To many, the awarding to Russia and Qatar of the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, respectively, was not only contentious, but scandalous. After many years of allegations of corruption, this was a decision that seemed to play straight into the keeper’s gloves of the world football body’s detractors. Keen to silence its critics, FIFA launched an 18 month investigation, with Michael Garcia, the American lawyer, running the ethics committee reporting on the allegations. He encouraged anyone who felt unable to raise their concerns internally to come to him. In public and in private, he promised confidentiality to any whistleblower. Former Qatar bid media officer, Phaedra Almajid, sent Garcia a two page letter, outlining her grievances with the bid process.

In September of this year, FIFA ethics judge, HansJoachim Eckert published the report. Within hours FIFA was embroiled with its biggest scandal to date. For an organization whose reputation hung together with gossamer thin threads, its decision to reveal the identities of Almajid and two other whistleblowers left it in tatters. The world’s media castigated FIFA and, almost universally, came out in support of the whistleblowers.

Whistleblowing comes into play after regular channels of concern, complaint or grievance have either been exhausted or weren’t really available. Usually those same channels are the level of management to whom the employee would first raise the issues. Some companies recognize that often it is the next level of management that can be the cause of the issue and so creates methods for employees to circumvent that level, and raise the issue higher up the chain. In other instances whistleblowers will seek out regulators within their sector or a whistleblower will contact the press.

Despite its reputation for chequebook journalism, the British media tends not to be the recipient of most whistleblowers’ first phone calls. According to Mark Borkowski, a seasoned communications advisor whose eponymous agency has handled PR for Sky, O2, and Ticketmaster, the idea of disgruntled employees selling their story to the media is a misnomer. “Someone might want to settle a grievance or bring someone down, but the idea of doing something like this and getting a king’s ransom is nonsense,” says Borkowski. “It is usually done from a high point of principle.”

Borkowski doesn’t feel, however, that companies should be complacent about media involvement. It may not be hard cash that motivates, but unless a company has procedures and a robust policy in place, a journalist is often the only person able to help an employee. “It takes a huge amount of tenacity and a fair amount of bravery for someone to go through with this. Often the individual needs legal support and, in some cases sizeable financial resources to see it through, so in this country who is going to support a whistleblower? The local MP? An ambulance chasing lawyer? The press is often the only solution.”

Chris Scott, a partner from law firm and reputation specialist, Schillings, also feels that a proactive approach in establishing procedures and policy is the most important solution for companies, “If companies deal with this early they stand a far better chance at maintaining their reputation. Compliance teams have known for years the importance of putting the processes in place.”

The legal system has had nearly 20 years of experience of providing a degree of protection to whistleblowers, if the information they disclose can be seen to be in the public interest. This protection was introduced in 1998, with the passing of the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA). Although the purpose of PIDA is to protect whistleblowers from detrimental treatment by their employers, Scott feels that PIDA has encouraged companies to establish their own internal systems. “The law makes all sorts of provisions about individuals having tried to raise the issue with the appropriate person, and then on to the appropriate external bodies,” he says. “If a company has invested in good compliance, it is able to show that it recognises the reputation risk. If, subsequently, an employee suddenly turns up on the doorstep of a newspaper raising an issue that they haven’t tried to raise internally and the business can point to strong internal processes that could have been followed by that employee then the court will see them in a much stronger position.”

Although many companies are establishing their own procedures, it isn’t compulsory, a fact that Public Concern at Work (PCaW), a national whistleblowing charity, is keen to change. PCaW has been going for 21 years, before the introduction of PIDA, and feels that, although an important first step when it was introduced, the current legislation only works by protecting employees, financially, after an individual has been harmed for blowing the whistle. Francesca West, PCaW’s policy director, is keen to see change. “PIDA is an ‘after the event’ piece of legislation. We think the UK is ready to embrace a code of practice that looks at what organisations are doing, and are suggesting a code of practice, with a statutory footing.”

West feels that a statutory code of practice would provide employment tribunals with a useful barometer when looking at whistleblowing cases. As West says, “We would like to see regulators look at regulated entities in light of their code of practice and measuring them against it. And I think this can actually start to change business practices in relation to this area.

PCaW’s demand for the introduction of a statutory code of practice follows the publication of a report a year ago from the Whistleblowing Commission (convened by PCaW, yet acting independently). Keen to get companies thinking about the concepts of a statutory code, it launched the First 100 Campaign, to encourage 100 companies, across a range of sectors to sign up to the principles of its code.

So far 35 companies have signed up. including Diageo. According to Diageo’s director of corporate communications, Rowan Pearman, it was during an internal review of the way Diageo handled its breach allegation systems when it realized that PCaW’s code encapsulated how it wanted to protect itself. “The way in which we treat those who raise concerns, and the way in which we treat those who have had allegations made against them, are important to Diageo,” he says. “Only a very small number of issues raised are actually substantiated and in those cases disciplinary action may be taken, depending on the nature of the issue. However the vast majority of cases are not substantiated or are minor issues and in those situations we want to ensure all those involved continue to be valued Diageo employees.”

Pearman and his peers in the First 100 are looking at whistleblowing in a different light. As PCaW’s West comments, “It’s a definite next phase of how we change the experience of whistleblowing for those on the ground and get organisations to embrace this.”

Interestingly, companies do seem to embrace it. Network Rail is one such company. For organisations like Network Rail safety is paramount – it’s very much in their interest that potential problems and risky practices are identified as early as possible. As Barney Wyld, Network Rail’s director of corporate communications points out, “We come at this at it from a slightly different angle than most companies – we want to actively encourage a climate of internal whistleblowing. 

For Network Rail it’s all about safety and, as Wyld point out, for safety critical industries it is essential to get people involved. “We need to make sure that both our employees and our contractors are empowered to say ‘stop’ if they are not happy with the way work is planned and carried out,” he adds.

Network Rail has also signed up to PCaW’s First 100. For Wyld, however, for people to feel comfortable in coming forward it has to be about attitude rather than rules. “You can have whatever rules in place, and codes of practice, and principles and guidelines, but actually the most important thing is in the culture. If you get the culture right then people know they can raise issues and that there will be no comeback on them if they raise issues internally where they don’t feel comfortable, or things are being planned or delivered as safely as they could be.”

With 20,000 miles of live track, and countless trains whizzing at high speed it is easy to understand why Network Rail is looking to do whatever it can to encourage any kind of change in culture to make its business safer. For that organisation, however, the approach is easier as it is mainly a UK business. For other companies, working across multiple geographic boundaries brings a number of difficulties.

As Schillings’ Scott points out, different countries have different laws. “In America there is very much a ‘speak-up’ culture, where whistleblowers can actually be rewarded with a share of the penalty that is imposed upon an organisation,” Scott says. “Conversely in mainland Europe, in countries like Germany and France, whistleblowing is something that is culturally frowned upon, it has the connotations of informing on your neighbours, so culturally it can be very different.”

These cultural differences perhaps partly explain the lack of concern shown by Eckert in revealing the identity of the FIFA whistleblowers. The whistleblowers themselves, however, had been promised anonymity, and had trusted the FIFA investigators to provide it. It was this breach of trust that people found most shocking. John Smith, head of fraud investigation & dispute services and global professional services firm EY, believes that having an effective whistleblowing policy in place is crucial to any organisation’s attempt to tackle its fraud, otherwise, there is the risk of corruption.

Smith says more needs to be done to protect the confidentiality of whistleblowers, “Despite so many high-profile investigations over the past few years, many complaints are still ignored and those who blow the whistle on malpractice are marginalised. To be effective, it is essential that the whistle blowing arrangement is well-advertised and is trusted by those who might use it. Confidentiality and protection of the whistleblower are key aspects of trust.”

Francesca West feels that what happened with FIFA is a clear example of how dangerous a closed culture can be, “These individuals needed to be promised maximum confidentiality in order to speak about what were very serious allegations about corruption. It was a travesty that the confidentiality and the trust were breached.”

What happened at FIFA goes beyond world football. The example of how those who come forward to publicise wrong doing in their organisations sets the tone for other companies and other sectors. As PCaW’s West adds, “This it is a cautionary tale for anyone keen on maintaining public trust. It highlights the plain truth that if we look at it objectively we know that whistleblowing is a very important part of a well protected society.”