Whistleblowing Services Supporting Your Business Ethics.
Three weeks ago, the Swedish business daily newspaper Dagens Industri posted an article about the upsurge in interest for whistleblowing services in the wake of #Metoo. WhistleB was featured and quoted in that article and in this blog we want to expand on one of the points we made, namely that there is a way to both surface and resolve issues of harassment seriously and internally, before the issues get aired out in public.
As the leader or owner of a company that is serious about doing business ethically, you dread finding out that non-ethical or even criminal behaviour is occurring in the organisation you lead. Discovering that harassment, fraud or bullying, for example, is taking place or even commonplace is a disaster for you, the ethical business leader. But hearing your mobile phone ping, and finding out the bad news via social media, now that's utterly devastating... for you, the victims, the potentially innocent accused, and the company. And it's unnecessary with the whistleblowing systems available today.
In the article in DI we reported two statistics. The first was the ten-fold increase in the number of new customers that are interested in and implementing our whistleblowing service. We say, finally! Finally the business community is stepping up to its ethical responsibility to ensure that such systems are in place, to put action behind their codes of conduct. Finally business leaders are waking up to the fact that serious systems do exist that enable internal management of complaints – for everybody's sake.
The second statistic we reported gives testimony to the first. It was that we have seen a five hundred per cent increase in the number of reported complaints of harassment at our existing customers. Of course, we are as troubled about this number as those customers are. But, we are very happy that employees in those organisations, strengthened by the de-stigmatisation of being a whistleblower, feel confident in the system in place that allows them report anonymously. And we are happy to have been able to provide these early adopting customers with a system for handling the complaints seriously, internally, speedily and securely. Indeed, customers have told us that the increased number of reports through the online system has helped them to act and solve problems related to harassment in the workplace.
No ethical business leader wants to learn that harassment is abound in their organisation, but in the wake of #metoo, let's hope more leaders have learnt that they can be more proactive about solving the problem internally – sooner rather than later. Check here for more information on how Whistleb can support business leaders with this endeavor.
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