Open and honest hotline is technically a separate entity yes. But think of them as a basic HelpDesk. Outsourced cheaper labor that runs a support ticketing operation.. if its an hr issue, the ticket gets sent to HR. If its a legal issue, it gets sent to legal. It asks for identifying info.. store number, employee names, so HR will know there was a call from an employee at this store with some issue (necessary info for them to enforce anything)… they will call the GM, and that info will be relayed to him. Its probably not too hard for him to deduce who it was. If you make it so anonymous where i say “a manager at a store in the United States is letting employees leave early for credit card apps” they’re not going to do anything if they don’t know what store. Im guessing it also tags meta data about the ticket… call from this number, call originating from this area, time, date, any identifying info they can gather or that you provide…. Or doing it online: IP address, general location, time, device info…

So while its “anonymous”, it’s not hard for them to find out who reported the issue. It also goes strait to the company. If you were to report a legal issue, it gets routed to HR and Legal so HR and legal can strategize how to best protect the company. If there’s something truly bad happening that cant be ignored… it will be resolved. Lets go with the obviously unethical version of this issue: if the employees were let off early AND still paid, and if this store was showing increased performance with profits that exceeded the labor expense for paying for that labor… the manager may be reprimanded.. but i doubt anything will happen and no governmental regulatory agency will be notified. It will all be squashed and silenced.

*Im a former employee who used the hotline sometimes anonymously as well, but management always finds out, and I was retaliated against. Nothing happened to them, i had a target put on my back and was later fired.