Heroes and Traitors – the first year of the whistleblowing system

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 02. 12. 09:50

Throughout the European Union, including here, it has been at least a year since the companies required to do so have introduced their whistleblowing systems. Although abuses can cause damage of up to 5% of a company’s profit, there is still no information about the experiences so far. The reason for this is that, on the one hand, the defining feature of the system is discretion and anonymity, and on the other hand, due to very significant cultural differences, the perception of novelty differs significantly between the individual EU countries. Summary of the Hungarian head of Munipolis.

For a year, every organization employing more than 50 employees must operate a whistleblowing system. Several organizations under 250 employees can operate one jointly, while those above this number are required to do so independently. Since reports received through such systems are by their nature and by law subject to discretion, it is understandable that we are in vain looking in news reports to see whether systems that have been in operation for at least a year, and even longer in the case of large companies, are being used at all, ‒ introduced the topic by Erik Czinger, the domestic manager of Munipolis, which operates corporate communication networks.

Although there is still far from sufficient experience in Hungary, much more data is available in the Czech Republic, where Munipolis and the integrated whistleblowing solution have been used and developed for 10 years. It is clear that the possibility of reporting abuse significantly supports the operation of communities, their trust and the members’ sense of comfort. Incidentally, Munipolis did not develop this module as a standalone application, but integrated the FaceUp solution of one of the leading global service providers, which operates in more than 3,500 organizations in 60 countries.

An important lesson, added Erik Czinger, is how different people’s fundamental attitudes to the issue are, e.g. in the western-northern and eastern countries of the EU. While in the former regions the whistleblower is proud to expose a violation of norms and is almost seen as a hero by the environment, here anyone who reports anything is “betraying”. For this reason, whistleblowing systems in Eastern Europe only work well where the organization’s or company’s management explicitly encourages and trains its employees to use them.