Complaint box | Companies launch new mailboxes for anonymous complaints

2023-06-11 16:56:59

Las 4,700 Spanish companies which, according to the latest update of the Statistics National Institute (INE), count on more than 250 workers in Spain, they must have enabled from Tuesday 13 a mailbox for anonymous complaints through which employees, providers or even customers can transfer to the company irregularities o illegalities that they have detected. This is what the “law regulating the protection of people who report on regulatory violations and the fight against corruption” which the Government approved in February and which gave large companies until June 13 to set up these channels in companies with more than 250 workers; those with between 50 and 250 workers have until June 1 December The first of these two periods of time expires this Tuesday and, however short it may have been according to several companies consulted, it takes most of them with their homework done, although also with doubts, uncertainty and a lot of skepticism about how rigorous it is going to be. really be the application of this law.

“It is not so much the implementation of the channel as what will come later: the regulations have many gaps that generate many doubts when managing the system for those responsible,” he explains. Pol Gummà, vice legal advisor. The hamburger delivery company, focused until recently on developing its business and growing as much as possible, was beginning to develop a ethical code when the law was passed. Thus, the new reporting tool has been a relatively simple point to implement: they have contracted the services of a platform dedicated exclusively to the reception and management of this type of murmurs.

The problem will come, in his opinion, when they have to establish the obligations or rights of the legal manager of the channel, settle what things you have to answer for or decide how to proceed when carrying out an investigation or at what moment to bring it to justice. Not to mention, he adds, that the body that has to monitor that all this works is not yet constituted.

“There are many conflicts of rights, many legal conflicts,” they agree from Borges, who give as an example the dilemma of having to protect a worker even though they have compelling reasons to fire him. This food group began to implement already in 2018 a plan de ‘compliance’ (mechanisms that prevent companies from having to assume criminal responsibilities for crimes committed within them) that finished outlining when in 2019 the European directive that has forced Spain to approve this law. “The only thing we have done is adapt what we had to the new requirement,” they specify; and they have done it, like Vice, with a externally operated platform.

“The truth is that the norm is very complicated and that some issues are not very clear, with the consequent legal uncertainty what this entails,” says Gemma Fabregat, Professor of Labor Law and ‘Of Counsel’ at Sagardoy. This law firm has advised several of its clients for the implementation of the new mandatory complaint mailboxes. “I detect that it has not been sufficiently well captured what types of behaviors can be denounced by this channel and what type of personal conflicts should not go this way”, explains Fabregat; and he attributes this confusion to the existence, too, of gaps in the drafting of the standard. “I understand that the mailbox should be used to report breaches of the rules; for example, of schedule control the one of safety and health measures, but not for a complaint of a particular conflict of a bad relationship with a boss or harassment. That already has its own channel”, points out this expert, who acknowledges that “at the same time, the norm says that companies must unify the different channels, and this is an example of confusion and legal uncertainty”. reports Rosa Maria Sanchez.

Diligence between listed companies

In Brico Depotchain of DIY and building materials storeshave resolved this type of blind spot by defining a very rigorous internal protocol that follow in each of the complaints that arrive. This company, which has behind the Listed British group Kingfisherhas been running this mailbox for 10 years, also through a platform managed by an external provider. They consider that the balance is positive, although they recognize that there are confused workers who send there complaints that they do not touch. In any case, the Director of Human Resources of the company, Joan Carlos Fernandez, the main conclusion is clear: “For all this to work there must be an ecosystem behind it. If you set up a platform and leave it there for people to say what they want, it doesn’t work: we have a whole organization set up to make this work”.

The status of a listed company plays in favor of the implementation of the new mailboxes. This shows that the Parlem telecommunications company already has the mechanism in place, even if it does not reach 250 workers. “In 2020, in preparation for going public, we already created a compliance committee: we use the law as a best practice guide and we try to comply with it because these are issues that, although they may seem simple, are slow to implement and resources are needed”, points out the corporate director of the company, Ignasi Tribówhich doubts that an SME that does not have the obligation to anticipate so much has enjoyed sufficient reaction time.

Now, in fact, the turn of the smaller companies begins and that is where the real complications are expected. “We have to do a lot of pedagogy because this is not a simple telephone, mailbox o mail account. The law obliges us to give many more guarantees”, contextualizes the director of Pimec’s legal area, Itziar Wheels. “It is one more expense that they have to have and the resources of SMEs are much smaller than those of large companies,” warns this expert, who acknowledges having already had the first contacts with companies concerned about this issue, but who awaits the great avalanche once the summer passes. “There are those who already have one domestic policy more established, and there are those who perceive it as an obligation and one more expense, but in general they are upset because they feel that lately it is one obligation after another, and, in the end, another expense”.