Remember the good old days of shopping through the Sears Catalogue? Well that ended 15 years ago! Today we can order almost anything by simply talking into a device. At the speed of light, technology is raising consumer's standards and there's no looking back. Needless to say, today's customers and business buyers are expecting a lot from companies, but many don’t have faith in those companies to deliver.

This year's Annual Compliance Week Conference certainly delivered with powerful insights and ideas. Taking over the main floor of the historic Mayflower Hotel, many ethics and compliance professionals were not only looking forward to networking with other industry professionals, they were eager to listen to one speaker in particular.

As the title may suggest, this is actually not meant to sound completely crazy. In fact the opposite is true. You want your employees to be whistleblowers. Yes you do, trust us! Why? Because they're the people who see things happen!

In the air transport business more than any other, the human element is everything. That big plane in front of the hangar is only as good as the man who flies it, and he is only as good as the people on the ground who work with him. - W. A. (Pat) Patterson, President United Airlines, quoted in 'High Horizons'. You're buckled in your seat and your flight has just taken off. Suddenly there's the smell of smoke. The pilot makes an emergency landing and wants all passengers to evacuate the plane. That pilot was then fired for his actions. That pilot is Jason Kinzer, and when he made the decision to bring his plane back for an emergency landing, and evacuate all the passengers, he was let go from Allegiant Air.

Why are some companies so reluctant to change from one vendor to another? Especially when the existing vendor makes a company feel nothing but frustration? The biggest culprit is likely fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the work involved in moving from one vendor to another. Fear of 'what if we made the wrong decision'? But in the back of your mind, and in the interest of the company, you are coming to the conclusion that your organization needs to start looking for a better alternative to manage your ethics hotline. But that ol' fear kicks in!

WhistleBlower Security is proud to be sponsoring The Conference Board of Canada’s National Corporate Ethics and Integrity Summit taking place on April 10th-11th in Toronto.