Internal confidant +

What does a trustee do

A confidential advisor is someone employees can approach in case of undesirable behaviour in the workplace. This could include bullying, (sexual) harassment, aggression, violence, discrimination and lack of integrity. A confidential counsellor welcomes, guides and advises the employee. If necessary, they will help with a complaints procedure.

The Law

What does the law prescribe? The current law requires employers to counter psychosocial workload (PSA). A confidential counsellor provides for this. Due to all the excesses in recent years, a law is now in the pipeline that makes this requirement concrete and mandates a confidential advisor for every company. This bill also known as: Amendment to the Working Conditions Act in connection with making a confidential advisor mandatory, is a proposal by MP Maatoug.
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/wetsvoorstellen/detail?id=2020Z18100&dossier=35592

Internal confidant

Many, especially large organisations have an internal confidential advisor. An internal confidant is someone in the company to whom an employee can turn in case of undesirable behaviour. The advantage of an internal confidant is that they are easily approachable because they are present within the organisation. However, the disadvantage is that an internal confidant is part of the company and its culture. He or she may be familiar with the person the report is about or may himself be part of the cross-border behaviour. Also, the role of (internal) confidant is a job one has in addition to another (full-time which means they often do not get around to the other responsibilities a confidant has. Indeed, in addition to the role as a listening ear, the confidant also has an important role when it comes to information & advice and awareness & prevention. He or she is also often unable to consult colleagues for peer review.

Internal confidant +

Despite that our experience is that an external trustee is better and cheaper as you can read in this article. Do we understand correctly that organisations that already have an internal confidential advisor want to keep it that way. For those cases, our services can be used as a back up service, through our free consultation hour. Here, internal confidants can contact us to 'sound out' about a specific case and can make use of our knowledge and experience in this area. We also have an external confidential counsellor available in case the internal confidential counsellor himself is involved or feels involved and therefore feels it would be better to refer a case, for example.