You may find your employer or other employees cutting corners to make your job look like it’s running at a safe and steady pace. As an employee, you have rights and protection to ensure you can report when your job is casting a blind eye over their dangerous or illegal actions.
Employees fear the consequences of whistleblowing. However, whistleblowers make everyone’s lives, including their own, safer. Your reluctance to blow the whistle on your job may be the cause of several factors. You should consider these two questions before you blow the whistle:
Do you have valid reasons to blow the whistle?
Someone walking around with an untied shoe may cause them to struggle to walk or slip and fall. Seeing a cat wander into the train yard may be distracting and you may be concerned for the animal’s safety. These, however, may not be the right reasons to consider whistleblowing.
It can be hard to know exactly what can prompt the need for some decisive action on your part. Whistleblowing is a response to criminal activity, coverups, health and safety concerns or safety breaches as just a few examples. If you believe you may have witnessed one of these issues, then you may have a valid reason to whistleblow on your job.
What exactly are your protections when whistleblowing?
Your employer may only be concerned about you blowing the whistle because you know too much about a workplace issue. Employers might retaliate because they suspect you might have found a work-related issue they didn’t want you to know. This may cause them to fire you, demote you or relocate your place of work to punish you.
Part of the reason why employees whistleblow is that they know their rights and protections. If you are concerned about a workplace issue that might be hazardous or illegal then you may need to know your rights.
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