The group whistleblowing arrangements provide a valuable opportunity for employees, and others, to raise concerns anonymously.
Whistleblowing
Speak Out
The Speak Out system offers a central platform to confidentially report potential violations of Allied Universal’s ethics code. This includes serious issues like threats of violence, harassment, discrimination, health and safety hazards, and breaches of company policies or law. SpeakOut is available 24/7 in multiple languages, and allows anonymous reporting where permitted by law. Whether you are an employee, subcontractor or third party, Speak Out empowers you to voice your concerns and contribute to a safe and ethical work environment.
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 International Ethics 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
During 2023 and with the launch of the EthicsPoint case management system across the international business, there has been significant development in oversight and reporting of key management information from the concerns and investigations program. This includes producing key performance related metrics focused on investigation aging days, trends in concern issue type, substantiation rates, quarterly and annual trends of new concerns received.
This oversight has led to significant progress in the efficiency and timeliness of handling concerns across the international organisation. As part of the launch of the EthicsPoint case management system, an awareness campaign was conducted across the organisation. It involved the training and mobilising of approximately 150 Speak Out coordinators across all five geographical regions to promote Speak Out within their businesses. A number of guidance materials and communications were produced to support the resources already available.
Moreover, retaliation is strictly prohibited and any retaliation against those who speak out is treated as a serious disciplinary offense, which may result in action up to and including dismissal (in accordance with local laws). We take every report seriously. All concerns are carefully reviewed and assessed to determine the best course of action.
For serious matters, we
conduct thorough investigations overseen by senior,
independent personnel. We conduct root cause
analysis for the most serious concerns and ensure
that corrective action is taken when necessary.
This will be further embedded through refreshed training for our investigators and comprehensive 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.
Please see our Whistleblowing Policy (PDF 249.2 KB) for further information.
If you would like to raise a concern through Speak Out, please do so here.
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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