If nothing else, the News of the World debacle highlights the difficulties HR can face when it comes to influencing business culture

If you think HR has kept a low profile in the unravelling News International scandal, then consider this. At some point it is quite possible that an HR director will be required, under oath and in front of TV cameras, to answer questions from Lord Justice Leveson’s committee of inquiry into the extent of illegal phone hacking at the now-defunct News of the World.

Compared with the great political drama of last week’s inquisition of media moguls, former police chiefs and former newspaper editors by MPs, this may appear to be a sideshow. But it will go to the heart of whether there was a cover-up within News International, and also of a vexed question often asked much more widely: to what extent should and can HR professionals influence the culture of an organisation, and challenge colleagues when it goes off the rails?
 
Back in 2007, when the News of the World’s royal editor, Clive Goodman, and investigator Glen Mulcaire were jailed for phone hacking, Daniel Cloke was group HR director of News International (he moved to Vodafone as HR director in January 2011). He was also a member of the company’s internal inquiry in 2007, set up to see if there was any evidence of illegal practice by other journalists on the paper. The inquiry team also included the paper’s then editor, plus News International’s executive chairman and its head of legal affairs, and was supported by an external law firm, Harbottle & Lewis.

The internal inquiry looked at 2,500 staff emails and concluded there was no evidence of wider malpractice. Then, just over a month ago, some of the emails from the 2007 inquiry were passed by Harbottle & Lewis to police, who came to a very different conclusion. From this, the subsequent scandal has quickly unfurled.

It may be surmised that senior executives on the internal inquiry would have been unlikely to read the emails themselves – unless worrying examples had been brought to their attention. No doubt the police investigation and the Leveson inquiry will delve deeper. The more interesting question is: how hard were they looking?

Whether or not any of these executives knew about wider phone hacking, they most certainly did know that the corporate culture on the News of the World was ruthlessly dedicated to success, and intolerant of anyone questioning that ethos. If even prime ministers and police chiefs behaved obsequiously to Rupert Murdoch and his top management team, one can only imagine how difficult it would be for anyone inside the company to raise matters of conscience.

By preventing the BSkyB takeover, this scandal has already seriously damaged the Murdoch empire. That should underline the importance, in any organisation, of creating a culture in which integrity is valued, and senior executives feel able to speak truth to power.