Starting your own business is a huge undertaking. At turns rewarding, frustrating, worrying and amazing, it’s a journey that isn’t taken likely. When you have your own business, only one thing is certain – that every day will bring new challenges. One of the biggest challenges, with the biggest potential reward, is instilling a company culture. No matter what size your company is, whether there’s three employees, 30, or 3,000, a positive culture is the best way to make sure that everyone gets behind the business to make it a success. In order for a culture to take hold and work in the long term though, there needs to be trust and the ability to raise concerns.
The importance of trust
Trust runs both ways between employer and employee, and giving your team responsibility and autonomy is usually the best way to help them (and the business) reach their full potential. When you put your faith in employees, it is rewarded with a level of buy-in and loyalty that simply can’t be forced.
The fact is though, that there will likely come a time where a member of the team conducts themselves in a way that could be damaging to the business, clients, or the public.
Some of the most common acts that should be of concern to you as a business owner include:
- Discriminatory behaviour
- Invoice tampering
- Misuse of computers or other property
- Abusive and inappropriate behaviour
- Covering up serious issues and malpractice
- Wilfully deceiving stakeholders such as the public
Thankfully, one of the key aspects of a strong culture based on loyalty is the desire to protect the business and its reputation by reporting these issues, and not letting undesirable behaviour go on any longer. That’s why encouraging whistleblowers to step forward, and providing them with a full range of supportive measures when they do, is so vital.
How to keep your business safe, with Safecall
The narrative around whistleblowing is changing. Where once people were afraid to come forward for fear of losing their jobs, it is now commonly accepted that raising concerns and making disclosures in the public interest is the best course of action for any company. At Safecall, we want to make it easier than ever to harness the positive power of whistleblowing.
Supporting whistleblowers with a whistleblowing hotline has a number of benefits. For a start, aking an active stance on routing out wrongdoing, and reprimanding those involved rather than the employee who shone light on the issue sends hugely positive messages. It shows the wider world that you are serious about transparency and tackling difficult issues, and it shows employees that you trust them, and that they can trust you.
On a practical level, anyone who uses a Safecall whistleblowing hotline can do so with the guarantee of anonymity. Our lines operate 24/7, and all cases are investigated by case-handlers with decades of experience. For employers and managers, that means we can guarantee a thorough and, most importantly, impartial process.
By marrying a strong culture of trust and support with a whistleblowing hotline from Safecall, your business will be better protected against the rare threats posed by individual ‘bad apples’.