Transparency International NZ and the Honest Bunch Foundation hosted a webinar on whistleblowing on 27 October attended by over 100 people.
Debbie Gee deftly chaired the event. She is TINZ Member with delegated authority in speak up practices, and researched the Ministry of Transport whistleblowing case. She described how the building of a trusting work culture can be influenced by allowing everyone, especially the vulnerable, to safely raise concerns and speak up. The webinar looked at good and bad practice from an integrity and trust perspective and how to meet the demands of our ever changing and social media savvy work audience.
Kyle Welch
Kyle Welch is an Assistant Professor at George Washington University has recently produced a report on the Advantages of a Whistleblower Reporting System.
Kyle provided a thought provoking presentation of three counterintuitive results of his research. He asserted that:
- Second hand complaints are more valuable than first
- Less information in a complaint is better than more and
- It is preferable to work for a company with lots of complaints than one with a few
For more on this topic; watch the webinar, Read Throw Out Your Assumptions About Whistleblowing, or review Kyle’s published academic research papers.
Georgia Bates
Our second presenter was Georgia Bates a Senior Associate in the Auckland employment team of interEllisonRuddWatts. She is a specialist employment and industrial relations lawyer.
Georgia examined case studies in the legal framework on what happens when employees are unable to speak up or pushed to enter into the personal grievance or Protected Disclosure space
Hadyn Smith
Hadyn Smith, CEO, Integrity Line and presented case studies about the elements of a functional complaints system. He noted that collecting user details up front is not user friendly for growing a level of informed knowledge on misconduct.
He made a particular point that Social Media has changed everything. Organizations need to insure that staff can feel safe and speak up in work related social media environments.
