Development Stages

People Intouch is active in very diverse industries, sectors and organisations - from Fortune top 50 multinationals to housing associations with twelve employees. The attention given to misconduct reporting within industries and sectors is either motivated by regulation, the occurrence of serious incidents, or industry and company culture.

People Intouch has identified three developmental stages that companies go through with regards to misconduct reporting (see chart).

Stage 1

In stage one, an organisation is in a must-have situation: a whistleblowing procedure is required by law or governance code like Sarbanes Oxley (USA), or the code Tabaksblat (the Netherlands). Here, we see companies ‘ticking the box’. They have an instrument in place, but do not actually encourage employees to speak up. In this stage, an internal solution is usually chosen by appointing internal confidants.

Stage 2

In stage two, the organisation recognises that an internal confidant solution is not sufficient: no misconduct reports are received but incidents still occur. Usually the trigger is a scandal within their own company or within their industry and it turns out that several employees were aware about the misconduct but still did not report it. Most companies then decide to get a better misconduct reporting system in order to minimise reputation and/or financial damage.

Stage 3

In stage three, the organisation becomes convinced of the fact that integrity is a hygienic factor. In order to become successful as an organisation, employees need a safe, healthy and trusted working environment. In this stage, top management acts as an integrity role model. It spends a lot of time and energy in convincing all other personnel that the right behaviour is essential for the success of the company.