THE CLIENT

Company employs more than 50 people and was as such required by the applicable law to implement an internal communication channel for reporting suspected misconduct and abuse until 17 December 2021. The company was prepared to take responsibility and act adequately and timely in order to recognize attempts and acts of misconduct of any kind and take steps to remedy the situation ASAP, and the obvious solution was to establish a whistleblowing platform where whistleblowers could report any misconducts that they have either detected, observed, witnessed or experienced first-hand in anonymous way or by partially or fully disclosing their identity, without fear of retribution.

THE ISSUES

As the company wanted to avoid possible stains in the public image by trying to identify and fix any misconduct internally before complaints become public and negative results of damaged reputation start to show in the form of financial loss, the business executives were prepared to take steps forward in establishing a secure and confident whistleblowing platform where former, current and prospective employees, customers, contractual partners, shareholders, stakeholders and other representatives of interested public could express their concerns related to:

• human relations in the business and work environment
• misconducts related to business operations, services and products
• any observed or experienced misbehaviour such as corruption, harassment, abuses ofpower and discrimination

Why XCRM

The company recognized the potential of comprehensive whistleblower reporting options and wide specter of easy-to-use functionalities for end-to-end management of reported cases and case resolution processes that are provided by oneVoicee solution that is offered as one of the products from XCRM product suit.

With option to implement the basic scope of solution in a short time and offering wide specter of possible additional integrations with call center and corresponding communication channels such as phone calls, voicemail and text messages, oneVoice solution was the company’s first choice in selection of 3rd party software for receipt and resolution of whistleblowers’ complaints and reports on misconduct.

THE SOLUTION

oneVoice joins all data obtained from whistleblowers’ reports received by any available communication channel as well as complete scope of information related to reported cases in a centralized database where data is stored in encrypted form to prevent access to any unauthorized user, and where any personal data that could disclose whistleblower’s identity is stored separately in order to provide multiple levels of security and as such full confidentiality.

The implemented solution provides following options for overview and management of data and information related to reported cases:

• Whistlerblower can, as an anonymous user or user with partially or fully disclosed identity, create and submit his report online by means of a dedicated web portal where he or she is lead through the report creation procedure by wizard and optionally also additional guides and tips in English or the local language (Slovenian) in accordance to user’s preference.
• Case management user interface collects and displays complete scope of data related to the reported case in structured form, enabling overview of basic data as well as step-by-step progress through the case resolution process with additional access to tools for intermediate communication between the whistleblower and the investigator, analytical dashboards supporting the case resolution process by relevant analytical data and calculated statistical performance indicators, collection of case-relevant documentation and case-relevant history of changes performed on case-related data.
• Analytical system provides advanced reporting capabilities and enables use of complete scope of case-related analytical data and calculated KPIs that are used for accurate audit tracking as well as for monitoring of operational performance of case resolving, status of cases, efficiency rates and other statistical indicators and parameters. Additionally, reports can be included in single-screen dashboards in order to present the “big picture” of the issue with additional option to drill-down all the way to the level of single transaction, or can also be used as the basis for configuration of thresholds on specific data categories and KPIs with option for automatic email or SMS notification of selected system users (case managers and members of the investigation team) in case of threshold violation.

THE RESULTS

oneVoice solution successfully fulfilled the client’s efforts for establishment of secure, confident and efficient communication channel where on one hand whistleblowers or any other persons affected by misconduct of any kind can safely speak up, report and give their perspective and opinion on the burning issues and other urgent matters, and where on the other hand investigators can do their research and, based on quality know-what, get hold of the nature of reported misconduct acts and identify the actors as well as in further stage take adequate measures to punish the culprits and remedy the situation.

Main advantages and benefits that the client has gained by using oneVoice solution:

• Increased number of whistleblowers’ reports received internally prevent the client’s company from damaged reputation among customers and consumers as well as from financial losses that could result from the misconduct itself or stained public image.
• Due to awareness that anonymous whistleblower platform is publicly available, the operational business processes have become more transparent and especially work tasks of personnel from financial department are performed promptly and with less mistakes.
• Proactive reporting on data and information related to reported cases and case resolution processes enables quick notification of business managers and company executives, which enables instant reaction to identified misconducts and on-time remedy of the situation.
• Number of reported cases is slowly dropping, indicating that the misconducts related to inappropriate human relations, disturbances in work environment and business processes as well as quality of provided services and products improve with time and could in the near future result in increased profits for the client’s company.