Research suggests that those assessing speak-up reports are facing time pressure and conflicting expectations from workers, management and boards.
Read more: Navigating the whistleblowing landscape
Whistleblowers want to know what is being done to follow up on their speak-up report. They expect HR or compliance to be on their side.
The board, on the other hand, wants the least possible disruption from speak-up channels. They might insist on monitoring the number of reports that come through the speak-up channels but rarely have a clue about what a ‘good’ number is.
Moreover, boards want to see the cases resolved and closed as quickly as possible. In that sense, HR and compliance can find themselves caught between two stools.
Of course, speak-up reports warrant an appropriate follow-up. However, investigations can be expensive and time-consuming. It is also often the case that the evidence is little more than a collection of viewpoints and accounts of incidents, allowing HR or compliance to say which side of the story is more plausible than the other, but nothing that would stand in court. Hence, an investigation can seem like a risky prospect if the whistleblower doesn’t have 'smoking-gun’ evidence.
According to behavioural research, time pressure and risk avoidance often create ‘blind spots’ that can lead to bad decision-making. For example, we often expect speak-up reports to be perfect: to be well-written, to contain clear evidence, and to point to unmistakable integrity breaches. However, the reality is quite different, and this leads many HR managers and compliance officers to feel disappointed in their speak-up channels and in those who use these channels. But this is not always justified.
Research from Griffith University in Australia found that, on average, only 19% of reports represent a clear integrity breach, while almost 34% represent a personal grievance. More importantly, 47% of reports are a mixed bag, and these reports are also most likely to be mismanaged. The point is that our disappointment with imperfect speak-up reports can lead us to miscategorise them rather than see them as signs of uncertainty and hesitation.
We readily but mistakenly assume that people know the precise and correct terms to describe what is going on, or that they have a clear idea that what they are raising a concern about is actual wrongdoing. In reality, people hesitate, remain vague or focus on irrelevant details.
Whatever the speak-up channels are, their effectiveness requires that several internal departments within an organisation function well together to raise the alarm. Recent guidance developed at EDHEC Business School is based on international best practice and EU requirements. It presents a speak-up culture that is driven in large part by an organisation’s internal governance, employee training, feedback, and reassurances of confidentiality and protection.
EDHEC and its partners have developed the SUSA – Speak-Up Self-Assessment, a free online tool that any integrity professional can use (anonymously) to measure the quality of their speak-up channels and culture.
It's in our best interest to speak up about wrongdoing in the workplace and to respond correctly to the red flags presented to us.
By Wim Vandekerckhove, professor of Business Ethics at EDHEC Business School
