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.