Confidential officer will be mandatory

What changes?

As an employer, you must provide a safe working environment for your staff. You must prevent improper conduct and psychosocial strain among your employees as much as possible. For this reason, it will soon be mandatory to appoint a confidential officer for your organisation (in Dutch). You can also work with confidential officer who works through a trade association or an occupational health and safety service.

The confidential officer will have a number of legal duties:

• support, guide, and advise employees who are or have been dealing with improper conduct, and, if necessary, refer them to a counsellor
• advise the employer, solicited and unsolicited, on how to prevent and deal with undesirable behaviour
• provide information about what a confidential officer does and what employees can contact them for
• annually report their observations to the employer, works council, or employee representatives

A confidential officer must maintain confidentiality and they cannot be disadvantaged or dismissed for performing their duties as a confidential adviser.

For whom?

• organisations with 10 or more employees

When?

It is not yet known when this change in Section 13a of the Working Conditions Act will enter into effect.

Please note: The effective date of this measure is not yet final. Entry into force is subject to its passing through the Lower and Upper Houses (Tweede en Eerste Kamer) of parliament and publication in the Staatsblad or Staatscourant (Government Gazette, in Dutch).