Since most workplace investigations involve something contested, most investigation reports will disappoint one party or the other. Indeed, since very few workplace disputes are exclusively the responsibility of one party alone, it is entirely possible if you put your mind to it that at one level or another your report will be a disappointment to … Continue Reading
Your report is done, so what next? Where does it go now and what should you do with all your papers? As a rule, your “client” for the purposes of the investigation is your employer, not any one or more of the individuals who may have participated in it. It needs to be able to … Continue Reading
So you have asked your questions and made your notes and looked at any relevant documents. You have formed the necessary views about what happened if that is the question or why it did if that is the issue instead. Now you just have to write it all down and a good job done, yes? … Continue Reading
One question which may come up at or before you plunge into your investigation questions is that of legal representation at the meeting for the witness. If the employee says that he wishes to bring his lawyer, do you have to agree? If not, should you agree anyway? The law on this is very clear … Continue Reading
A great deal of the available guidance on conducting workplace investigations relates to the form of your questions of the parties involved, and in particular to whether they should be open, closed, or leading. This is the difference between: “And what happened next?” – open, because the answer can go off in any direction; “Did … Continue Reading
Right. You have now done all the prior preparation for your investigation which you can – identified the relevant policies, noted the points you need to get at, maybe heard what the complainant wants out of it all, understood the limits of your own brief and made sure that there is no avoidable reason why … Continue Reading
The increased spotlight upon D&I matters which seems to be replacing covid as our clients’ dish of the day shines upon investigations too. How you investigate employees’ disclosures or complaints (especially but by no means necessarily, of discrimination or harassment) can make a considerable difference as to how those employees and others sharing their protected … Continue Reading
Once you have done all the scoping out and refining of allegations you can before starting your investigation, there will come the point where you have to raise the allegations made with the people they are made against. If the allegations are false, those people will be very angry. If they are true, they will … Continue Reading
Decades of presenting employment law training have taught me that if you ask seasoned HR audiences what they think employees usually want from a grievance, they will generally lie. “Justice“, someone will mutter uncomfortably, or “for the truth to come out”, “a better relationship with their manager” or “to correct a wrong“, all straining every … Continue Reading
When drawing up your preliminary note of what you need to know as the product of your investigation, remember that the people being investigated have rights too. Some we will come to later in this series, including confidentiality and a fair process, but the first and most fundamental part of a fair “trial” is knowing … Continue Reading
There will be few in HR who have not at some time been served with one of those employee grievances which says, paraphrasing only slightly, “I am really unhappy in my work. I have recently discovered that I have been really unhappy for many years. Clearly this cannot be my fault in any way, so … Continue Reading
At a very early stage in your investigation you are going to need to work out what you need to know. Is it literally just the bald facts of what happened, or does it go further into the why? Is there any particular legal, contractual or policy definition in play which will dictate (or at … Continue Reading
Today we start a new series of posts tackling the vexed area of workplace investigations. We will look at the background law, of which there is very little, and at best practice guidance, of which there is more than can possibly all be useful. We will offer some examples of investigations done badly and consider … Continue Reading
