What is the AllVoices Reporting platform?
The AllVoices reporting platform is an easy-to-use, anonymous digital platform that allows employees to feel safe in communicating honestly.
Employees with access to the AllVoices reporting platform provide valuable feedback as they feel less stressed about potential retaliation. The platform allows employers to solicit feedback, discourages a culture that tolerates misconduct, and gives employees a truly anonymous way to provide tips and lodge complaints.
Why is the AllVoices reporting platform different?
AllVoices was founded on the idea that employees are more likely to share honest feedback and report issues if they are truly anonymous. Everything about the product was built with this core value in mind.
- AllVoices never collects email addresses (unless employees choose to be non-anonymous).
- AllVoices does not collect IP addresses.
- When feedback is collected, department and location data is always optional, in case sharing this information would compromise anonymity.
- We ask for a mobile number to ensure reports are not being submitted by a bot and so that a company can follow up with a reporter through our anonymous messaging platform. We encrypt the number, and no one on the AllVoices team or the company can ever see a phone number. Each report instead has a unique identifier called a Report ID.
- We use Twilio’s encryption services to ensure that phone numbers are encrypted on their end as well. We use Twilio to send an original verification code and follow-up text messages when a company responds to a report.
- As it relates to the security of data, AllVoices uses multiple security measures to ensure that it is never breached or accessed. Any data entered into AllVoices is fully secured using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) and a uniquely generated encryption key. All access to AllVoices is highly restricted, monitored, and logged.
What can be reported on the AllVoices reporting platform?
Employees can choose to share feedback or report concerns about anything they wish to share!
However, we have a few predefined categories to make response data more easily analyzed:
General Feedback
- Confusion on or disagreement with policies
- Questions, concerns, or feedback (a digital suggestion box)
Culture Issues
- Management issues & questions (micromanaging, lack of support, etc.)
- Exclusiveness or systemic trends across teams
- Internal issues inhibiting you from doing your job effectively
Harassment or Bias
- Unwelcome jokes (in person, on Slack, on email or offsite)
- Any kind of bias
- Bullying or intimidation
- Inappropriate Slack comments or conversations
- Something you heard or saw happen (doesn’t have to happen to you firsthand)
- Verbal abuse or threats (in person or online)
- Sexual advances or requests for sexual favorsUnwanted touching
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Issues, questions, or feedback around diversity or inclusion
- Pay inequality
- Misgendering or deadnaming
- Discrimination
Ethics and Compliance
- Unsafe working conditions
- Fraud, embezzlement, or accounting matters
- Theft
- Substance abuse
COVID-19 Questions or Concerns
- Concerns of safety policies being ignored (lack of masks or social distancing)
- Issues with remote work due to COVID-19
- Any questions or feedback around a company’s COVID-19 precautions
How exactly is the platform different from a whistleblower hotline?
Whistleblower hotlines are intimidating for employees, and as a result, are rarely used. Additionally, follow-up mechanisms to whistleblower hotlines aren't very functional and leave administrators unable to take further action and resolve issues.
- Technology has moved on. Employees prefer to use texting and web applications rather than making a phone call to a hotline.
- Employees are smart enough to know that a phone number or voice can identify them and are nervous about leaving voicemails, even with third-party hotlines.
- Because of the lack of follow-up mechanisms, many reports that come into hotlines are never followed up, which leaves companies with open cases that they have no way of resolving. Unlike traditional whistleblower hotlines, our secure two-way messaging portal notifies reporters directly when their company responds to their report. Reporters and companies benefit from this real-time and reliable communication channel throughout the investigation process.
- Often employees don’t identify as “whistleblowers” - they’re just having an issue at work and don’t feel comfortable coming forward to discuss it.
- Hotlines can make it challenging to correlate issues with evidence and actions taken by the company.
- Employee hotlines often require someone to administer them and have a separate system for tracking data and reporting findings.
- Whistleblower hotlines have a negative connotation and do not serve to gather positive ideas and feedback from employees.
- Hotlines and surveys are so often overused that employees no longer want to participate in them.
Our ethics and compliance module can replace your company’s outdated, under-utilized hotline while complying with your SOX and SOC2 anonymous whistleblowing or reporting requirements. Additionally, our platform isn’t just intended for whistleblowers, it’s accessible to any employee who wants to share feedback, questions, or concerns.
What are the benefits of a reporting platform?
If employees are experiencing negative workplace incidents or workplace culture, and have no way to share or get these issues addressed, they quickly become disengaged and leave the company. The cost of employee turnover is high!
Having an internal channel for employees to report concerns anonymously or not, moves conversations that might happen externally, internally, giving companies a chance to address issues before it is too late. Without a secure, anonymous channel to share feedback with company leadership, employees can resort to external channels to provide feedback or share negative experiences. We see this on public channels like Blind and Glassdoor, which puts companies in reactive “cleanup” mode rather than in a proactive, problem-solving position.
AllVoices helps leadership identify issues early, preventing reputational damage, and allowing employers to address concerns before they become systemic issues.
Customer trust, finances, and your overall value as an organization are at stake. None of this is good for a company’s reputation or brand and it opens up additional risks for future complaints and lawsuits.
What does reputational damage cost companies?
- On average 63% of a company’s market value is attributed to its overall reputation
- 76% of companies who experienced a reputation-damaging crisis said the crisis was preventable
- 64% of consumers stopped purchasing a brand after hearing news of that company’s poor employee treatment.
What does employee litigation cost companies?
While companies never expect to experience litigation with an employee, research has shown it is more common than one would think. Putting systems in place to help prepare for and proactively prevent serious issues can help save a company hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.
- According to Hiscox, 1 in 5 companies with 500 employees or less will face employment litigation.
- The average cost to defend a harassment lawsuit is $250K.
- The average jury award for companies found liable is 600K.
Investing in systems that prevent litigation and help mitigate risk, in turn, protects the company from immense financial loss and reputation damage.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to support@allvoices.co.