EVEN though one in three workers say they have witnessed unethical activities at work, only 47 per cent are willing to “blow the whistle” on their company or boss, according to a recent survey. Unethical and illegal activities in the workplace, also known as white-collar crimes, include financial fraud, bankruptcy fraud, bribery, insider trading, tax evasion and embezzlement.

Interestingly, men are more likely than women to report these types of activities, according the 2006 survey conducted by Spherion Corp, a staffing and recruiting company.

“Things have changed considerably over the past few years, but the latest data suggests that there is still a perceived stigma attached to being a whistle blower,” said Richard Lamond, senior vice-president at Spherion. “However, more companies are putting policies in place to protect workers who report unethical behaviour, which includes hotlines where workers can expose any unethical behaviour they have observed anonymously.”

The use of hotlines in the corporate world increased with the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, an anti-fraud law designed to expose unethical behaviour and provide an avenue for employees to report anonymously.

The law was introduced in the wake of a series of corporate financial scandals that included Enron Corp, WorldCom Inc and Tyco International.

Uncle Sam holds a hefty receipt for the cost of illegal crimes in the workplace. According to the FBI, white-collar crime is estimated to cost the US more than $300 billion annually.

The February 2006 Spherion Workplace Snapshot survey included 1,436 US employed adults and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.