Professor calls for encouragement for whistleblowing staff
Firms can avoid the damaging public disclosure of information if they make moves to transform their work culture and reward whistleblowing, a prominent UK employment law professor has argued, in a development that will be of interest to the clients of our human resource consultants here at Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk).
The claim was made at a public debate at Middlesex University by the professor of employment law David Lewis, who said that it was vital for employees to be made aware that they would be rewarded rather than penalised in the event that they drew internal attention to forms of malpractice such as bribery and fraud. He even suggested that the prospect of employer intimidation and retaliation could be warded off by bringing “criminal charges against companies that victimised whistleblowers.”
Lewis made his case on the back of his own research which revealed that insufficient work was still being done by many clients of HR specialists to encourage employees to confidentially report wrongdoing. After visiting the websites of all of the FTSE Top 100 companies as of December 2011, Lewis found that 69 of the 100 firms failed to provide any information at all that referred to whistleblowing. As a result, key groups such as members of the public, customers, contractors and suppliers may have been left unaware as to how to confidentially report such issues as fraud or bribery.
Joining Lewis at the debate was accountant Wendy Addison, who spoke of her struggle for justice over an 11 year period after reporting fraudulent acts at the LeisureNet firm in South Africa. Lewis emphasised the importance of employees knowing that they were free to report wrongdoing in their companies without the fear of losing their job and being intimidated by colleagues, with Addison having experienced death threats both in South Africa and after her move to the UK.
Lewis added that in an age in which so many companies that make use of employment law services are fearful about embarrassing and financially detrimental public disclosures about themselves being made online or via the media, they could ultimately avoid this by making moves to protect, compensate and perhaps even reward whistleblowers. He said that making such arrangements would minimise such leaks outside of the company as it would make employees more likely to use the proper systems to report wrongdoing.
Government could play a key role in this change of culture, according to Lewis, by rewarding whistleblowers to set an example to companies. He said that this would lead to less fear and isolation being felt by prospective whistleblowers.
At Employee Management Ltd, our HR specialists can provide independent, impartial third party assistance in whistle blowing situations. They can also conduct comprehensive workplace investigations into related disciplinary and grievance matters. If a situation escalates to the point of litigation then tribunal representation is one of our key employment law services. To speak in confidence about any issue you may have in this regard, please contact one of our HR consultants without delay.
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