The Ethics Resource Center published its new analysis of corporate whistleblowers and retaliation against them today—and the results are not particularly heartwarming for the corporate compliance world. The report should be required reading for every compliance executive, although I suspect you’ll finish its 18 pages just as confused as I am.
First, the useful news. The report quantifies what any sensible compliance officer should already know in his gut: complaints of retaliation are rising, and retaliation, or even the mere perception of retaliation, causes higher employee turnover. Let’s start with Unsettling Statistic No. 1:
