Euralis reinvents its digital whistleblowing procedures with EQS Integrity Line
Sector: Agriculture / Food
Turnover: €1.64 billion
Employees: 5000+
Number of memebers: 6500
International presence: 16 pays
Created: 1936
In December 2022, the Euralis Cooperative Group chose EQS Integrity Line to overhaul its digital alert system. Explore our case study to understand the reasons behind this move and a behind-the-scenes account of its implementation.
While contributing to sustainable, plural, healthy and accessible agriculture and food, Euralis has deployed its reporting channel in order to:
- Facilitate and encourage whistleblowers to speak out
- Centralise alerts in a single reliable tool to simplify their management
This system complements the Group’s ethics charter to encourage a “speak-up” culture within the company. It offers a fourth channel for submitting reports in addition to the usually-used manager, HR and employee representatives.
A system in line with Euralis Group’s values
Euralis had already deployed a group-wide external whistleblowing system between 2018 and 2022 consisting of access through a dedicated web page along with a telephone hotline in each country where the organisation was operating. In addition, employees were and are still free to report their problems to their HR contacts or employee representatives. However, the southwest France-based group has strongly encouraged its employees to use the web platform to optimise and ensure the secure management of reports.
As Euralis gained experience digitising its reporting system, it became even more adamant that it should utilise a tool meeting all of its needs. Therefore, the decision was made to choose EQS Group as its new partner.
Above all, Euralis Group had three requirements that needed to be met:
- Price: Although quality remained important in terms of tool selection, the analysis of different solutions was also partly based on economic factors. Indeed, in the context of legislation protecting whistleblowers, Euralis did not want to lose sight of its objective to create local ethics teams in its main divisions and business units. The project required an increase in managers on the platform, which implied variations in cost depending on different providers.
- Language: Euralis is an international group with subsidiaries in 16 countries. As a result, the supplier’s tools and contacts had to be multilingual. Simplicity of communication is essential for a fluid relationship, especially when the implementation of such a tool requires a knowledge transfer stage.
- Ergonomics: The platform’s ease of use also had to be an attractive feature, encouraging its use and contributing to the "speak up" culture promoted by the group.
Communication – a collective effort
The project to implement the system was led by the group ethics team. However, other stakeholders were involved, such as the legal department, the information systems department, the HR department, the communications department and the data protection officer.
The HR Department was involved in informing the employee representative bodies about the change of tool and updating the information about the whistleblowing system on all Euralis sites. Similarly, Vincent Dupouy, the data protection officer, monitored GDPR compliance as the platform was deployed.
Once the employee representative bodies were informed, internal ocmmunication campaigns were conducted via several channels. First of all, an email was sent out in French and English by the group’s CEO to all employees. This email from the management body was supported by the publication of articles on the group’s internal social network. In addition, posters and brochures, translated for each country, were made available at all sites.
The ethics team ensured that employees and external stakeholders were aware of the whistleblowing system by means of the ethics charter. The last part of that document consisted of presenting the whistleblowing system and ensuring the anonymity of the whistleblower. The ethics team does not intend to stop there as it plans to periodically reiterate the existence of the whistleblowing tool to employees.
3 questions for Vincent DUPOUY :
Vincent DUPOUY
Data Protection Officer (DPO) at Euralis
Vincent Dupouy started at Euralis as a project and IT manager before joining the Group’s ethics team when it was created in 2018. He now holds the title of Data Protection Officer (DPO) at Euralis.
1. To what extent did we help you set up the system?
Initially, a Customer Success Manager was available for us for the entire roll out of the platform. We were able to benefit from a pre-configured platform according to our requirements. To do so, we simply had to fill out an online form to specify our preferences and then EQS Group took care of applying them.
As a second step, training was provided for the team in charge of administering the platform. In fact, a training course on alert management given by the EQS Group Customer Success Manager was duplicated by our organisation for our local ethics teams. In addition, EQS Group provided us with user guides that are very easy to understand.
2. What were the biggest challenges you faced when setting up the internal whistleblowing system?
This was not a challenge – it was a relatively standard project. However, the roll out of the tool was done in the context of setting up local ethics teams. All this has been new for our local ethics advisors who need to be trained on and acclimatised with the new system.
3. Have you opened the system to external parties such as suppliers and customers?
Yes, the platform is open to employees but also to suppliers and customers. For the moment, no communication about the new reporting tool has been made to these external stakeholders. However, our ethics charter is accessible to everyone on the Euralis website and mentions the existence of the platform.
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