The Netherlands talks about a phased introduction of the mandatory confidential adviser act, so the legislative amendment, to support smaller organizations in having more time to prepare their ecosystem for this next step. The urgency of making a confidential adviser mandatory has increased, since we have spoken out on unacceptable behavior in the public debate. The plan to make a confidential adviser mandatory for organizations was in the making for quite some time.

The idea is that certain regulations should be able to support a safe corporate culture much more, as well as an ecosystem in which employees can speak up when necessary. Employers will have to take measures to enable the appointment of a confidential adviser. For example, they will have to bring the position of the confidential adviser to the attention of the employees, and train interested and suitable candidates for the role. This can take a lot of time, especially for small and medium-sized organizations. The proposed amendment to the memorandum allows for a phased application of the law.

Implementation times are based on the size of the organization. The maximum implementation period is 16 months, and the minimum implementation period is 4 months. This results in the following categories:

Large organizations with more than 250 employees: 4 months;
Medium-sized organizations with 50 to 250 employees: 8 months;
Small organizations with 10 to 50 employees: 12 months;
Micro organizations with less than 10 employees: 16 months.

Source: based on different articles.