I’m watching a “whistle blower” testify before Congress. He’s a federal employee. The subject he’s speaking to is irrelevent to my question.
I know there are whistleblower “protections,” but what really happens when he/she returns to his/her office? Are the quietly ostracized? Careers ended? Take early retirement? Do they get a pat on the back for exposing a problem. What motivates them to take a risk?
At my current employer, a whistleblower remained at his job and the department came closer together and got effective. Perhaps my work culture is a rare one.
In 2 cases that I know about, the person whistled about was a supervisor or manager level employee. As they were cordially disliked by the rest of the employees*, they really appreciated the whistleblower who got the jerk fired and replaced with a new boss who treated the employees fairly.
*Except for the couple of employees who were that bosses ‘favorites’, who got special treatment from the boss.
I am fairly close to a case where someone attempted to blow a whistle, but the people who would have been exposed were senior enough to get him fired before it became more widely known.
Eventually the truth came out and the whistle blower rehired and the perpetrators fired. Overall the experience came at great expense to the whistle blower because of difficulties experienced between employment. This happened right in the middle of the Covid pandemic.
Generally, career over. Unless they just try to fire you over something else (Subject was late to work by 5-10 minutes 4 times in the last month)
Only in disfunctional workplaces.
Is there much about which to blow the whistle in well functioning workplaces?
It probably depends if the whistleblower is exposing something which increases or reduces the company’s profits. If the whistleblower is exposing a specific employee who is harming the company without their knowledge, like a manager is embezzling, then there might be little fallout. The company would appreciate being notified of the illegal activity and fire the person. But if it’s exposing corruption that the company is fully aware of and wants to keep quiet, like illegally dumping waste into the river, then there would probably be repercussions. The execs would resent having to deal with the fallout and expense of addressing their corruption and wouldn’t look favorably upon the whistleblower.
This made me laugh sadly, it is so true.