Set up safety signals
Choose who reads safety signals, what Polzy reads answers for, where a signal goes next and how long closed signals are kept — all under Settings → Safety signals.
On this page
Safety signals send answers that describe a risk to someone's safety to a small team you choose. This page is where you choose that team, decide what Polzy reads answers for, and say where a signal should go next. Handling the signals themselves is described in Read and handle safety signals.
On Team and up, and on unless someone switched it off. Only Admins open Settings → Safety signals. Reviewers and the deputy must be Editors or Admins.
Before you start
- Pick at least two people. Editors or Admins of this workspace who sign in, and who can respond within the hour to a critical signal. One person alone is a single point of failure.
- Pick a deputy. Someone told when no reviewer has picked a signal up in time.
- Have your contacts ready. The address of your whistleblowing page, and an email address, phone number or team for product safety, if those categories apply to you.
- No need to avoid managers. Nobody is ever shown a signal written by someone in their own reporting line, so a reviewer who manages people is simply kept from their own team's signals.
Open the settings
- Open Settings in the sidebar, then the Safety signals tab. From the inbox, Safety settings takes you to the same place.
- The first section holds the Safety signals switch. Everything below it appears only while it is on.
Name reviewers and a deputy
- Under Who reads them, next to Reviewers, choose Choose and tick each person. You can name up to 10; only Editors and Admins are offered.
- Next to Deputy, choose one person.
- To take someone off, choose the × on their row. Every change saves straight away.
- Until you name reviewers, signals go to the organization's Owner and every Admin of this workspace.
- Once you have, Admins stop reading signals by their role: only the reviewers, the deputy and the Owner do. The Owner stays as the last line of escalation.
- A reviewer made a Viewer stays in the list with Now a Viewer: reads no signals until made an Editor or Admin, and reads nothing until you change their role or remove them. Someone who left shows No longer a member of this workspace.
- If that leaves no reviewer, signals fall back to the Owner and the Admins, and the inbox tells Admins so.
Choose what it reads for
Under What it reads for, each category has its own switch. Self-harm and Threat of violence are marked Always read and cannot be switched off.
| Category | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Self-harm | Someone thinking of harming or killing themselves |
| Threat of violence | A threat to hurt someone, or violence that happened |
| Sexual harassment or abuse | Unwanted sexual behaviour or abuse |
| Harassment, bullying or discrimination | Being targeted, mocked or treated unfairly |
| Safety incident | An accident or unsafe situation at work or an event |
| Injury from a product | Someone hurt by a product you make or sell |
| Fraud or ethics | Theft, fraud, corruption or another breach of ethics |
The template your workspace started from switched on the categories that suit it — for example Injury from a product for customer and product feedback, Fraud or ethics and Safety incident for employees. You own the list from then on.
Where it goes next
- Whistleblowing channel. The address of your reporting page, starting with
https://. Reviewers see it beside fraud and ethics signals. - Product safety contact. An email address, a phone number or a team. Reviewers see it beside signals about an injury from a product.
- Safeguarding workspace. Switch it on when the people answering may be minors. Sexual harassment or abuse is then always critical, and respondents are told that a concern may be passed to the designated safeguarding lead.
Response times and how long signals are kept
| Severity | Pick-up time |
|---|---|
| Critical | Picked up within an hour, or the deputy is told, then the Owner |
| High | Picked up within one business day at each step |
| Medium | Collected in the daily digest at 08:00 |
These times are the same for every workspace and are not a setting, so a signal never waits on one.
Months to keep closed signals sets how long a confirmed or closed signal is kept after it was closed: from 1 to 60 months, 12 unless you change it. A dismissed signal is always deleted 90 days after it was dismissed. Its conversation with the respondent goes with it.
The Safety team checklist
Beside the settings, Safety team sums up what they add up to:
- Reviewers. At least two reviewers named; only one reviewer named; or no reviewers named, in which case the Owner and Admins read signals.
- Deputy. A deputy is named, or no deputy yet.
- Whistleblowing channel. Set or missing — shown only while Fraud or ethics is read.
- Product safety contact. Set or missing — shown only while Injury from a product is read.
Switch safety signals off
A works council or a policy may ask you not to read comments for safety risks. You can switch it off, but not by accident.
- Turn off the Safety signals switch at the top of the tab, or in Settings → General under Participants.
- Read the confirmation: comments that describe a risk to someone's safety will no longer be read, and nobody will be told about them.
- Choose I understand, switch off. The change is recorded with your name in the audit log.
While it is off, the tab says Switched off. Comments in this workspace are not read for safety risks. Respondents no longer see the offer to be contacted about a comment, and the privacy notice no longer says comments are read for it. The support lines that appear when someone writes about harming themselves or someone else stay on every survey either way.
Troubleshooting
A safety reviewer or deputy must be an Editor or an Admin. — the person is a Viewer. Ask the Owner to change their role under Organization settings → Members first.
A safety reviewer must be a member of this workspace. — the person is not, or no longer, in this workspace. Invite them, or choose someone else.
Use a full address that starts with https://. — the whistleblowing channel must be a complete secure address, such as https://acme.com/speak-up.
A named reviewer is now a Viewer on the inbox — a reviewer or the deputy lost their Editor or Admin role. Restore it, or remove them and name someone else.
Good to know
- Each workspace names its own team and categories.
- The organization's own support line, shown to respondents beside the emergency numbers, is set under the privacy notice.
- What respondents see when they write about a risk is described in Answering a survey.
Related articles
Signed-in members can ask Polzy or message the team from Support. How fast we reply depends on your plan.