We love hearing from our clients about how the introduction of FaceUp has worked well and how it’s helping them improve their company culture. We are often asked how FaceUp works in practice, so we’ve asked some of our clients about their specific experiences. SPORTISIMOSport equipment retailer SPORTISIMO has more than 200 stores across 5 countries and employs over 4,000 people. The company’s management assumed that they wouldn't receive especially serious reports. After a year of using our platform, the reality is that their reports don’t reference fraud or serious problems, but instead contain suggestions or requests which have proven to be worth addressing: “For example, someone asked if we might be able to change the music that plays in our stores more frequently. Another employee asked why we don’t have a women’s version of a popular type of men’s size 42 shoes. At first glance, they may appear to be rather mundane issues which management don’t see due to their professional blindness, but addressing these things leads to a happier workforce,” explains Thomas Rodney. SPORTISIMO receives an average of 15 reports per month and many of them are ideas of how to improve things from employees who are too shy to speak up in person.   Brno-Centre Municipal OfficeThe introduction of FaceUp was also extremely important for the Brno-Centre Municipal Office. Their management were concerned that the option to send reports anonymously would result in slander. However, this didn’t materialise. Thanks to FaceUp, their management learnt of a case of long-term bullying in the workplace and were able to successfully resolve the issue.  A slightly unexpected albeit useful dimension that FaceUp gave us was in the area of labour relations. We received several anonymous reports from employees about bullying. After an investigation, we terminated our working relationship with one of the heads of a large department of the Brno-Centre Municipal Office and in another case we placed several employees under different leadership. This then led to increased overall productivity in this office,” describes Peter Stika, secretary at the Brno-Centre Municipal Office.  ADvTechADvTECH is South Africa’s largest private education provider. All of ADvTECH’s 7 580 staff members, teachers, lecturers and students between Grades 4 and 12 at its 96 schools throughout South Africa has access to the app. "Using FaceUp, reports that have come through have been resolved far more efficiently than any other platform or method we have used in the past. Another advantage is that reporters can track what is happening with their report and the status of any investigations that are taking place. Our experience has been excellent, " says Vanessa Crawford, HR Manager at ADvTech. AKKAIndustrial company AKKA produces tools, systems and components for the automobile, railway and aviation industries. They decided to implement FaceUp to be able to communicate better with their employees and get feedback from them: “It was about connecting management with workers. We used to hold regular meetings, but no one raised anything. Now, before each event we invite employees to use FaceUp to tell us what’s on their mind. People really do send in questions which gives us a point of discussion for the meetings.” Vitkovice Steel Vitkovice Steel is a steel company which operates out of the Vitkovice ironworks in Ostrava and employs 900 people. After introducing a whistleblowing platform, their employees started sending around 5-7 reports a month. The reports were mainly generic queries or people seeking reassurance. For example, employees checked if they had correctly understood management communications.  FaceUp is helping to improve their company culture - just after they introduced the platform, 70% of people wrote reports anonymously, now that’s down to just 30%. Employees have understood that they really can ask anything and are no longer scared to write under their own name.  What are companies generally facing? According to our clients, these are the issues most commonly shared by their employees through FaceUp in recent years: When war broke out in Ukraine, many employees started to worry for the future of the company and their own work position. When companies go through a restructuring (for example, after an acquisition), employees asked about new processes, flagged points of confusion, and expressed their concerns for the future. The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it a wide range of measures and regulations which companies had to communicate to their employees. Employees then asked about regulations details or checked if they had understood the information correctly.  Do you need advice on how to effectively introduce a whistleblowing platform? 

What did the introduction of FaceUp to the Brno-Centre Municipal Office bring? And why has there been an increase in overall productivity across the workplace? Read our interview with the secretary of the Brno-Centre Municipal Office, Bc. Petr Štika, MBA, LL.M. First you introduced an anti-corruption hotline and then subsequently were the first authority in the Czech Republic to introduce an online whistleblowing platform. What motivated you to introduce these channels? "We started using an anonymous whistleblowing channel several years ago because we wanted to increase the city hall’s transparency and introduce an effective tool to prevent corruption. We wanted to give everyone who has been in contact with the office or the organisations of our city district and has witnessed corruption or unethical conduct to be able to report it. We imagined that the option of anonymous reporting would be used by goods or service suppliers who had been unsuccessful and maybe the employees of entrepreneurs who have worked with our city district. We assumed that these target groups in particular would be fearful of reporting suspicious activities that they might have witnessed.” Why did you switch from an anti-corruption hotline to a whistleblowing platform and what do you see as the differences between the two?“A fundamental and significant difference between the two is that when a whistleblower submits a report through a whistleblowing platform you can keep communicating with them, provide feedback, and clarify their report. When reporting through a whistleblowing platform a whistleblower can stay anonymous, the system generates a numerical code with which they can log into their report, receive feedback, add to their report, and maintain contact with the recipient of the report.” How has the introduction of this channel gone for you? What has it improved?“The introduction of an anonymous whistleblowing channel has worked out really well for us. Originally we only thought of it as a tool for preventing corrupt conduct. Nevertheless, whistleblowers do use the tool. We have already received several dozen reports through it. At the beginning we were a little concerned from an ethical standpoint that the ability to send anonymous reports through the channel would result in slander and abuse. But this did not materialise. The reports that we have received so far have been relatively factual and concrete. We were able to investigate them and come to objective conclusions. Thanks to these reports we have also taken a range of other measures. From this perspective, it is an excellent tool for improvement. However, we are prepared for slanderous reports, that is whose goal is not to draw attention to breaches of the law but to unfairly damage someone’s name through the whistleblower’s actions. From my many years of experience in leadership positions I know that the only way to effectively combat slander is to fully investigate, and if the claim is false, fully refute it. That way you clear the person’s name who the slander was aimed at and you maintain good internal culture within your organisation. This is why an anonymous channel is suitable.  After investigating several reports we terminated our working relationship with the head of a large department of the Brno-Centre Municipal Office. What is interesting is that overall productivity then increased in this workplace.  A slightly unexpected albeit useful dimension that we have obtained from the anonymous whistleblowing channel is in the area of labour relations. We received several anonymous reports from employees about bullying. We took this very seriously, as our work environment is very important to us. After their investigation, we terminated our working relationship with one of the heads of a large department of the Brno-Centre Municipal Office and in another case we placed several employees under different leadership. Thanks to this anonymous whistleblowing channel we were able to create better working conditions for our employees. What was interesting is that overall productivity then increased in this workplace.”

Sports equipment retailer SPORTISIMO has more than 200 stores in 5 countries and employs more than 4,000 people. In order for employees to be able to anonymously send in suggestions of how they might improve the way the company runs, they introduced the online tool FaceUp at the beginning of 2021. Company HR Director Thomas Rodney is delighted with that decision.  Extremely useful, albeit less serious, reportsFaceUp is an online platform created especially for the anonymous reporting of unfair or illegal conduct within companies (also known as ‘whistleblowing’). However, employees can also use the tool to make less serious suggestions to help improve the company, which happens very often in practice.  “SPORTISIMO is open to employee feedback, which is why we carry out a survey each month, asking staff about a predetermined issue. We introduced FaceUp as more of a complementary tool, a hotline through which people can anonymously raise a given matter. To be truthful, we only expected to receive a small number of reports, for example about serious breaches of internal regulations or even law breaking,” recalls Thomas Rodney. However the reality was quite the opposite. During a year of operation, SPORTISIMO employees submitted over 180 reports. That’s an average of 15 per month. The majority of these reports were in fact not about serious matters, but more everyday issues. But they were still extremely valuable.  “For example, one person suggested that we change the music in our stores more often. Another employee asked why we don’t have a women’s version of a popular men’s size 42 shoe. At first glance they might be dismissed as trivial, things which management is blind to, but it’s worth dealing with them as it leads to higher employee satisfaction,” continues Thomas Rodney. Initial fears of misuse of the tool quickly disappearedFaceUp is particularly praised for the simplicity of its implementation and use. “FaceUp has made our work a lot easier. The application interface and all materials are translated into five languages and they have even prepared marketing materials such as flyers. As a result, we’ve been able to introduce FaceUp into all our stores in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary,” added Rodney, who has worked for SPORTISIMO for five years. FaceUp is a simple online whistleblowing platform, which an employee can learn to use within a couple of minutes. Initial fears that FaceUp wouldn’t be used or that employees would abuse it by overwhelming it with nonsense reports proved to be unfounded. “It didn’t happen even once. The overwhelming majority of reports are really relevant, they quickly reach the appropriate person and in turn we resolve the matter. Through FaceUp you can communicate further with the person who sent the report, albeit anonymously, should you need further details or clarification. More straightforward issues we’re able to deal with in 24 hours, the more complex ones within a week or two. Most conversations end with the author of the report thanking us for dealing with the issue,” reveals Thomas Rodney. Thomas Rodney has no doubt that he would recommend FaceUp to other companies: "I absolutely recommend FaceUp to any company which, like us, has a number of branches over a large area, for instance over several countries. In such an environment it can be difficult to systematically collect feedback from employees, but thanks to this anonymous platform, it is possible,” he concludes.