii) fear of retaliation. This is true nationally as well as here at UVM. According to a national 2013 multi-industry survey (not a UVM study), more than 1/3 of respondents said the reason they didn't report wrongdoing was because they feared payback (retaliation) from senior leadership and 30% said they feared payback from a supervisor. While our survey responses from last fall were generally better than the national figures, the results were high enough for us to notice (24% reported low confidence in protection from retaliation). And, our results relating to knowledge of UVM's reporting options confirmed for us that UVM is not much different than other places of employment. 
I have been a compliance officer since 1998. Throughout my career, I have set up, implemented and monitored many confidential reporting programs. While I know enough about this profession to avoid saying, "I've heard it all," I sure have heard a lot when it comes to some perceptions of a confidential hotline. Some comments are positive, some not so positive. And, while I'd like to be able to say that the negative comments are all false, depending on the culture within an organization or a department, there could be a grain of truth in all of them. So, then, why do we have a confidential reporting mechanism? Why do we allow faculty and staff to anonymously report concerns? 
While we generally focus on a single policy under this section, for this edition, the spotlight is on many. These policies all contain non-retaliation statements. Under our own policies, UVM provides protection against retaliation to those who, in good faith, report suspected wrongdoing. There are also statements about non-retaliation on many UVM department webpages.
In the Chatter section, we go into a little more detail about a variety of selected topics designed to get people thinking about situations a little differently. If there is a black and white answer, we'll give it. If not, we'll try to explain the gray. Whenever possible, we will give real life examples. If you have a topic you'd like to see included, let us know. As always, individual identifying information will never be published without permission. 
We'd like to thank everyone who took this year's Culture of Compliance annual survey. Everyone who responded was entered into a random drawing.