Support to meet your whistleblower reporting obligations
Every company should strive to develop and maintain a genuine culture of ethical conduct throughout their organisation.
With whistleblower policies now mandatory for public companies, large proprietary companies and proprietary companies that are trustees of registrable superannuation entities, it is important that organisations foster a positive and open environment where employees feel they can come forward to make a disclosure under that policy and where they feel that any disclosures made will be taken seriously and acted on appropriately.
However, there may be circumstances when an employee does not feel comfortable disclosing their complaint to management.
To overcome this, Effective Governance provides companies with a confidential whistleblower reporting service.
We provide employers with a 24/7 dedicated telephone service which is available for all employees to discuss and report their complaint or issue under the company’s whistleblower policy. Our legally qualified and experienced advisors will explain the purpose of your whistleblower policy to the employee and the process to be followed to make a disclosure including:
- the criteria for a discloser to qualify for protection as a whistleblower under the Corporations Act;
- disclosures that relate solely to personal work-related grievances do not fall under the whistleblower policy;
- the circumstances when a disclosure about a personal work-related grievance qualifies for protection;
- the investigation process;
- how the employer will support whistleblowers and protect them from detriment, including confidentiality during the process;
- outline the steps the employer will take after it receives a disclosure and explain that each disclosure will be assessed to determine whether it falls within the whistleblower policy; and
- how the employer will ensure fair treatment of its employees who are mentioned in disclosures that qualify for protection, or its employees who are the subject of disclosures.
Upon recording the details of the complaint, we report back to our client's nominated officer and discuss the next steps to be taken. We guarantee to protect the anonymity of your employees unless they have given permission to disclose their identity.
eG’s whistleblower reporting service is available on an annual fixed fee basis.
For further information on our whistleblower reporting service or to request a proposal, please contact us.