Whistle-blowing rendered multi-lingual and confidential at Imperial

Imperial Tobacco has introduced a new confidential hotline to enable those connected with its business to raise concerns about possible malpractice.

In a note on its website, Imperial said that, as a responsible business, it had procedures in place for allowing its employees, suppliers and contractors to speak up: a process often known as whistle-blowing.

‘The system has been enhanced to enable this to happen 24 hours a day seven days a week using an international phone service, free of charge,’ the note said.

‘Our policy and procedures have been translated into 36 languages and information sent to around 90 locations in more than 80 countries where we operate. It is also available on our corporate website.’

Trevor Williams, deputy company secretary, said there was a “high degree of cross-functional collaboration involved to successfully roll-out our enhanced whistle-blowing procedures across the business”.

“Speaking up is important to us because it supports our commitment to enable our people to feel confident to raise any concerns they may have,” he added.