Hot lines vie with supervisors as equivalent sources of useful tips about possible wrong-doing

This blog has referred to hotlines a moderate number of times (See my post of Sept. 21, 2011: hotlines with 6 references.). Those anonymous reporting tools would seem to account for many of the disclosures of potential wrongs. Nevertheless, an article in Met. Corp. Counsel, Dec. 2011 at 38, draws on an informal study done by an in-house lawyer. That lawyer looked at reporting processes and discovered that “a majority of useful tips actually were communicated to the supervisors, not to the hotline.” Obviously, to tell your supervisor about a concern means that the supervisor is not the culprit and anonymity is not desired.