As one of the largest chains of discount grocers in the U.S., Save A Lot has hundreds of stores, several distribution centers, and thousands of employees spread across 33 states.
Le défi
When Save A Lot was spun off from its former owner, the company’s management needed to implement several of its own back-office functions, and one of these was a third-party hotline service in which employees could anonymously report incidents of concern related to loss prevention, employee relations, and compliance. It became the job of John Guest, Save A Lot’s senior director, legal and governance, risk and compliance, to find a vendor that could provide such a service to meet his company’s requirements.
“We put out an RFP to providers of hotline solutions, and it soon became apparent that the Ethics Hotline was a good fit for us,” says John. “After outlining to Mitratech representatives the triage and decision-tree processes we needed for handling employee-hotline reports, I was impressed with Mitratech’s willingness to show us in detail how the case management system (CMS) could be configured in a way that would best accommodate the unique volume and complexity of our case-management requirements. Moreover, we found the affordability of Mitratech to be very competitive. After additional due diligence, the decision was made to move forward with Mitratech.”
La solution
With the purchase of Mitratech Ethics Hotline completed, the next step was to start the implementation and tailor the CMS to meet Save A Lot’s specific case routing and tracking requirements.
“It was a unique hotline setup for us given the sheer number of Save A Lot store locations and their detailed case-routing and tracking requirements,” says Casey Ohst, VP customer success at Mitratech.
“We worked closely and methodically with John to make sure the auto-assign functions of the CMS would perform as needed, ensuring that investigators, managers, and administrators could see only those case reports that were assigned to them. In addition, we set up a variety of very specific protocols for the hotline agents who would be taking the calls. Once configured, all processes within the call center and the CMS were fully tested and fine-tuned.”
“Casey and the Mitratech team were very attentive to our needs and were great at helping us think through processes and configurations,” says John. “I appreciated how she and the team spent a good deal of time making sure they fully understood our requirements and how they collaborated closely with us at every step of the implementation. Of course, the Mitratech team continues to be available, responding quickly whenever we have questions or need some additional guidance on utilizing the CMS.”
Les résultats
The Ethics Hotline CMS provides companies with everything needed to track and manage hotline reports from beginning to end in one easy-to-use online tool. This secure, web-based CMS allows managers and administrators to efficiently collaborate and manage all hotline reports and investigations by tracking every issue from a report’s receipt through to its resolution. This optimizes investigations, reduces administrative oversight, ensures due diligence, and creates a clear audit trail.
A variety of reports are included with the CMS that can be issued to key personnel within an organization on a “need to know” basis. Templates can be created and scheduled for commonly used reports. An advanced analytics dashboard provides a view to all key metrics and trends with the ability to drill down to details using a comprehensive and easy-to-understand set of user controls.
Save A Lot has a deep commitment to supporting its employees and the communities where its facilities are located. The company’s core values are centered around excellence, respect, simplicity, and heart, and are expressed in many ways, through employee assistance and education programs, as well as community service.
We recently implemented an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) program to invest more in the communities we serve, expand food donations, and enhance the support of our employees through education and health and wellness programs. Included in these efforts is making sure that the company has good oversight mechanisms in place and that we use objective decision-making processes. Our employee hotline plays a very important part in supporting this effort since the data from our CMS flows into ESG reports that show company leadership and the board of directors the progress we are making in all areas of oversight.”
“It’s been a great partnership with Mitratech,” John continues. “The ethics hotline service and its CMS routing and reporting capabilities have exceeded my expectations, and the company’s support has been excellent. I have many responsibilities on my plate, and thanks to Mitratech, the management of our employee hotline services is one less thing I have to worry about.”
Mitratech Ethics Hotline, Ethics Hotline CMS 
