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Don't shoot the messenger

Summary

IRS Employment Trends and Public Concern At Work conducted a survey in May 1999 to assess how prepared employers were for the advent of this summer's new act on whistleblowing. The key results of our survey are:

  • 90 of our sample of 114 public and private sector organisations had, or intended to shortly introduce, a whistleblowing policy;

  • at the time of our survey, as many as 44 organisations were planning to introduce a policy within the next few months;

  • public sector employers are more likely than those in the private sector to have a policy - 95% compared with 63% in the private sector;

  • unlike the private sector, many public sector organisations consult with a trade union when designing a policy;

  • the most common way to inform employees about a whistleblowing policy is via the staff handbook;

  • only 39% of respondents train managers on what they should do if an employee raises a concern under the whistleblowing policy, and 64% of those that do so regard issuing written guidance as "training";

  • for 44% of respondents, responsibility for the policy rests at the top of the organisation with the director or chief executive;

  • less than a third of organisations provide a telephone hotline to enable employees to raise a concern;

  • two-thirds of respondents offer confidentiality to users;

  • 70% of organisations inform the whistleblower of the outcome of the investigation;

  • 64% say that if dissatisfied with how their complaint has been handled, the whistleblower can take it further;

  • two-thirds of respondents allow an employee to bring a union representative or colleague with them to a meeting;

  • 38% say that independent advice is available to a whistleblower;

  • 44% of organisations report that victimisation of a whistleblower will lead to disciplinary action;

  • six out of 10 respondents keep records of how an incident is dealt with; and

  • in organisations that do not have a whistleblowing policy the most common mechanism that staff can use to raise a concern is the grievance procedure.