Recently, Compliance Podcast Network founder Tom Fox interviewed CEO Dr. Pat Harned on the newest trends report from ECI’s Global Business Ethics Survey® (GBES®); a longitudinal study of ethical trends from the employees’ perspective. In Part 3 of the GBES podcast series, Tom Fox and Dr. Harned discussed pressure, a key cause of misconduct, and retaliation, a key barrier in reporting misconduct. 

Pressure is still at an all-time high per the 2023 GBES report. The pressure metric measures employees feeling that they need to do something against policy in order to succeed in a task. While COVID raised the pressure felt by employees, the pressure rate has stayed stagnant, only falling one percent since. Employees who feel this pressure are liable to engage in misconduct, a major risk to any organization. 

While misconduct reporting has gone up, as Dr. Harned and Tom Fox discussed in episode 2, retaliation can impede reporting. Nearly 50% of employees who reported misconduct experienced retaliation after reporting. If employees believe that reporting misconduct often brings along retaliation, fewer employees will report, leaving misconduct unchecked, causing major issues for any organization.  

In this episode, Dr. Harned and Tom Fox discussed how employees and management can prepare to handle pressure and, separately, retaliation. Limiting pressure on employees alleviates a major risk concern and prevents misconduct before it happens. With clear communication and trust between employees and managers, pressure can be alleviated. Retaliation relief relies on managers ensuring that all reporting is done with the reporter protected. Without proper security provided by the organization, retaliation can, and will, scare away those who would otherwise report misconduct.   

By Tom Fox