Blowing Your Own Whistle

What do you call a person who sneaks on his colleague or

boss? Okay, there are many names for that. But what if that colleague is

siphoning off money from the company? Or the boss is harassing his team,

verbally, or even sexually? Something is happening that goes against the very

grain of the company's culture, its values, its code of business conduct?

Very often peers know about wrong doings much earlier. And

in order to use this knowledge effectively many organizations have been adopting

a whistle blower policy.

In India SEBI has made amendments to its Clause 49 of the

Listing Agreement-and made it a non-mandatory requirement for companies

getting listed to have a whistle blowing policy. Infosys, Reliance, Wipro, Tata

Motors, Tube Investments India and many others have it. The Law Ministry has

also been working on a whistle blower bill for a while now.

Indian companies working in global environments have a

great need for it. After the Enron whistle blowing case, the US government

pushed the Sarbanes Oxley Act into place, which makes it mandatory for a listed

company to have a policy to protect whistle blowers, and encourage an

environment where unethical behavior is not tolerated. As Indian companies join

the world mainstream, they will have to put checks in place to stop unethical

behavior and conform to international best practices.

But there are concerns.

Will such a policy weaken the trust that exists in all

organizations? Will it open the floodgates for malicious allegations? If there

is a malicious allegation how will it be recognized and what will be the action

against the person making it?

However, many companies have also expressed serious concern

over the fact that this would undermine the trust that exists in companies,

affect team performance, and impact the growth of the industry.

What happens in case the complaint has to go to court? Or

is the person against whom allegations have been made decides to go to court?

Will the internal investigations hold value? And will the creaking judicial

system be able to handle cases in a reasonable time?

Clearly there are many other support systems required to

make whistle blowing work effectively. And foremost amongst them is the need for

a value system and a leadership that sets an example. Far too often employees

are expected to be unethical in dealings outside the organization but absolutely

clean inside. That simply does not work.

Otherwise, the situation could be similar to what I saw as

I coming in to work today. There was this traffic intersection where the signals

had broken down and a car had stalled in the rain. There was a lone traffic

warden blowing his own whistle and trying to put some semblance of order in the

madness. His attempts were largely unsuccessful. Sure there was a whistle and

someone was blowing it pretty hard. But without the basic traffic discipline

being followed it was just not working.