What is an Anonymous Incident Reporting System (AIRS)?
An Anonymous Incident Reporting System is a communication tool that provides a safe and confidential method for employees to communicate their concerns and issues to their employer. Through our advanced application employees can submit reports via the Internet or through our state-of-the-art call center. By submitting reports through an Ethics Reporting System, employees are shielded from retaliation while organizations can still get the information they need to appropriately respond to issues.
What role do hotlines play in today's workplace?
Any organization with 50 or more employees is subject to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The guidelines stipulate that organizations must institute procedures for the prevention and detection of violations of Law within the organization and, once it discovers such conduct, the organization must take all reasonable steps to appropriately respond and ensure such violations do not occur in the future.
In recent years employees have felt more empowered to come forward and voice their concerns in the workplace. Employees know that if they fail to come forward and report a serious concern, it could result in financial loss to the organization or someone could be seriously injured. Anonymous reporting tools can help re-establish a sense of ethical confidence in the employee base.
Why should an organization use a third-party reporting system?
To be truly effective, an Ethics Hotline should be provided by an independent third party. Internal hotlines are not only costly, but also unreliable, as there is the risk of reports being mishandled or lost. Furthermore, internal hotlines are rarely perceived as truly anonymous by employees thereby reducing not only the quantity of reports but the quality as well.
How secure is this type of system?
The MySafeX™ family of anonymous incident reporting systems uses SSL technology to encrypt data that is being transferred between the employee and our server. Our systems use SSL128-bit encryption with user name and password protections. This is the same security used within the online banking industry.
We employ multiple enterprise-grade security technologies, with two layers of firewalls with minimum and hardened OS installation. To insure the highest level of security possible, we also encrypt the actual client data residing on the database servers
How can an employee be assured their anonymity will be protected?
The employee will have three anonymity options when making an incident report: (1) Remain completely anonymous; (2) Remain anonymous toward your organization; (3) Do not care about anonymity. Employees are not required to identify themselves when making an incident report. Unless they choose to disclose their personal information to their organization it will not be provided. By choosing "remain anonymous toward your organization" the identity of the employee will not be disclosed to the organization but will be available to our team of subject matter experts for follow up purposes.
How can you ensure the integrity of the report?
The MySafe™ family of products is designed to make it virtually impossible for reports or data to be altered once entered into the system. Administrative items directly related to report distribution, such as location, are the only items that may be modified. All actions are date and time stamped and documented in our advanced case management system, and all original entries remain visible in the report. At no time is a user (management or reporting employee) able to change, delete, or modify any content-oriented information in the report. This security feature offers our clients powerful litigation support if the integrity of the reports comes into question.
When can employees report an incident?
There are no limitations as to how often or when you can access the MySafe™ system. The system is available via the Internet or a toll-free number with live expertly trained operators available 24/7/365. Our system also allows for the submission of incident reports in over 160 languages.
How do employees check the status of their report?
Employees can check on the status of their report by using a unique access code and password given when they initially submitted the incident report. They may continue to access their report via the Internet or by calling the call center via a toll free number.
When checking on the status of their report, employees have the ability to read messages posted by the organization, as well as post their own messages. The advanced technology provided through our message board is also completely secure and anonymous.
Who can be set up to have access to incident reports?
Anyone within an organization who may need to have access to a report can be easily added to the system through our unique point and click technology. Access levels are customized to the needs of the organization so that different types of reports can be distributed to different groups of individuals. The system is very powerful and flexible in accommodating virtually any distribution strategy.
Once an incident is reported how will management be notified?
Once an incident is submitted, alerts are instantly sent out to designated recipients identified by the organization. Alerts are sent via email, and can be routed to a cell phone, wireless enabled PDA (i.e. blackberry), or pager, as well as to your computer(s). The instant email notification is automatically generated by the system and contains a hyperlink to the actual report. Managerial users also have a unique Internet URL that can be viewed at any time from anywhere.
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