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Disclosures are, and should be made by loyal employees, business partners, contractors,
vendors, a person with interest in the organisation, or “any other” party/entity
who knows of inappropriate behaviours, who is willing, able, or obliged to
reveal wrongdoing within an organization with the intent to stop, or bring the
issue to the attention of authorized recipients of the information for further
action and/or mitigation, without expecting any personal gain and/or without
malicious intent.
Defining the, “who
should” speak-up should not be limited, as long as the whistle-blower
is a person or entity who has knowledge, information and/or evidence of
wrong-doing. Anyone can report an issue to an authorized person or party if it
is done within the compliant framework of whistle-blowing.
Whistle-blower
compliance is made easier by employers, by providing a formal independent
channel through which whistle-blowers may raise their concerns, provide
information, or lodge complaints when the behaviour or practices of the
organization, its managers, contractors, suppliers, or their individual
employees are questionable.
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What to report
Whistle-blowers may report any instance where they suspect, or, are aware of actual potential or perceived wrongdoing, immoral and/or unethical practices, negligence, or intentional non-compliance with policies, practices, regulations, or guidelines, within an organization. Now, that being said, these issues may be divided by some organisations into two reporting categories as previously mentioned, the one being in integrity matters, and the second, business control incidents.
Business Integrity
Refers to work related behaviours considered to be intentional acts of misconduct such as: (i) unethical behaviours, (ii) criminality, (iii) corruption, and (iv) nepotism or favouritism where the behaviours may be considered to be corrupt behaviours; generally those areas of conduct defined in the employee manual as inappropriate behaviours within an organisation.
Business Control
Generally refers to: (i) instances of negligence, (ii) unintentional failure to abide by policies, procedures and practices, (iii) ethical dilemmas not included in the employee manual as misconduct, (iv) and issues caused by control failures, or the lack thereof, and/or issues resulting from moral dilemmas, not usually considered to be unethical practices by all.