Hotlines are an incredibly valuable tool for identifying compliance issues and many other problems. Every organization should have a system for people to report—either anonymously or with reporter identification.

But many organizations overlook a rather obvious factor present in many hotline cases, even when the hotline information was valuable and culminated in an effective investigation: Is this really the second or third attempt by the reporter to bring this matter to our attention? Did the reporter previously bring the concern to our attention by reporting it to their manager or some other in-person channel, only to have it go nowhere from there?