Acerta Partners with ComplyLog to Create a Full HR Service

ComplyLog's whistleblower reporting tool IntegrityLog has been adopted by numerous European businesses to create a digital platform through which employees can report wrongdoing.

The company has also developed a number of partnerships with reselling partners across the EU. These are generally organisations that can utilise IntegrityLog to enhance their offering to their own customers.

One of these firms is Belgian HR service provider, Acerta Consult. With the implementation of the country’s Whistleblower Act (Belgium’s transposition of the EU Whistleblowing Directive), one of Acerta Consult’s priorities was to equip its clients with all the resources they needed to meet their new obligations.

Offering IntegrityLog helps Acerta Consult’s clients maintain compliance with the Whistleblower Act, as well as fostering an ethical internal culture that improves employee morale and reduces misconduct.

1. About Acerta Consult

Acerta Consult is Belgium’s largest HR service provider, with 25 offices across the country. The firm is dedicated to supporting start-ups, self-employed people, employers and accountants in handling employee interactions, recruitment and motivation, as well as providing legal advice and training amongst other services.

2. How the partnership began

To be able to best serve the company’s clients, Acerta Consult wanted to offer an internal reporting channel that would meet the obligations of the new whistleblowing law. The solution would also have to adhere to other EU legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Another consideration was cybersecurity. Given cybercrime cost businesses just less than €10 billion in 2021-22, Acerta Consult had to make sure any digital tool it supplied its clients would not compromise their systems.

After searching for the ideal whistleblowing solution to offer to customers, Florence Cordonnier – Acerta Consult’s Manager of Legal Consult – explained that the company tried out the IntegrityLog platform and liked what they saw.

Euronext Technologies, which monitors IntegrityLog and the other ComplyLog solutions, holds an ISO certificate and this was a key consideration when seeking a partnership. Being able to prove the product meets the statutory and regulatory requirements is of utmost importance when providing human resources support for businesses. Florence commented that many of the other options on the market lacked this reassurance, and that factored into the decision.

As with the other solutions under consideration, IntegrityLog underwent a thorough inspection from Acerta Consult’s IT department. Where the experts raised questions about some solutions, Florence Cordonnier confirmed that IntegrityLog passed their stringent evaluation.

3. Value of the partnership

Florence Cordonnier explained how the partnership adds value to Acerta Consult’s proposition for clients.

“We wanted to offer an A-to-Z solution for our clients, and that included giving them a tool that they could use as part of our legal service.”

For Acerta Consult, the aim was to make life easier for clients. This included setting them up to deal with the legal and regulatory landscapes through which they must navigate on a daily basis. The Whistleblower Act is a recent example of a law change that has caused challenges for companies within Belgium and the EU in general.

To help its clients meet these new requirements, Acerta Consult offers services such as public training sessions, in-house workshops and, as part of the partnership, an internal whistleblowing reporting solution.

Being able to demonstrate how the company guides customers through this legal process also enables it to cross-sell its services regarding other legislation. It is an opportunity for the business to offer a higher-tier package to clients looking to reduce the administrative burden on their compliance efforts.

4. How do Acerta Consult’s clients benefit?

Any partnership like this must benefit the end user to make it worthwhile. Acerta Consult’s clients need assistance with the new regulatory demands of the law, but in a manner that is straightforward, time-saving and user-friendly.

Florence highlighted the user experience aspect as being of prime importance. At a very basic level, in a country like Belgium, the ability to offer a reporting solution in one of the country’s official languages is a non-negotiable for optimal accessibility.

She said that a key selling point that makes the product suitable for clients was that the problem of localisation was already solved:

“The tool already works in Dutch, whereas some competitors were still working on that. I didn’t want to wait for the platform to catch up! This makes IntegrityLog more straightforward for employees to use.”

Conscious of the time clients have to spend on compliance, another benefit in Florence’s eyes is the ease with which businesses can get up and running. “Onboarding to IntegrityLog is simple and intuitive for our clients” said Florence Cordonnier, “The feedback we have received from our clients has been overwhelmingly positive and they particularly like the hands-on nature of the product.”

5. Conclusion

Acerta Consult’s decision to partner with ComplyLog as a reseller for IntegrityLog is the perfect fit for the packages the company offers its clients. It is able to supply a tool that meets their regulatory needs in a safe and secure manner, offering peace of mind. This is in-keeping with Acerta Consult’s goal to deliver a holistic HR package to customers and will continue to provide returns for the business, particularly in light of the looming December 2023 deadline for compliance with the EU Whistleblowing Directive and legislation derived from it for companies of between 50 and 249 employees.

Read more about ComplyLog’s Partner Programme.