TELUS Signals a New Approach to Compliance

About this Case study

TELUS selected us to provide an employee ethics hotline and case management system that would automate their ethics compliance efforts across the organization.

1. For anyone looking to:

   Implement a hotline intake or incident management system

2. Solution:

   EthicsPoint®

3. Page length:

   2 pages

Read the Case study

TELUS Signals a New Approach to Compliance

TELUS is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video and satellite television. The organization was originally a merger of four telecommunications companies that grew into a national organization. To support their growth, the company decided to adopt a structured, centralized approach to ethics and compliance.

TELUS selected NAVEX to provide a hotline and case management system that would automate their ethics compliance efforts across the company’s diverse operations around the world.

“NAVEX redirects issue reports to the proper department and allows us to assign and follow up on cases electronically. The system has saved a tremendous amount of time, which allows me to do what I should be doing: conducting investigations and answering inquiries.” - Cindy Hamilton, Director of Ethics and Controls Compliance

Can a Reporting System Help Employees Make Better Decisions?

TELUS employees Cindy Hamilton and John Page, both Directors of Ethics and Controls Compliance, wanted the program to focus on providing advice and counsel for employees. Of course, they needed a system that met their regulatory compliance obligations, but they also realized that TELUS could use the NAVEX hotline and case management software as part of a broader effort to encourage employees to face ethical challenges with an “ask first, act later” mentality.

Page and Hamilton set out to create a best-in class program that could give TELUS a central position from which to manage the company’s business culture. Prior to NAVEX, the reporting system at TELUS had some limitations. The hotline went to John’s desk and he used spreadsheets to try to track the information.

Advanced Policy Management

A large part of the TELUS program involved the creation, distribution and management of new policies. HR and Compliance professionals everywhere acknowledge that policy creation, communication and reporting is an ongoing challenge.

Clarity and Fairness For All at TELUS

“As a small department, it was challenging to try to provide 24/7 access, multilingual capability and online access from anywhere in the world.” John and Cindy began looking for a reporting mechanism that could help TELUS raise the bar with a more efficient approach to identifying and resolving ethics and compliance issues. NAVEX was selected to provide a solution.

The Ideal Solution: NAVEX’s EthicsPoint™

Once TELUS selected NAVEX, John and Cindy worked with the Implementation Services team to align the system with programs at TELUS. “We act as a resource for employees. We tell them to ‘ask first, act later’ and we use EthicsPoint to log any questions, complaints and our responses.”

Whether employees call to report a complaint, make an inquiry or to ask for advice, the NAVEX system is used to make sure people are aware of the ethics policies, commitment to corporate governance and reputable business practices that TELUS stands for. The program TELUS developed was designed, not only to report concerns, but to encourage

“NAVEX allows us to use one system, one process; that makes it easier to be fair and consistent across the entire scope of the organization’s operations,” said Hamilton.

Employees to bring their questions and dilemmas to John’s department. That way, he and Cindy can help them through their decisions and the outcome is positive, ethical behavior rather than punishment for unethical behavior.

Three groups at TELUS handle reports through the NAVEX database: John and Cindy’s department receives calls and manages cases, another group uses only the hotline feature and a third department just the case management capabilities. “NAVEX allows us to use one system, one process; that makes it easier to be fair and consistent across the entire scope of the organization’s operations,” said Hamilton.

John’s department reports ethics statistics to the audit committee, the board and to the public through its annual Corporate Social responsibility report.

Dialed In Results

As TELUS strove to create a best-in-class ethics compliance system fit for a company at the leading edge of technology, NAVEX provided a hotline, reporting and case management system that met the company’s expanding needs.

About NAVEX

NAVEX’s GRC software and compliance management solutions support the integrated risk, ESG and compliance management programs at more than 13,000 organizations worldwide.