Blowing the Whistle in 2023

Jan Stappers

By Jan Stappers, EU Whistleblowing Specialist at NAVEX

Whistleblowing means holding power to account. However, when people hear about whistleblowing, it’s usually because it has already hit the front pages as a huge scandal — on the scale of Theranos’ recent conviction. When most reports in the public consciousness are of this magnitude, it can be intimidating to speak up.

Yet, whistleblowing isn’t only for big scandals; reporting of more commonplace misdeeds can improve safety and compliance at any business. When it comes to whistleblowing, employees can feel unsupported when a business doesn’t encourage a speak-up culture. As such, every business should provide employees with easy-to-use reporting outlets, which is easier now than ever, due to improving technologies that simplify the process.

When employees see or hear of wrongdoing, and wish to speak up internally, it’s important for businesses to have robust strategies in place that allow them to do so. Some people understandably fear the potential backlash that could come from their colleagues or the business when speaking up. So, ensuring that reporters know their claims will be handled impartially and providing them with anonymity, is a core part of encouraging a speak-up culture.

The EU Whistleblowing Directive

However, until the implementation of the EU Whistleblowing Directive, whistleblowers had no legal protections. Since 2019, the directive has begun making changes in three particular areas:

1. Detecting and preventing misconduct, illegal activity and breach of regulations
2. Establishing more robust and effective confidential and secure reporting channels
3. Protecting and enabling whistleblowers by ensuring confidentiality and anonymity

While the UK is no longer subject to EU directives, any UK business with operations in Europe must still obey its rules on the continent. It remains a truly robust framework that is in businesses’ interests to follow and the UK is expected to create its own whistleblowing laws, with plans to codify, that are highly likely to be similar to the EU’s.

New methods of whistleblowing

Telephone hotlines were traditionally the most common intake method for employee reports. The NAVEX Regional Whistleblowing Hotline Benchmark Report found they made up for over a quarter of reports in 2021. But the EU Whistleblowing Directive requires any modern whistleblowing strategy to have a range of accessibility options – and technology offers several new methods.

The QR code was invented in 1994, but wasn’t widely used until the need for touch-free accessibility became a priority during the pandemic. However, the easy-to-generate barcodes extend beyond digital menus and have begun to be used as key tools to receive employee inquiries and reports. By adding a QR code to workplace posters, on company websites, or at the end of email signatures provides employees with easy access to online portals.

DP World, a multinational maritime, shipping, and logistics solutions provider, upgraded its incident reporting system to use a unified system of EthicsPoint and Incident Management. Its previous methods required reporters to contact a centre in Dubai using either English or Arabic. But DP World’s employees speak dozens of languages, and so a more comprehensive, secure incident management programme was created. This included adding QR codes to suitable locations that would provide better information on hotlines while also directing the individual to its online portal available in a range of languages.

Initiatives like this have grown web report portals and other digital methods, including emails, to make up 73% of the total number of reports, according to the NAVEX Regional Whistleblowing Hotline Benchmark Report. Ensuring your employees have multiple ways of reporting is another key way of promoting a speak-up culture within the workforce.

Collecting whistleblowing data

The EU Whistleblowing Directive promotes anonymity to make sure people feel safe and protected enough to report wrongdoings. By collecting non-identifiable personal information, as well as details of each individual issue, each report has valuable data to offer, and businesses can build an overall picture of the types of recurring issues employees are facing.

In turn, this information can be used to conduct tests and focus groups, the data analysed, and then actions – such as training programmes – put in place to improve the workplace. So, while confidentiality should be the utmost priority of any data collected, it can also be used to create the kind of safe, regulation-compliant workplaces everyone deserves.

The benefits

Creating a speak-up culture must be a truly collaborative, yet top down, process. Every employee should feel like they have the power to report any misconduct, corruption or criminality they see; however, leadership are ultimately responsible for promoting the programmes.

In addition to ethics, following whistleblowing laws also provide businesses with financial incentives. According to NAVEX’s ROI training calculator, 500-5,000 employees with robust ethics and compliance training solutions can save a business up to $20,000 a year on fines.

Whistleblowing strategies work but only when employees trust they are safe and that appropriate action will be taken.