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Whistleblowing

The group whistleblowing arrangements provide a valuable opportunity for employees to raise concerns anonymously.
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Speak Out

If colleagues have any concerns that our standards are not being met, we encourage them to use Speak Out, our global whistleblowing channel, to report them.

Speak Out can be used by any employee, in confidence, in multiple languages, at any time of the day or night. 

The majority of matters raised via Speak Out are HR grievances, which are managed by the local HR team. Where appropriate, concerns regarding operational procedures are investigated by local management to ensure that relevant standards are being followed, Internal Audit and other assurance functions may also assess operational compliance.

Matters which are classified as being of a serious nature are investigated at a senior and independent level. 

The Group Ethics Steering Committee oversees the implementation of our whistleblowing policy and conducts regular reviews of serious cases, investigation progress and resulting actions.

Continuing to adopt best practice

Recognising the need for regular review and continual improvement, in 2020, we began an end to end review of G4S’s whistleblowing service, updating our whistleblowing policy, evaluating the case management process and external service provider and refreshing communications materials.  

In everything we do, no matter how challenging the circumstances, we require our people to behave in line with our values, to escalate business risks where appropriate and to be prepared to use our whistleblowing facility, Speak Out, if they become aware that others are not living up to our values. All matters reported are reviewed and follow a standard process of consideration and potential investigation. Those of a serious nature are investigated at a senior and independent level. 

During 2020 we engaged an external organisation to conduct an independent review of our whistleblowing practices.  The recommendations from the review will be implemented in 2021 alongside the implementation of a new whistleblowing system and the launch of a new whistleblowing policy.

This will be further embedded through refreshed training for our investigators and revised training on our values, culture and ethics for the entire business.   We will survey our staff, and adopt ways to measure our success in embedding the G4S values.

90% of colleagues responding to the 2019 Global Employee Survey said that they feel able to speak out if they notice unethical behaviour in G4S.

Please see our Whistleblowing Policy (PDF 350 KB) for further information.

If you would like to raise a concern through Speak Out, please do so here.

 Progress Against 2020 Commitments
Review, update and re-launch whistleblowing policy.   

Complete - The new policy reflects feedback from the independent review process and was launched early in 2021 with the new Speak Out service.

 
 Evaluate and redesign whistleblowing case management, investigation and closeout process.  Complete - Early in 2021, G4S launched its new Speak Out service, incorporating feedback from the independent review performed by Protect, supported by the appointment of a new Director of Speak Out, refreshed training for employees, a new continuous communications programme and a new independent whistleblowing system provider.
Conduct end to end independent review of whistleblowing service by third-party experts, the charity PROTECT, and implement suggested improvements across the Group.
 Refresh all whistleblowing promotional materials across the Group to raise the profile and confidence of the Speak Out service.
 Conduct a review of the Group’s external whistleblowing system provider.

Speak Out

One of our core values, Integrity, highlights the importance of always doing the right thing, and our Speak Out Global Hotline, encourages our people to do just that – to blow the whistle and report concerns about wrongdoing, such as breaches of laws, regulations or company policy.

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Speak Out
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