Professor Wim Vandekerckhove at EDHEC Business School explains the duties that organisations have towards whistleblowers

Recently, a compliance officer for a UK foreign exchange broker was asked by his managers to secure a work visa for someone. Some standard checks on the person hit some red flags with the compliance officer, who reported his concern to the Financial Conduct Authority. He was sacked shortly after for alleged gross misconduct, i.e., reporting to the regulator. He subsequently brought a claim for unfair dismissal to the employment tribunal, using legislation that protects whistleblowers who act in the public interest – the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

The tribunal sided with the compliance officer, and last August awarded him 564,672 in compensation. The number of whistleblowing cases at employment tribunals in the UK has almost doubled over the previous decade. More and more workers claim to have suffered detriment after having raised concerns about suspicious activities, and these “public interest disclosures,” as they are called in UK legal terms, are creating a buzz.

My research shows that most whistleblowing cases start with an employee judiciously raising questions to someone inside their organisation. Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the Freedom to Speak Up for NHS England, says that the increase in the number of whistleblowers at employment tribunals is a direct result of organisations’ poor internal procedures for handling...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMilAFBVV95cUxNMkE1RUdDbGxYSW9XUmZVMHRo...