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Being trauma-informed is something that we are hearing quite a lot about in the space of workplace investigations, and rightly so. There is a lot of good conversation happening as employers, investigators, lawyers, human resource personnel, etc., are all starting to understand and appreciate the value and importance of conducting trauma-informed workplace investigations.
“If you can’t write out your mandate in a short and simple paragraph, don’t start.”
When delivering our Workplace Investigation Fundamentals sessions, this is how I start the discussion on mandate. Simply put, an investigator’s mandate is the thing (or things) that they are being asked to do, the decision (or decisions) that they are being asked to make.
As a workplace investigator and a team lead for a group of fellow RT investigators, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about reply interviews. Anyone who has conducted an investigation themselves or reviewed an investigator’s report can probably appreciate why: the reply or follow-up interview is a place where the need to balance the fairness, neutrality, thoroughness, and confidentiality of the investigation really comes into focus.
We speak (and blog and train) often about how to conduct a workplace investigation. However, it’s important to remember that employers need to be aware of their legal obligations relating to when to start one and how to finish it. Two recent decisions provide important information about these investigation bookends.
Under Ontario’s human rights jurisprudence, when an employee raises a complaint of discrimination, the employer has a duty to address that complaint. The employer’s response to a complaint, including the investigation it undertakes, must meet a standard of “reasonableness.”
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