By Adam Turteltaub

In the September 2023 issue of Compliance and Ethics Professional® (CEP) magazine, Andrea Falcione (LinkedIn), Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Head of Advisory Services of Rethink Compliance LLC, wrote about fostering a speak-up culture. Institutional justice, she wrote, is a critical part of that effort and “paramount to gaining and keeping employee trust.”

To learn more about the topic, I sat down with her for this podcast, in which she explains that there are four elements of institutional justice.

The first is Respect for everyone involved in an incident. That includes the person who comes forward with an allegation of course, but it should also include those the allegation was raised against, any witnesses and also people who come forward to self-report. By doing so, you make it clear that it is safer and better to come forward when there is wrongdoing.

Voice is the second element. She shares that this means allowing people to speak and share their story. It also means listening attentively, showing interest, making good eye contact and asking open-ended questions.

Neutrality is about making unbiased decisions and not letting a conflict of interest get in your way, such as when investigating a high performer in the organization.

Transparency, about both the process and the outcome, is the fourth key element. It helps build trust that the process is fair and demonstrates that there will be a thoughtful response by the organization.

Listen in to learn more about what institutional justice is and how to improve it in your organization.