Workplace misconduct is difficult and uncomfortable for both employees and the organization. With 23% of employees experiencing unethical behavior in the workplace, misconduct cannot be ignored. Misconduct issues are not only felt at the bottom line, but they can also permeate an entire organization leading to hefty legal fees, employee turnover, and more. To mitigate this risk and promote both operational efficiency and cost savings, leaders can reinvest in their organizations by implementing a full-service misconduct management solution.
What’s at Stake Without Proper Misconduct Management?
Without proper misconduct management, employers can experience disengagement, low morale, and even a decrease in productivity among their employees. With such costly factors, organizations must understand what they are giving up by not properly addressing workplace misconduct issues.
By properly addressing workplace incidents utilizing an end-to-end misconduct management platform, organizations encourage a reputation of caring for their employees and advocate for fairness in the workplace. Additionally, organizations can mitigate workplace issues from escalating into costly legal disputes.
Unbiased third-party platforms, such as Work Shield, manage harassment and discrimination issues from start to finish, providing a comprehensive approach to handling sensitive incidents. The process begins with easy, confidential reporting and intake, followed by a thorough investigation and interviews conducted by impartial investigators. Once the facts are gathered, a resolution recommendation is delivered, enabling organizations to take appropriate action. These platforms also help mitigate reputational damage by addressing issues promptly and fairly. Unchecked misconduct can quickly make headlines, but streamlining the investigation process benefits everyone involved.
Employers must recognize the financial implications that come with a toxic workplace environment. When misconduct goes unaddressed, employee engagement and productivity suffer, which can significantly impact the bottom line. By proactively managing workplace incidents through a comprehensive solution like Work Shield, employees can focus on their work rather than worrying about the environment they’re in. Creating a culture of integrity and trust not only benefits the workforce but also contributes to long-term organizational success.
Using a third-party misconduct management solution offers significant advantages beyond simply resolving individual incidents. These platforms centralize all investigations in one place, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and transparency across the organization. With advanced data and analytics capabilities, organizations can track trends, identify risk areas, and proactively address emerging issues, insights that are impossible to gather from spreadsheets or manual tracking methods.
Additionally, by outsourcing investigations to unbiased third-party experts, HR teams and leadership are freed from the time-consuming burden of conducting investigations themselves, allowing them to focus on other critical initiatives like employee engagement, culture-building, and strategic planning. This approach not only ensures a more objective and thorough resolution, but also enhances organizational efficiency and accountability.
ROI from Investing in Workplace Misconduct Management
With a misconduct management solution in place, organizations can set themselves up for success. Through a 2020 meta-analysis, Gallup made a connection between employee engagement and workplace performance. Common findings include profitability, employee engagement, turnover, safety incidents, absenteeism, well-being, and participation. Through the use of effective misconduct management, organizations can address such problems, support employees to thrive in the workplace, and forgo unwanted employee behaviors.
In addressing employee misconduct, leaders will not only see a difference in employees’ behavior, thus creating a more profitable workplace, but they will likely see a difference in the organization’s total legal fees. For example, a national restaurant chain experienced incident-related costs of $2.4 million and, through implementing Work Shield, accrued annual savings of $2.3 million and a 302.9x return on investment. By implementing a misconduct management solution, this organization was able to save on legal costs and turnover expenses and improve the organization’s overall health and safety with Work Shield.
What to Look for in a Misconduct Management Solution
Many organizations address internal workplace misconduct by utilizing a third-party platform and equipping human resources for all types of misconduct. With most employees fearing retaliation for reporting, it is important for organizations to advocate for and reiterate the importance of addressing misconduct. When using an outside solution, such as Work Shield, organizations can share this message, saving money and time.
With Work Shield’s third-party investigation services, timely resolutions, 24/7 anonymous or non-anonymous reporting, and real-time analytics employees will always know they have a safe place to turn for misconduct management.
How Misconduct Management Benefits Your Organization
When the health and safety of employees is taken care of, financial benefits can be found for organizations as well. When leaders invest in misconduct management solutions, organizations know they are also investing in their employees and overall financial prosperity. Deciding to partner with an outside investigation process to handle employee misconduct, organizations provide confidence to their employees that they will be heard. Through the use of platforms like Work Shield, organizations can build a healthy and safe workplace environment and empower their employees to have a voice without fear of retaliation or being subject to internal bias.
