NAVEX 2024 Whistleblowing Report Reveals Record High Reporting and Substantiation Rates

NAVEX has released its 2024 Whistleblowing & Incident Management Benchmark Report, analyzing trends from 1.86 million global reports across thousands of organizations employing over 50 million employees. The report reveals that organizations received a median 1.57 reports per 100 employees in 2023, exceeding the previous record of 1.47 set in 2022, with 23% of organizations receiving five or more reports per 100 employees. More significantly, the substantiation rate reached an 11-year high at 45%, meaning more reports were received and more were found to be true, providing organizations with greater visibility into risk, ethics, and culture trends.

For the first time, NAVEX analyzed data separately for employees and third-party reporters, revealing distinct patterns that emphasize the importance of promoting reporting programs both internally and externally. Third parties delivered a far greater median share of reports related to business integrity matters than employees (50% versus 17%), encompassing conflicts of interest, vendor issues, fraud, and human rights issues that can manifest throughout supply chains. Third-party reporters also showed twice the median share of accounting, auditing, and financial reporting reports as employees (10% versus 4.5%), highlighting their critical role in detecting financial misconduct.

Accounting-related reports, while comprising only 4.3% of internal reports, received outsized attention due to regulatory implications and the SEC's growing whistleblower program, which is now being mirrored by the U.S. Department of Justice. These reports showed the longest time between incident observation and reporting, were least likely to be reported anonymously, and had the highest median substantiation rates at 50%. Organizations receiving very few reports overall had a significantly higher percentage of accounting-related cases, and these reports were most likely to result in employment separation when substantiated.

The data shows that even minor efforts to promote internal reporting significantly improve the diversity of report types received. Organizations with the lowest report volume had only 8.7% of reports pertaining to HR, diversity, and workplace respect, while the next tier saw this proportion jump to 36.3%. Workplace civility matters continued to increase in prominence, representing a median of 18% of reports in 2023, followed by discrimination (12%), harassment (7.1%), and retaliation (2.0%). The overall HR, diversity and workplace respect category has seen a multi-year increase from 50% in 2021 to 55% in 2023.

Organizations are taking reports more seriously, with 18% of substantiated reports resulting in employment separation in 2023, up from 14% in 2022 and 12% in 2021. The share of reports resulting in no action fell from 17% to 14%. Nearly 90% of reports of imminent threat to persons, animals, or property were substantiated, underscoring the importance of training and trust in promoting rapid reporting of dangerous issues, particularly with new California workplace violence prevention laws taking effect. For more information, visit https://navex.com.