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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Rumour. Gossip. Hearsay.

Sometimes, allegations of workplace misconduct will be clearly articulated and will be backed up by first-hand evidence of inappropriate behaviour or harassment, and employers will take the appropriate steps to conduct a fair and impartial investigation to determine whether such allegations are well founded.

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Case law round-up on fairness: Recent examples of getting it right…and getting it wrong in workplace investigations

Fairness is something that we talk about a lot as investigators, although we appreciate that the term can sometimes feel a bit nebulous. Here we have rounded up a couple of recent cases that put the concept into effect, and highlight the importance of ensuring a fair and unbiased investigation…

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When catfishing comes to work: Assessing the authenticity of social media evidence in a workplace investigation

As workplace investigators in 2020, we routinely deal with issues in investigations that relate to technology, especially social media applications. In any given investigation, some portion of the alleged bullying might have taken place over Facebook, or Slack messages might provide critical evidence of sexual harassment.

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Workplace whistleblowing 101

This is the first in a series of blogs that I will be writing on workplace whistleblowing. There is not a lot of practical information available on the topic and I want to help shed some light on how employers can be better prepared to deal with employees who blow the whistle.

I am somewhat of an anomaly in that I have a lot of hands-on experience with this subject matter. I have managed whistleblowing programs, conducted intake interviews with whistleblowers and investigated alleged wrongdoing disclosed by whistleblowers.

For this blog, I thought that a good place to start would be to provide general information about workplace whistleblowing given that it is a topic that is foreign to many.

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Workplace investigation alert – injunctions in investigations: Do they ever work?

There is no question that workplace investigations are disruptive and difficult for the parties involved.  Sometimes parties are removed from the workplace or their duties are modified.  Complainants and respondents are often concerned about damage to their reputations and their careers once it is known that a complaint has been made, and that an investigation is being conducted.

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Employee who is harassed, slapped in the face, and then fired for cause gets $200,000 in damages

Sometimes, when I tell people that I conduct workplace investigations for a living, I am met with surprise. “There is a need for that?” they ask, often adding their view that harassment is a thing of the past. When I explain that it is not only harassment that is a problem in Canadian workplaces, but also violence, I am often met with complete disbelief.

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Credibility assessments – A case study

As an investigator, one of the questions I get asked most often is, “How do you know who is telling the truth?” It is a great question, and one that I think all investigators grapple with. Indeed, one of the hardest parts of report-writing is drafting the credibility section. My colleague Megan Forward previously provided a “credibility assessment lexicon” that can come in handy when writing about a party’s credibility. A recent arbitration decision out of Alberta provides some valuable pointers on how to properly assess the credibility of a party’s evidence.

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The icing on the cake: An unfair investigation into a joke gone viral

Recently, in the town of Lorette, Manitoba (Pop. 3,208), which is 25 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg, a little inside joke made a very big public splash. The medium? Cake icing. The platform? Snapchat. At a time when employees constantly scroll through their IPhone notifications, mean jokes blasted over social media easily infiltrate the workplace.

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