Whistleblower Contact Ignoring Complaints

[LifeQuest]

Hello Everyone,

We are in a conundrum and am wondering what our rights would be in this situation.

My nonprofit organization has a whistleblower contact on the BoD to contact with complaints.

There have now been over five different employee complaints made regarding the CEO’s behaviour but the whistleblower contact has taken no steps to follow up or investigate.

They have indicated they feel the five individuals are conspiring with a false claim instead of each having legitimate concerns regarding the CEO.

In addition, a complaint was also made to the WB contact regarding the CEO disciplining an employee for reporting a coworker’s sexual harassment to the wrong person and the WB contact simply told the employee to “take it up with the CEO.”

Something feels very wrong here. And to make things even worse, a number of the complainants are currently on COVID-19 furlough and I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t brought back as a punishment for the complaints. 90% of the workforce has already been brought back to work but funnily, none of the complainants have yet been recalled.

Any advice or guidance would be most appreciated.

[LifeQuest]

Desperately hoping for advice on this...not sure where else to turn.

[ULA]

Doe your Not for Profit have a Whistle Blowing policy? If so what is the escalation point if a matter is not dealt with? Is there a board of trustees associated with the organisation not part of the BoD?

[LifeQuest]

Thank you very much for your response! We do have a Whistleblower policy but I don’t believe there is any point where it must be looked in to. I can forward a copy of it, should that help.

There is only the board - no trustees, unfortunately.

The entire complaint process began with one individual making an anonymous complaint under a pseudonym. Although there has been five different complaints filed by different employees, they have all been informal complaints versus formal, so maybe that is part of the problem?

The WB contact also emailed the initiator of the complaints saying that they must cease and desist from contacting any other employees about their complaint or speaking about it to anyone else. The whistleblower contact let the complainant know that punishment would be following if they contacted any former or current employees again.

[ULA]

Whistleblowing tends to cover reports relating to the following:

• a criminal offence, for example fraud
• someone’s health and safety is in danger
• risk or actual damage to the environment
• a miscarriage of justice
• the company or organisation is breaking the law, for example does not have the right insurance
• a person believes someone is covering up wrong doing

Personal grievances (for example bullying, harassment, discrimination) are not covered by whistleblowing law, unless the particular case is in the public interest.

If the matter of behaviour by the CEO falls into the personal grievance category, then the issue should be raised by the employee in accordance with the grievance procedure.