How do I inform employees about the reporting channel?

The procedure must be findable and understandable

Informing employees about the reporting channel means, in essence: making the reporting procedure available in such a way that everyone can find and understand it, even before there is anything to report. This is different from simply putting a page online. The procedure should describe who receives a report, how someone can report — in writing, orally, and if desired anonymously — and what the deadlines are: acknowledgement of receipt and, later, information about what happens with the report. This information should be located somewhere where an employee will actually encounter it: on the intranet, in the employee handbook, during the introduction of new employees.

In addition, the information should also direct an employee to the possibility of reporting externally, to a competent authority instead of to the employer itself. This is not an optional extra: the Directive explicitly names it as part of what an internal procedure must contain. A reporting channel that exists but that no one knows about, or of which no one knows how it works, does not in practice meet the purpose of the regulation — even if it has been formally established.

Article 7 and 9 of the Directive, Article 2 Wbk

Article 7 of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 requires employers to set up internal reporting channels; Article 9 of the same Directive describes what requirements the procedure itself must meet, including clear and easily accessible information about the procedure and about the possibility of reporting externally. Article 2 of the Whistleblower Protection Act elaborates this for the Netherlands in the elements that the internal reporting procedure must contain, including the seven-day deadline for acknowledgement of receipt and three months for information about the assessment. These provisions concern the content and accessibility of the procedure, not the way an employer communicates this precisely — the law leaves that to the employer itself.