Safe Speak feature in PeopleForce: A place for your team to speak anonymously and freely

To ensure a truly safe workplace and promote well-being, allowing people to freely report anything concerning them is crucial. However, there may be situations that are difficult to address openly, such as harassment, departmental conflicts, and other concerns. In such cases, how can the employee remain heard, draw attention to the problem and ensure complete anonymity?

We offer a solution for your team. Safe Speak is the new feature in our case management product, PeopleDesk. It allows your employees to create a fully anonymous case.

Watch the video to see how the new feature works in practice and what it is used for.

But what is Safe Speak from PeopleForce?

Safe Speak is an anonymous reporting channel for employees and external parties to report issues or wrongdoing.

Reporting a challenging problem is an act of courage. That's why we support a culture of transparency; together, we offer a place for your employees to be brave.

At the same time, you, as management, get the chance to listen, acknowledge and address their voices and gain a deeper understanding of issues within the organization.

Here is the list of the kinds of issues your team can report through our tool:

• Financial misconduct

• Workplace harassment and mobbing

• Safety violations

• Corruption

• Environmental concerns

• Data breaches

• Non-compliance

• Unethical behaviour

• Retaliation

• … and more

Importantly, you can also enable anonymous cases for external parties, e. g. making the recruiting process more transparent and allowing you to track any issues. That's why Safe Speak can be available to candidates via a link. You have the choice to share this option with them or not.

Safe Speak meets the EU Whistleblower Directive

Implementing the Safe Speak feature will support the EU Whistleblower Directive, critically important in today's environment for fostering a corporate culture that values transparency and accountability.

OK, who is a whistleblower, and how are they protected?

In business terms, a whistleblower is an individual who exposes or reports illegal, unethical, or improper activities within an organization.

The whistleblower protection laws in the European Union are governed by Directive (EU) 2019/1937, adopted on October 23, 2019, focusing on safeguarding individuals who report violations of EU law.

Article 26 of the Directive extended the deadline for private sector enterprises with 50 to 249 employees to comply with national laws and regulations in alignment with the Directive until December 17, 2023.

Safe Speak by PeopleForce complies with the directive as it meets the following points:

• The reporter remains completely anonymous

• Only authorized team members designated by the company can access the reports

• A case manager can see the date of the reporting and respond easily

• The reporter can comment on the case and add attachments to edit it.

• Safe Speak is the tool for written reports only.

Yes, the reporting is totally secure and anonymous

Rest assured, our encryption methods are in place to make your employees’ reporting experience as secure and anonymous as possible.

When a person submits a case via Safe Speak, it's encrypted – the anonymous cases submission page is external to the PeopleForce system. This means users won't need to log in via PeopleForce, and there's no technical way for anyone to uncover the reporter's identity. Only the reporter holds the key to access the case. We've added password protection and don't track or store personal data, giving you peace of mind.

Anonymity is our top priority. Your employees’ identity will be fully protected and kept confidential, with neither PeopleForce nor our service provider having access to any information beyond what is provided in the report form or attachments.

Just a friendly reminder: possibly uploaded images and documents may contain metadata like EXIF data, which we don't anonymize, so be cautious about any potentially revealing information.

The unique structure of the link to the company's whistleblowing submission page prevents the use of a pattern to access similar pages for other companies.

No additional whistleblowing solution required

Safe Speak is a feature we hope your team will never need. But it's the one feature that completely addresses any whistleblowing needs.

It's a cost-effective and straightforward tool, requiring no coding or additional integrations. All you need is the PeopleDesk product, which provides complete control and swift issue. By default Safe Speak is disabled in Settings, but you can enable it in PeopleDesk anytime.

You can learn more about PeopleDesk and case management here.

Notably, anonymous cases are handled in the same manner as regular cases but with a clear distinction on the case management list.

Also, it is important to know that after submitting an anonymous case and having a manager assigned to it, the reporter will see the manager's avatar and name, ensuring that the issue is handled by someone unrelated to the complaint.

Supporting a culture of trust and transparency

PeopleForce supports the key role of corporate organizations in fostering a culture of trust and transparency. Let’s make it more likely for employees to voice their concerns before they become larger issues. We actively promote responsible reporting from everyone regarding HR and business processes.

With Speak Safe, you're all about an inclusive approach where every voice matters. Foster your corporate culture with the principles of a speak-up culture — and PeopleForce, with its Safe Speak feature, will assist you at every step of the way.

We're eager to receive your thoughts on this new feature! Please don't hesitate to contact our managers with your feedback or any questions regarding anonymous cases you may have.

⚠️ For a comprehensive guide on using Safe Speak functionality, consult the PeopleForce knowledge base.

Stay tuned for further updates and releases by staying connected with us!