Before sensor technology was available, the role of sensing odourless carbon monoxide and other noxious gases in the confined space of coal mines was left to the poor canary. Given their size, they were more susceptible. Miners were alarmed by the presence of these gases when the canary stopped chirping and usually fell off their perch.

So what’s that got to do with whistle-blowers, indeed even security? In the last article we spoke of healthy workplace culture aligning with healthy security culture so let’s continue with that as our premise.

ASIC’s info Sheet 238 states “Whistleblowers play an important role in identifying and calling out misconduct and harm to consumers and the community. To encourage whistleblowers to come forward with their concerns and protect them when they do, the Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act) gives certain people legal rights and protections as whistleblowers.”

A whistleblower, best case, is a genuine person with a genuine concern or grievance. Good internal forums, chat rooms, and confidence in leadership usually mean that such well-intentioned people have an internal hearing inside the organisation.

What is even better is to have such a high-performing and positive workplace culture to not have a disgruntled employee in the first place. We want everyone to be gruntled instead, right?

Happy healthy canaries chirp, unhappy or perhaps disgruntled ones don’t.

Whilst this is utopian to expect everyone to be satisfied without a grievance all the time, it again highlights the importance of internal leadership, management and cultural mechanisms. Collectively they can give people a hearing, if not address their issue. If not addressed, explain why it cannot be addressed.

If a potential whistle-blower is genuinely engaged, they might take a deep breath and no longer feel motivated to blow that whistle.

If an organisation and its leadership cannot do this then the whistle-blower feels they have no further recourse than to go outside. At the end of the day isn’t it better that you have a canary or even a whistle that can alert you to an issue internally?

Indeed, sometimes a whistle-blower can make a government or a society better, and not just the organisation that they belong to. Many of our ground-breaking royal commissions, inquiries and investigations started because of a whistleblower. They spoke up when they saw something wrong, but their organisation would not act. It wasn’t their fault that their leadership wouldn’t listen.

So give your canaries a place to chirp; robust but respectful chat rooms, bulletin boards and the like can encourage a forum for genuine concerns or grievances. That way you may identify something noxious in the workplace. And monitoring and addressing these can ensure the canaries in your coal mine continue to chirp.

Preferably we can then address concerns and manage issues before the chirping transforms to the shrill of a whistle. But even then, if an organisation’s culture is sound, it will respond to the whistleblower with integrity and manage both it and the source of the grievance in accordance with organisational values. And by doing so they limit security risk.

Whilst we may be able to manage a transition of canaries to whistleblowers, what is far more difficult and dangerous is when canaries become trusted insiders.

The 3rd and final piece in this series – Is The Trusted Insider Threat (a canary that holds their breath, or when you wish you had a whistleblower).