Harvard Business Review recently published the below. See a portion below:
Whistleblowing stories are all over the news. Some observers have attributed this to a systemic change in society. There are more stories about whistleblowing, the argument goes, because there are more crimes to report.
However, rather than an increase in criminal activity, we may instead be observing an increase in the willingness of employees to speak up. Consider the dramatic increase in claims of sexual harassment in 2017 as the #MeToo movement gained momentum. Was this a sudden increase in harassment, or an increased willingness to speak up about problems that have been ongoing for years?
Our research on employee whistleblowing, using previously unavailable data, shows for the first time that we may be in the golden age of accountability systems. In 2018, NAVEX Global, the leading provider of employee hotline and incident management systems, provided us secure, anonymized access to more than 2 million internal reports made by employees of more than 1,000 publicly traded U.S. companies.
Our study of the data led us to two important findings: First, whistleblowers are crucial to keeping firms healthy. The average manager seems to take these reports seriously and uses them to learn of and address issues early, before they evolve into larger, more costly problems. We also found that second hand reports are more credible and more valuable, on average, than firsthand reports.
Based on our research we’ve identified three lessons for leaders on effectively managing whistleblower systems.
View the 3 lessons and read full article here.
Whistleblowerlaw.com & Mike Bothwell Lawfirm does not claim or imply ownership of this article.
Full article link here: https://hbr.org/2020/01/throw-out-your-assumptions-about-whistleblowing