Getting your company’s harassment prevention policies and practices into place is key.
But once this happens, your organization may be faced with the need to investigate claims of harassment.
In recent months, it seems that as soon as someone is accused of misconduct, the accused individual is assumed to have engaged in the behaviors. This cannot happen in your workplace.
Once a concern about misconduct arises in the workplace, the next step is to conduct a fair, objective and impartial investigation to determine what happened. The goal is to get to the truth.
Typically, human resources department can conduct an investigation into allegations between co-workers or supervisors. For allegations involving executives, or complaints made within human resources, an external third-party investigator may be necessary.
Organizations should treat everyone in the process with fairness, confidentiality and respect.
The investigation needs to be conducted in a confidential location.
The complainant will typically be interviewed first. I generally do not record the interviews, but take careful notes. When interviews are recorded, it sometimes causes the witness to be guarded. The interviews should not feel like an interrogation, but a conversation to get to the truth.
The accused should generally not be made aware of the allegations until he or she is interviewed. Giving an accused advanced warning about the complaint prior to the interview could cause the accused to attempt to influence witnesses, delete electronic information or develop a false narrative.
In the interview, the accused should first be asked if there is anyone who would want to make false allegations against him or her. In this scenario, if the accused is having an affair that just ended, or just gave a corrective action to an employee, the investigator will have this information up front to consider.
Ultimately, if the accused and complainant’s version of events differ, the investigator will need to determine the truth.
In a he said/she said, someone is lying, and it’s the investigator’s job to use his or her training and experience to determine who that is.
Allowing an investigation to end with no conclusion means that someone in your organization lacks integrity and/or has lied, and it may result in a continuation of the misconduct.
The results of the investigation should be shared only with those who will be faced with making a decision on the outcome.
It is not necessary to determine if someone has violated federal discrimination laws, since organizations should have policies prohibiting this type of behavior and can rely upon the violation of those policies to determine if employment action should be taken.
The results of the investigation should not go into anyone’s personnel file and should be kept separate.
If an individual is being disciplined as a result of the investigation, the discipline should be in writing and kept in that person’s file.
For behaviors that violate a harassment policy, a first and final written warning is recommended if the person is not being terminated.
The organization must show that it took prompt corrective action to end the behaviors in the future. This is true even if the accused is your best salesperson, CEO or someone “important.” No one can be above your policies or the law.
No participant in the investigation can be retaliated against, and it is critical that whoever is in management overseeing the investigation emphasizes this.
Many people fear coming forward over concerns of retaliation.