What Makes Whistleblowers Blow the Whistle?

What the evidence says on reporting

First, let’s consider what the data says about when employees first witness an incident and when they actually submit a report about it, per the NAVEX Whistleblowing & Incident Management Benchmark Report for 2026.  

The median gap between witnessing the incident and reporting it was eight days. It’s been eight days for three years running, and was seven days the year before that.  

Eight days might not seem so bad, but remember that this is a consolidation of all reports for all types of incidents. When we look at lag times by specific types of incidents, clear differences emerge: 

• Accounting and financial reporting issues: 15 days 
• Business integrity issues: 8 days 
• Workplace misconduct: 8 days 
• Environment, health, and safety issues: 5 days

 So, we actually have two questions to ponder here. First, why do employees take longer to report some issues rather than others? And second, still: what triggers them to pick up the phone and submit a report?

One motivator: anger

All this has been on my mind since I attended a compliance conference several weeks ago that included a session on supporting a strong speak-up culture. The moderator asked the audience what prompts employees to speak up. 

“Anger!” someone immediately shouted from the back. “The employee is angry about something that’s wrong and wants to see it fixed!”  

People in the audience were jarred by that answer, but you can’t say it’s wrong. For example, it could explain why employees tend to report workplace civility issues more quickly than they do accounting issues. Workplace civility incidents (bullying, harassment, discrimination) tend to affect employees personally, so they’re more likely to get angry and report it right away. Accounting issues are more abstract and difficult to confirm, so you’re more likely to take more time before picking up the hotline. 

What we’re really talking about is a sense of injustice. That’s the emotional motive behind “The employee is angry about something that’s wrong and wants to see it fixed” – and in a careful way, that’s what compliance officers should try cultivate. 

That doesn’t mean you should foment discontent in the employee breakroom. It does, however, mean that the more employees can see change as a result of their internal reporting – the more they can see an injustice wronged – the more likely they are to keep reporting; and that’s what any chief compliance officer wants.  

Some tactics you can take to help cultivate speaking up include: 

• Use internal reporting systems that let you keep communicating with individual whistleblowers, even anonymous ones, so they can understand how their complaint is being treated.  
• Tell employees (through team newsletters, training, or management town hall meetings, for example) about internal reports that lead to policy changes or disciplinary action against offenders. The more they can see that their warnings lead to change, the more they’ll use the internal hotline as a mechanism to drive change. 

Another motivator: fear 

We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that plenty of times, employees submit a report to the hotline because they’re afraid of something. For example: 

• An employee who believes their manager is putting people at risk, such as in physical danger (say, by switching off safety equipment) or legal jeopardy (by perpetrating a fraud or corruption scheme). 
• An employee who’s participated in wrongdoing and wants to report it first, hoping to win leniency for blowing the whistle. 

Fear can also cause employees to delay a report, too. For example, they might want to secure their own legal representation, or compile an irrefutable record of facts before they submit a report.  

What are compliance officers supposed to do with that delicate and double-edged motivation? Give employees mechanisms to help them overcome their fear. 

Two obvious examples here are anonymity and anti-retaliation protection. The better your compliance program is at delivering those mechanisms (and even today, that’s a challenge; identities leak and retaliation ensues), the easier it will be for employees to overcome their fears and report. 

But compliance officers should look further, too. For example, what are your leniency policies for employees complicit in some sort of misconduct? Do they give room for “first reporters” to catch a break? (That’s how the Justice Department handles companies trying to report cartel schemes, after all.) 

Alternatively, are there instances where a mandatory reporting policy might help? For example, if an employee can say, “I have no choice but to report this, otherwise I’m in trouble too,” that can go a long way to help him or her pick up the phone. 

Conclusion  

Everywhere we look these days, strong internal reporting cultures are becoming more important. That’s true whether it’s regulators trying to lure your employees away with whistleblower reward programs; or simply the threat of civil litigation or operational meltdowns because employees knew what was happening but didn’t alert management.  

In the end, the challenge for compliance officers is to pull all the right levers – policy management, training, communications, effective (and protective) hotlines, and more – to foster the strongest speak up culture you can.  

A bit of armchair psychology to understand the pressures and mindsets of your employees will help too.