ETHICAL WHISTLEBLOWING

Whistleblowing is a term used to pass information by any person about the wrongdoings in their working environment such as Corruption, sexual harassment, etc.. People who are working closely with the organization become a whistleblower when they observe any behaviour or actions that they believe wrongdoing or illegal.

Perspectives of whistleblowing vary from organization to organization but a criminal activity like fraud or corruption, when a person is in danger, damaging or risking the environment and society, law breaking situations, situations of harassment and covering up the corruption or wrong doing are some situations Considered as whistleblowing grounds all over the world.

A whistleblower is a person, who could be an employee, of a company or a government agency. So, when an employee is blowing the whistle the reason has to be based on public motive. the whisleblower must not do whistleblowing based on his or her personal benefit or personal vengeance. So, when the motive is not based on public motive then these passed information will not be considered as an ethical whistleblowing.

In this method, the safety of the whistleblower is highly important so, to protect whistleblowers from mistreated or losing their job or getting in a dangerous situations, there are some specific laws. Most of the organizations have their own policy which clearly explains about how to report such incidents. A whistleblower can file a complaint with higher authorities to trigger a criminal investigation against a company or an individual person.

There are two types of whistleblowing: internal and external. Internal whistleblowers are the those who inform the fraud or indiscipline to senior officers of the organization like CEO or Head Human Resource. external whistleblowing term is used when the whistleblower leak the information to people out side organization like media, government higher officials or police. the perfect example for an ecternal whistleblowing is Edward Joseph Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked classified information to public from US national Security Agency in 2013.

All the raised concerns will be treated sensitively and confidentially to protect the identity of the whistleblower. Nevertheless the information will need to be passed on those with the necessary need to have this information and it will be important for the whistleblower to provide a written statement as a witness in that illegal situation.

If a person wishes to raise a concern, he or she should normally raise it with their section manager. if the whistleblower has any issues to raise with the section manager then he or she can contact the next level officials like Deputy manager, HR manager or the union. Although whistleblower is not expected to prove beyond doubt the truth of his or her concerns, he or she will need to demonstrate that he or she has enough evidence or other reasons to raice your hand.

the person who the concern has been sent to will acknowledge the concern as soon as possible and let the whisleblower know how they are going to deal with the concern. The official will let them know about the indication of how they are going to deal with this, how long the investigation will last, whether further investigations will take place and if not why. So the whistleblower has to be ready to support with them at anytime.

Then the initial enquiries will be made to decide whether the investigation is appropriate or not. If the investigation is necessary then there will be an internal investigation by the section manager, after the that the HR manager will conduct an investigation. if the concern still not proved then the investigation will be handover to the police

The whistleblower will be informed about the outcome of investigation in writing. It will contain the details of the actions taken so far, subject to the constraints of the law. if the Whistleblower feels that the concern he made was not described properly or the concern is not handled in the right way then he or she can raice the concern with the public law organizations like police, Human rights Commission, etc. Then the concern will be investigated in a public way.

This is how the Whistleblowers actand the whistleblowing being handled. So we must make concerns based on public interests rather than making them on personal benefits or vengeance.

THANK YOU…