KPIs on Organizational Justice, Surveys, and Benchmarking with Philip Winterburn

Oct 9, 2018

Today’s episode focuses on the measurability of KPIs in organizational justice. Tom is joined by Philip Winterburn, Chief Product Officer at Convercent. Together, they dive deep into fairness, using surveys to test the ethical health of an organization, and the value of benchmarking. Organizational justice is not just about procedures, it goes beyond the law. It’s about how we treat employees throughout their employment. Fairness is when the hierarchy doesn’t affect the consequences of unethical behavior.

• Why should we be measuring organizational justice? Philip talks about how organizations that follow standards of fairness and justice have higher employee engagement. He breaks it down to 3 Key Organizational Justice Beliefs (Employees): Do employees believe that there is fairness in the distribution of outcomes for the level of effort put in? Do employees believe the process that derives these outcomes is fair? Do employees believe that they're actually treated fairly and with respect?
• You should also consider their perception of things. Is their perception of the process fair, and thus, the outcomes will be fair? Philip talks about how we can drive that perception and what measures we should have around that belief. The best driver is how quickly compliance cases are being managed to closure. The longer the case drags on, the faster the organization's credibility falls. Employees need to feel that their concern is being properly handled, which is why communication plays a huge role in this KPI.

• What are some KPIs that are critical for organizational justice? Case closure rates, reporting rates, and surveying: these are great ways to measure an employee’s perception of fairness within the organization.
• Would an anti-retaliation metric be a KPI of organizational justice? Yes. Philip talks about his fascination with the undercurrent that is retaliation. Most organizations see retaliation in very large terms. Because of this, they often miss the subtle retaliations that occur in the office. Be aware of the smaller picture and don't brush these off; even subtle tensions can stir bigger conflicts.

Tom and Philip talk about surveys and answer these key questions:

• What are the benefits and risks of running a survey? Surveys give compliance managers the opportunity to understand the inside workings of the organization. This does not come without its own risks. With the right levels of participation and transparency, surveys prove to be incredibly powerful information. If deployed incorrectly, the results can become biased and won’t accurately represent the organization.
• How can you utilize a survey to test the ethical health of an organization? Gather a response set that is representative and understands the distribution in their responses.
• How do you measure extremes that are present in some surveys? Get enough people participating so you have a good balance in representation of the organization. Some of the participants' opinions might be extreme cases, but most should be a moderate variation.
• Context is key when dealing with benchmarking. The human element makes benchmarking tricky. There’s rarely a clear right or wrong answer, just a magic “in-between” number where you meet the happy medium that all compliance officers are looking for. How do you get this magic number? Study the benchmarks from your organization and others, and consider what you chose to benchmark your organization against.

• Philip shares how they’ve been bringing benchmarks to life through analytics. With analytics, you can monitor your organization’s data progress on a daily basis, and then cross-reference benchmarks across other organizations listed in their systems.

Ongoing Education

If you’re a compliance professional looking for a convenient and effective way to fulfill your continuing education requirements, go to FCPAComplianceReport.com/Courses and choose from 4 hour-long training packages that will keep you up to date with the latest developments in the compliance field.

Philip Winterburn

LinkedIn

Convercent

Resources

Converge18 Preview - KPIs For Organizational Justice

Converge18 Preview - KPIs For Surveys

Converge18 Preview - KPIs For Benchmarking