How does a company live with whistleblowers? What does it have to do to encourage people to speak when there are issues, but at the same time ensure that it does not throw operations and management into turmoil?

Many organizations think all they have to do is install a whistleblower hotline. How wrong is that? Hotlines have enormous challenges and need to be managed carefully.

Some good suggestions from Ethical Corporation magazine.

First, the organization needs to look at establishing hotlines. But that in itself is not the solution because you need procedures in place to ensure that people feel they are being listened to and that their concerns are not being swept under the carpet. And that is not easy.

What happens, for example, if you are running a global company with operations around the world? Ethical Corporation cites the case of pharmaceutical company Novartis which has "integrity lines" in 61 languages.

Should the hotlines be anonymous? Anonymity encourages people to speak up. On the other hand, it can be abused by people wanting to settle scores. And it would be better to have systems in place to ensure people raise the issues with their managers first.

Another helpful idea is to report the number of allegations, and what the organization did to investigate, on the intranet. That would get people thinking more about ethical standards.

GE is a very good case study on how companies could go about dealing with this problem. I look at this in my entry GE and integrity land mines.