Let’s face it: Speak-up culture isn’t what you’ve been told.
Sure, many celebrate rising hotline usage. But here’s the truth: 56% of organizations aren’t even tracking whether employees trust them enough to share their names. That’s not progress. That’s a blind spot.
Meanwhile, you’re drowning in cases, stretched thin on resources and now leadership wants you to be an AI expert too?
We get it.
That’s why the data from our Ninth Annual HR Acuity Employee Relations Benchmark Study should stop every CHRO in their tracks. With insights from over 280 leading organizations, this isn’t just another report.
It’s a wake-up call.
To truly elevate your employee relations function, you need the right technology implemented intentionally with humans firmly in control. (Yes, AI can help—but it should never replace your judgment.)
This isn’t about doing more with less. It’s about shifting from reactive to strategic—from overlooked to essential.
This is your playbook. And leadership can’t afford to ignore it.
Part 1 – The Trust Crisis You Can No Longer Ignore
It’s 4:47 PM on a Friday. Your phone buzzes. Another anonymous harassment claim just dropped—the third this week from the Denver office. Your gut tells you something’s up there, but your spreadsheet can’t prove it. Sound familiar?
This is the reality for too many ER leaders. You’re operating with a false sense of security, armed with data that doesn’t tell the full story. The real story isn’t about volume; it’s about trust.
What does it mean when employees won’t put their names on HR complaints?
The Problem: You’ve successfully encouraged reporting, but you’ve failed to build the psychological safety required for open, honest dialogue. An over-reliance on anonymous channels isn’t a sign of a healthy speak-up culture; it’s a symptom of a deep-seated trust deficit. Employees use anonymous hotlines because they fear retaliation or believe the process is unfair.
The Data: A staggering 56% of organizations do not track the ratio of anonymous vs. named reports. This is the most critical metric for trust, and more than half of all ER teams are flying blind. Of course, your team should have an anonymous reporting hotline available—but if team members are uncomfortable ever attaching their names to their claims, it’s time to dig deeper.
| Anonymous vs. Named Reporting Benchmark | |
|---|---|
| When tracked: | 76% of all issues are reported by name |
| Enterprise (5k+ employees): | 58% of anonymous reports come via hotline |
| The blind spot: | 56% of organizations don’t track this at all |
The Impact: When you can’t see who is reporting and from where, you can’t spot trends. That cluster of anonymous claims remains a “feeling” instead of an actionable data point. You can’t prove a manager is creating a toxic environment, and you can’t intervene before it leads to mass attrition or a class-action lawsuit. Miss this, and you can’t justify the headcount needed to do proactive work.
The Solution with Responsible AI: A purpose-built ER platform can analyze reporting patterns while maintaining confidentiality. It can flag statistical anomalies—like a department with a disproportionately high rate of anonymous reports compared to the company benchmark—and alert you to a potential trust breakdown before it escalates.
Proof of Concept:
This reporting data really gives you an insight into psychological safety, the leadership culture, which channels are working or not working.
– Deb Muller, CEO, HR Acuity
As LinkedIn’s ER team discovered after implementing HR Acuity, tracking these nuanced metrics allowed them to move from simply processing complaints to truly understanding and improving their workplace culture.
See how LinkedIn rebuilt employee trust with HR Acuity
🚨 REALITY CHECK: Your Biggest Risks Are Hiding in Plain Sight
- 14.7 discrimination claims per 1,000 employees (all-time high).
- Only 15% of retaliation claims get substantiated, creating a cycle of mistrust.
- 42% of organizations have inconsistent investigation processes, making every case a potential legal liability.
- Your spreadsheet cannot track this.
Part 2 – The Foundational Flaw: Are You Measuring Workload or Risk?
For years, we’ve been asked to “do more with less.” The problem is, we’ve been measuring the wrong “more.” Reporting on just total case volume is a vanity metric, and it’s actively harming your ability to secure the resources your function deserves.
The Dangerous Disconnect: When Volume Goes Down But Risk Goes Up
📊 The Misleading Metric That’s Killing Your Credibility
Total case volume: ↓ DOWN to lowest since 2021
High-risk discrimination claims: ↑ UP 6.1% year-over-year
What leadership sees: “Things are getting better!”
What’s actually happening: A litigation time bomb
How is relying on “total case volume” masking real risk?
The Problem: Total ER case volume dropped to its lowest point since 2021. This looks like a victory. But it masks a terrifying trend: High-risk allegations of harassment, discrimination and retaliation have more than doubled in the same period. A simple attendance issue is not the same as a multi-faceted investigation into discrimination that involves three business units and potential litigation. Reporting them as equal is problematic.
The Data: The average ER case now involves 1.4 distinct, overlapping issues. Yet, 68% of organizations don’t track this Issue-to-Case Ratio at all, meaning they have no accurate way to measure the true complexity of their team’s workload.
The Impact: You can’t make a business case for more headcount when your core metric is flawed. You burn out your best investigators by assigning them “just one case” that is actually three investigations in one. The financial impact is staggering: an average multi-issue case can carry legal costs upwards of $137,000, compared to just $24,000 for a single-issue case (illustrative industry data).
The Solution with Responsible AI: A purpose-built platform like HR Acuity uses AI to help manage complexity. When a case is initiated, it can help identify all potential policy violations and recommend a best-practice investigation plan from the start. This ensures you’re measuring and managing risk, not just case files.
How do I know if my investigation process is a liability?
The Problem: If your investigation process is merely “suggested,” it is a liability. An inconsistent process is an unfair process. When investigators are left to their own discretion, corners get cut, bias creeps in and trust evaporates.
The Data: 42% of organizations still do not have a consistent, required investigation framework.
Stop. Read that again.
Nearly one in two ER teams cannot prove their process is fair and consistent.
The Impact: 42% of organizations have inconsistent processes. 56% don’t track anonymous reports. 68% can’t measure complexity. Every one of these organizations is vulnerable—and they may not even know it.
What it costs: According to Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, the average cost for a company to settle an employee lawsuit is $250,000, and even if the company wins the case, they can still expect to pay between $75,000 and $150,000 in legal fees.
The Solution with HR Acuity: HR Acuity was built by ER professionals to solve this. It’s not a modified IT ticketing system. It’s a single source of truth that embeds best practices directly into your workflow, ensuring every investigation is fair, thorough and defensible.
That’s the bar. A consistent, defensible process isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the absolute minimum requirement for any modern ER team.
Part 3 – Are You Deploying Responsible AI to Win Back Trust?
In ER, “move fast and break things” breaks careers. Generic AI is a liability; Defensible ER-AI is a lifesaver.
What’s the difference between generic AI and Responsible ER AI?
| Feature | HR Acuity | Ticketing (ServiceNow) | Point Solution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Design | Built by ER experts, end-to-end | IT tickets, 1-to-1 flow | Intake focus, lacks investigation depth |
| AI Governance | Private model, never trains on your data | Potential public LLM exposure | Opaque “black-box” |
| Analytics Depth | Predictive KPIs (trust, complexity, bias) | Open/close latency | Requires exports |
How does Responsible AI rebuild trust?
- Intake: Flags trust deficits by region in real-time.
- Investigation: Generates neutral questions; summarizes interviews.
- Substantiation: Surfaces bias patterns by manager or demographic.
- Prevention: Predicts retaliation spikes from performance-issue clusters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the ideal issue-to-case ratio?
The benchmark average is 1.4, but the ideal depends on your industry and team complexity. Track your own ratio over time to allocate resources and training.
How do I conduct a substantiation bias audit?
Log substantiation rates for high-risk allegations by department, manager, investigator and demographics. Look for significant outliers.
What is the single most important question to ask an AI vendor?
Ask, “Is our confidential employee data used to train your AI model?” The only acceptable answer is an unequivocal “No.”
How can I make a business case for a better ER platform?
Use benchmark data to show the financial and reputational risk of inconsistent processes and untracked trust metrics. Position the platform as a strategic risk-mitigation tool.
Resources
- Check out the Ninth Annual Employee Relations Benchmark Study
- Watch the webinar recording on Youtube
- Download the transcript of this webinar
- Download the webinar’s slide deck
- View the Benchmark Study’s DOI
- Guide to Workplace Investigations in the United States
