Reporting
Whistleblowing is critical to quality control, risk management and good governance. Encourage workers to report wrongdoing internally rather than externally so you can deal with the matter before it escalates and damages your reputation. Having effective arrangements for reporting concerns about wrongdoing will help.
Openness
Create a culture where disclosers feel confident you will investigate their concerns thoroughly and fairly without retaliation.
Policy
Ensure that workers have read and understood your policy along with the types of wrongdoing that should be reported; to whom they should report it and how you will investigate their concerns. Provide more than one method of reporting so that people can raise concerns about, rather than to, their manager.
Records
Maintain a record of whistleblowing disclosures and after each report, identify what the business can learn from it. If appropriate revisit and review your policy.
Confidentiality
Inform workers that, although you cannot guarantee that the matter will remain confidential because the law may require that information is reported. Assure them that you will maintain confidentiality where possible. Anonymous reporting is not ideal but should not be ignored.
Train
Train all workers to ensure that they understand your whistleblowing arrangements, particularly those who you will task, with investigating concerns.
Monitor
Regularly monitor and review your whistleblowing arrangements to assess whether they are working.
