What is an Ethical Mailbox?
Improving integrity and ethics in organisations and workplaces is essential for the company to work well and for the wellbeing of the people who are part of it. To achieve that, there is one very valuable tool: the ethical mailbox.
A channel for reporting wrongdoing
An ethical mailbox (or whistleblowing channel) is a confidential, secure channel designed so that employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders can report wrongdoing occurring in an organisation. This can include fraud, workplace harassment, discrimination, misappropriation of funds, abuse of power and any other action that breaches a company’s ethical principles and standards of conduct.
In recent months, Act 2/2023 (the Whistleblower Protection Act) has come into effect, requiring organisations with more than 50 employees and all public sector bodies to have an Ethical Mailbox.
The main objectives of this law are to protect whistleblowers by creating a reporting channel that guarantees confidentiality, while detecting and preventing irregularities, breaches or offences at an early stage, so the problem can be resolved as soon as possible.
There are different deadlines for complying with the law: while some public sector bodies (articles 10-15 of Act 2/2023) had until 13 June 2023, private companies with 50 to 249 employees and municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants still have until 1 December 2023.
Confidentiality and protection for the whistleblower
One of the most important challenges in implementing an ethical mailbox is making sure the person reporting is not exposed to reprisals or other harm from the organisation itself or from the people reported. At the same time, they need to be able to follow how their report is progressing, so it is not as simple as providing an email address.
In some scenarios, the people investigating the reports will not know who the whistleblower is, and that should not make the process any less effective.
This makes managing an ethical mailbox manually difficult, and often means it is worth implementing ethical mailbox software.
How reports are handled in the ethical mailbox
For an ethical mailbox to be effective, reports have to be handled properly. Let’s look at the process from receipt through to resolution.
To begin with, a person can submit a report in numerous ways (letters, emails, phone calls and so on) to a designated team or to an ethics officer, who record these reports confidentially.
Each report must be recorded meticulously, including the date and time of receipt and a detailed description of the incident or ethical concern.
The team in charge carries out an initial assessment to determine how serious and how credible the report is, and proceeds accordingly. If a deeper investigation is needed, it is assigned to a team, either external or internal.
The investigation consists of interviews, gathering evidence and examining the documents related to the case.
Once the investigation has finished, it is time to take action, which may include disciplinary sanctions, changes to procedures and, in more serious cases, even cooperation with the legal authorities.
Throughout the process, the whistleblower is kept informed of the action being taken and the status of the investigation (in the case of non-anonymous reports).
Although this whole process can be automated, many companies still carry it out manually, without considering the risks that involves.
The problems with manual management
With a subject as sensitive as whistleblowing, managing an ethical mailbox manually carries numerous risks:
- Lower efficiency. Handling reports manually is slower and can delay the resolution of problems.
- Human error. Human errors, such as losing documentation or even misinterpreting reports, have a negative effect on the quality of the investigation.
- Confidentiality problems. Despite efforts to maintain confidentiality, it can be harder to guarantee that the whistleblower’s identity is kept secret. That can deter some people from reporting.
- Less scalability. As an organisation grows or receives a greater volume of reports, handling them manually can become unsustainable.
- Regulatory compliance. With the latest Whistleblower Protection Act, having an ethical mailbox has become mandatory for many companies. When reports are handled manually, it can be difficult to prove that an ethical mailbox genuinely exists, works properly and serves its purpose.
When you have dedicated ethical mailbox software, all these risks disappear.
Ethical mailbox software
To begin with, software makes it easy to submit reports through forms and to mark whether the report is to be made anonymously or not. That way it is 100% guaranteed that the whistleblower’s identity stays secret.
When a report is made, before it starts being handled, the software lets you choose whether to accept or reject it. This first filter the report has to pass is very useful for checking its relevance and credibility before starting the resolution process, which avoids wasting time.
If the report is accepted, the software records it and starts handling it automatically. What is more, having a single point of entry for every report means you can check their status in seconds and avoid losing information
When the time comes to process the report, the software assigns the people responsible for investigating and following up on each one. Deadlines can also be set and a complete history of the actions taken can be kept. This avoids delays and ensures the report is resolved as quickly as possible.
Once the report has been processed, it is time to carry out the required actions, which the software can also speed up.
These are just some of the advantages of having ethical mailbox software such as Docuo. If you want to know more, get in touch!