Office autocrats: facing dominant behaviours in financial services

The financial services industry is renowned for attracting forceful personalities and, at times, fostering negative group behaviours. Bucking these pressures is a formidable task for an individual and, lamentably, most whistleblowers still experience adverse reprisals. Neasa MacErlean reports on moves in the right direction.

Life is becoming easier for compliance officers dealing with overbearing personalities. But there is still a long way to go. Last year the charity Protect advised 91 financial services whistleblowers who then stayed in touch and told them how their cases turned out. Not one of them was thanked by his or her employer. Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) said there was no result at all. These were, to some degree, the lucky ones. The other 76 per cent believed variously that they were victimised or bullied (30 per cent) because of their actions, others were dismissed (25 per cent) or suspended and some resigned (12 per cent).