When a harassment complaint, ethics violation, or policy breach lands on your desk, the quality of your investigation determines everything — legal exposure, employee trust, and organizational credibility all hang in the balance. Basic investigation skills aren't enough for complex cases involving multiple witnesses, conflicting accounts, or potential litigation. That's where advanced workplace investigation training comes in. These programs go beyond the fundamentals to teach you how ...
When an employee complaint lands on your desk — whether it involves harassment, discrimination, theft, policy violations, or workplace violence — the quality of your investigation determines your organization's legal exposure and its culture. A poorly conducted investigation can result in lawsuits, regulatory action, and irreparable damage to employee trust. A thorough, well-documented one protects the organization and demonstrates that you take every complaint seriously. Yet ...
The subject of retaliation needs to be emphasized in training sufficiently for employees to be able to:
As information is gathered during an internal investigations, the amount of paper collected can be quite significant. This may include samples of employee's work products, spreadsheets, reports, work schedules, photocopies of time cards, security logs, etc. Listed below are some recommendations for Security Protocols:
Physical and documentary evidence during a workplace or internal investigation must be retained in the same state as when received, and physical evidence needs to have a “chain of custody“ established. Chain of custody refers to the documentation of the collection, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence. Documentation for evidence must include:
A common trend among poor performing employees is to suddenly raise allegations of harassment or discrimination by lodging complaints with the HR department - at precisely the time he/she is being held accountable for poor performance or behavior. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that even though an employee's complaint may not have any merit, the complaint must still be investigated. Also, if the employee should suffer adverse treatment after having made a complaint, the ...
A “retaliation“ claim generally can be defined as illegal conduct or action that harasses, demotes, terminates an employee, or takes other action affecting employment such as threats, unjustified negative evaluations, unjustified negative references, increased surveillance, or any other action such as an assault or unfounded civil or criminal charges that are likely to deter reasonable people from pursuing their rights.
Investigative files should be kept separate from the personnel files. Since it is not a personnel file, the investigative records are not included in regular HR related document destruction schedules. These files should also not be made available for employee review. Investigative records may be kept in legal counsel's office or, if that is impracticable, within HR in a separate file cabinet with key access strictly restricted. Generally, not all HR people will have a need to see ...
In situations where the employer believes a criminal act has occurred, engaging the police immediately is critical. In engaging the police, it allows the company to leverage local law enforcement to investigate the case by obtaining a police report. The police report provides the company with an official document that states what the facts of the case are and/or the incident that actually occurred. Additionally, the police report “opens up a case“ for law enforcement and gives ...
As part of the organizational complaint procedures for a Internal Investigations, it is also a good best practice to develop a Statement of Complaint document.
A good Statement of Complaint document will ask for important information to clarify a complaint and to identify the level of significance. This will help employers identify the true nature - and the seriousness - of the ...
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a cornerstone of employee rights, providing critical job-protected leave for personal and family health crises. For HR professionals, administering FMLA is a masterclass in balancing empathy with compliance. However, two significant challenges can turn this balancing act into a high-wire routine: suspected FMLA abuse and the ever-present risk of retaliation claims. Navigating these issues requires more than just a basic understanding of the law; it ...
An employee comes to your office and closes the door. They proceed to share a deeply troubling account of harassment by a coworker. In that moment, your organization arrives at a critical juncture. The actions you take next will not only determine the outcome of this specific situation but will also send a powerful message about the company's values, its commitment to employee safety, and its legal fortitude. This is the moment a workplace investigation begins, and for an
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