You have finished the interviews. The complainant says her manager made the comment in a one-on-one meeting with the door closed. The manager says it never happened. Nobody else was in the room, there is no recording, and both of them looked you in the eye. Leadership wants to know what you found.
This is the point where many investigations stall, and where the weakest reports are written: "the allegation could not be substantiated because it was one person's word
An injured employee is released to light duty, HR offers a suitable assignment, and the employee says no. What happens next depends on which laws apply, and often more than one does. Under the FMLA, the employee generally has the right to say no. Under workers' compensation, saying no may cost them wage benefits. Under the ADA, the answer depends on whether light duty is an accommodation and whether the employee can do the essential functions without it.
HR's job is to apply each law ...
Two documents prevent this: an HR investigation form for intake, completed when the complaint is received, and an investigation plan, written before the first interview. This article gives you both as templates, explains how to fill them in, and shows a completed example.
Why These Two Documents Matter
An employer is generally liable for coworker or third-party harassment if it knew or should have known about it and failed to take prompt and appropriate
The interviews are done, your notes run to forty pages, and now someone has to turn all of it into a document a vice president, an agency investigator, or a jury could read and follow. If you are looking for a sample investigation report or an HR investigation template, you are probably at that point.
This article gives you a template you can copy, explains what belongs in each section, and then shows a complete worked sample using a fictional
A light-duty offer made in a hallway conversation is almost worthless. If the employee later says they were never offered work, or that the work did not fit their restrictions, the employer has nothing to show. In workers' compensation cases, a written, specific offer of suitable work is often what decides whether wage benefits continue. In FMLA cases, the wording decides whether the offer respects the employee's right to decline.
This article covers when to send a written light-duty ...
A complaint has arrived and it is yours to handle. Whether it is a harassment allegation, a suspected theft, or a claim that a manager retaliated against someone, the HR investigation process follows the same sequence: receive, protect, plan, gather, interview, weigh, decide, document, act, and follow up. Skipping a step is where most defensibility problems start.
This guide walks through how to conduct a workplace investigation in ten steps. Each step links to a
Most employers have a return-to-work practice. Far fewer have a return-to-work policy that says the same thing to every supervisor, every adjuster and every employee. The gap shows up when a supervisor tells an injured worker "come back when you're 100%," when one employee gets a transitional assignment and another with the same restrictions does not, or when a light-duty offer is framed in a way that pressures an employee to give up FMLA leave.
A written policy fixes those problems ...
A cashier has been accused of threatening a coworker. A controller's expense reports do not add up. A supervisor is named in a harassment complaint by someone who reports to him. In each case you need the person out of the workplace today, before you know what happened. The next question comes from payroll: is this paid administrative leave pending investigation, or unpaid?
For most private employers the safest default is paid leave. This article explains why, when
The complainant wants to know when it will be over. The accused employee, sitting at home on leave, wants to know even more. The department head asks every morning. If you are asking how long does an HR investigation take, you probably have at least one of these people waiting for an answer.
For most private employers, no law sets a number of days. The legal standard is "prompt," and whether you met it is judged on the facts. This article explains what that
The single best way to get a usable return-to-work release is to stop waiting for one. When HR lets the treating provider write whatever fits on a prescription pad, the result is "may return to light duty" with no detail, and the next week goes to phone tag. When HR sends its own return-to-work form, with the job's essential functions attached and specific fields to complete, the provider answers the questions HR actually needs answered.
This article explains what the form should ...
An employee stops by your office and says, "I don't want to file anything, I just want you to know my supervisor keeps commenting on my body." A manager forwards an anonymous note about someone padding expense reports. Two coworkers have not spoken in a month and one finally sends a long email about "a toxic environment."
Which of these needs an employee relations investigation, and which can be handled with a conversation?
No
Most employees searching for a "return to work doctor's note" want to know what to bring back. HR's question is the other side of it: when can we require one, what should it say, and what are we not allowed to ask? The answer depends on why the employee was out. The FMLA, the ADA, workers' compensation and state or local paid sick leave laws each set different rules, and a note policy that ignores them can turn a routine absence into a compliance problem.
When a Return-to-Work Note
...Outside counsel has just told you she will sit in on tomorrow's interviews and "give the Upjohn warning" before each one. Or your general counsel has asked you to gather facts for him and to tell witnesses the conversation is privileged. Either way, you need to know what an Upjohn warning is, what it does to your investigation, and what it does not do.
The short version: the warning tells an employee that the lawyer
A fitness-for-duty evaluation is one of the most useful tools HR has when an employee's health may be affecting safety or performance, and one of the easiest to get wrong. Order one without a solid reason and the employer has made an unlawful medical inquiry under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Skip one when the warning signs are obvious and the employer may be left explaining an injury it could have prevented.
This guide covers when the ADA allows an evaluation of a ...
You have an interview scheduled for 2 p.m. with an employee accused of falsifying time records. Ten minutes in, she says, "I want my steward here." What you do in the next thirty seconds decides whether the interview is lawful. Weingarten rights are simple on paper, and most violations happen because a manager kept talking when the law required a pause.
This article explains who holds Weingarten rights today, what triggers them, what the representative can and
1-770-410-1219
support@HRTrainingCenter.com
770-410-1219
