What makes an Ombuds function different?

By Doriana Vintila
Ombuds
PetrOmbudsman Department,

Ombuds have been around for quite a while now, in all areas of activity, either private or part of the public health or educational systems. However, from my experience of almost a decade since the opening of the Ombuds office in OMV Petrom, I feel that when people have a complaint, they still have a hard time deciding where to place it in their organization. This is because there are usually many functions in the same organization that deal with complaints, and there is more clarity needed on what each of them can do to help the individual. Most certainly, there are quite a handful of differences in the way Ombuds operate, as compared to formal functions.

This is the reason why our Ombuds team decided this year to film a short video, picturing our Ombuds Director and our company’s Compliance Director, as they answer some of the most frequently asked questions on how we conduct our activities. The result was a mirror interview between the Ombuds and Compliance Departments. Of course, this could be adapted and done as a mirror interview between Ombuds and any other function in an organization, be it HR, Legal, Trade Unions and so on.

After posting the video on our company’s internal blog many people congratulated our department on the initiative and thanked us for pointing out some of the key facts. We are now thinking of making this video part of our induction materials, to help new employees familiarize themselves with the concept of Ombuds, but also posting it permanently on our Ombuds main page, so that people can re-check on what exactly to expect when deciding to ask the Ombuds for help.

 

We hope you enjoy our video and invite you to share any comments or thoughts!

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