Startups have a reputation for being a bit of a Wild West when it comes to workplace culture. Rapidly growing companies, led by sometimes inexperienced founders, don’t always find time to get the boring stuff like robust HR processes in place.
Now, new EU rules are coming in that will change the way that companies with more than 50 employees handle anonymous worker complaints. So why does whistleblowing matter, what do the new rules say and what startups are working on solutions to help other businesses comply?
One former employee at a Berlin-based scaleup, which employs around 180 staff, tells Sifted about how one workplace bully had gone unchecked at the company because of a lack of secure channels to make complaints.
“If there had been a system in place that would have allowed everyone that had ever had an instance of harassment with him — or observed it from outside — to document it, then it wouldn’t have just been snippets and parts of stories everywhere.”
The former employee describes how the individual’s intimidatory, misogynistic and racist behaviour was only raised with senior management by chance, during a drunken conversation at an office party.
By that point he’d already done considerable damage to the company and people within it, causing at least three employees to leave the organisation altogether, she says. “He had broken so many teams, so many people, so many cultures, so many egos. He had broken the confidence of designers...
A wave of pro-whistleblower opinions from federal judges suggests the False Claims Act remains on solid ground despite pointed questions from leading conservative judicial voices. Whistleblowers, ...