Plainfield, IL - August 05, 2002 (PRN):The escalating public and stockholders' concern over business integrity, reputation and value drives the quest for solutions and controls to better and more consistently identify potential wrongdoing and take proper and timely action to prevent further harm. The Corporate Hotline can be a valuable tool for firms to identify issues before they become crises and to build trust and morale among internal and external stakeholders.

"The Hotline is an often neglected and underutilized tool that, if properly implemented and communicated, should be a critical and meaningful part of a company's ethics and compliance processes," says Richard D. Sem of the Hotline Development Group. "The Hotline ideally provides an alternative means of internal communications when the traditional chains of communications and command break down or are mistrusted."

"Merely announcing a number which employees can call is not sufficient and may cause a false and dangerous sense of well-being," says Robert E. Damon of the Hotline Development Group. "For a Hotline to be truly effective and worthwhile, employees and other potential users (i.e. contractors, suppliers, franchisees, customers, etc.) must understand and trust the process, management at all levels must support it, issues raised must be properly logged and tracked, trends should be identified, investigations should be fair and objective, and some closure must be assured."

The Hotline Development Group is a unique consulting practice that assists its clients in developing, expanding or enhancing internal or external hotline programs. These services include assessments of existing programs, creation of communications processes, policies and procedures, development of outsourced or proprietary hotline systems, processes to log issues and identify trends, support in developing and directing investigations, etc. Issues that may be addressed may involve ethics, compliance, finance/accounting, threats or other workplace violence issues, safety, environment, communications of emergencies, harassment and bias, fraud and theft, substance abuse, conflicts of interest, fairness and other Human Resources issues, customer service, etc.

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