Speakfully’s Jana Morrin: Without the right tools in place, people leave

We rewind to late May as UNLEASH editor Jon Kennard talks to Speakfully co-founder Jana Morrin about the importance of the right tools to report misconduct at work. This interview was filmed at UNLEASH America 2022, in fabulous Las Vegas.

Watch the video or read an excerpt of the transcript beneath, which has been edited for clarity.

We join the conversation as Jana details the old days of anonymous reporting.

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Jana Morrin: Think about our traditional recording hotline that still exists today. It’s super archaic, and a lot of people don’t use them. And so we like to say that we solve for the reasons why people don’t use those hotlines.

Jon Kennard: Okay, how did it used to be? And what’s the difference?

JM: Good question. So if you think about the hotlines, there’s lots of reasons why we don’t use them. There’s no transparency; you end up losing a little bit of trust, then with the organization, they don’t know what’s happening. The organization themselves, a lot of times don’t want anonymous reporting, because they don’t get enough information to take action.

So those traditional reporting hotlines, people can go and submit something, but the organization themselves might not get enough information to be able to do anything. So in that case, the employee then thinks, okay, they’re not doing anything. And maybe in reality they are [trying], they just can’t do anything.

And they can’t communicate to the employee, as they don’t know who they are. And so then that creates this toxic environment. And so they have no way to communicate with them back and forth, anonymously, they don’t get any analytics from it.

And so we provide that; we allow them to be able to communicate back and forth, we allow them to get some data and analytics. So they can be more proactive, find out where the hotspots are to be able to get info on those small issues before they become big problems.

JK: Was it born of seeing what was missing in that market, or you just thought, we need big change in this area.

JM: Actually, [it was] from a personal experience that I had, unfortunately, I experienced harassment, by my superior for over a year timespan. And I left the organization because of that. And after I left there I reflected a lot on what I wish I would have had as an employee going through that, but also what I wish the organization would have done differently in order for me to come forward sooner than what I did.

And so that’s where we created a safe private way for employees to be able to speak up and have a voice, but also give the organization the tools that they need so that they can be more proactive, they can get in front of those those small things before they become big.

JK: Do you think there’s significant change happening now, obviously, that AI is used in a lot more businesses and diversified incredibly, as well as data and analytics, like you mentioned, you think we’ve made good leaps forward in this area? Or do you think there’s a lot more we can still do?

JM: I do believe we’ve made good leaps; I think it’s like chipping away at an ice wall. It’s not something that happens overnight. But I do think with the environment that we live in now with the different things that have happened over the last few years, I think about the #metoo movement, Black Lives Matter, all of us working remote in the past, hitting the pandemic, the ‘Great Resignation‘, there’s always something.

I think organizations are starting to realize they need to have these tools in place in order to be able to get in front of that; a lot of these tools are now ‘need to have’ versus ‘nice to have’.

And so I do think that that we’re starting to get there. And not only the technology, but also as organizations start prioritizing different things in the HR space. Whereas before, we used to be the first things that get cut out on their budgets. Now I feel like we’re actually starting to stay in the budget because we have to, otherwise people aren’t going to work there because they don’t have the right tools in place…

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