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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Mushy mandates and scope creep: how investigators lose their way

“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.

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Why reply? Reflecting on the significance of reply interviews in a workplace investigation

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.

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Data and Investigation Series: How can organizations collect investigation data?

This is the second in a series of blog posts that I will be writing on data and investigations.
To recap, workplace investigations are also an invaluable source of data that organizations can use in a variety of ways – outside of the investigation process – to help their workplaces get into the zone – the optimal workplace that is characterized by respect, civility, tolerance, inclusivity, and no, or few, employment-related legal problems.

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“It wasn’t me”: When respondents deny everything and give you nothing

In the course of a workplace investigation, it is not unusual to encounter a respondent who simply denies the allegations, without offering any further information or explanation. While a simple denial may sometimes be a sufficient response to an allegation, there are instances where there is seemingly more to the story than what the respondent is offering.

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Neurodivergent interviewees: Tips for conducting fair and thorough investigations

Investigators typically follow the same process in every investigation. We gather evidence, usually through interviews, we use that evidence to make factual findings, and we analyse those findings to determine whether a breach of policy has occurred.

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Investigating counter-complaints: A roadmap

So, you found yourself dealing with what appears to be a counter-complaint in the investigation you are conducting. Before embarking on this bend in the road, the first step, and likely the most obvious, is to confirm what you are dealing with and whether it affects your mandate.

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