Questions in an Investigation

No one enjoys conducting an investigation but the more facts gathered, the more effective and accurate your decision and verdict can be. In this episode Pandy shares questions to ask and facts to gather while conducting an investigation of any kind.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Investigations. We're going to hit a topic I haven't talked about for a while. Investigations. Look, if you're listening to this show, if you have not done an investigation in the last month, or for some of my clients, they're doing them on a weekly basis, you're going to love the show because we're going to talk about the questions that you should be asking if you receive a complaint of any kind. And I say that because, in all truthfulness, if someone's coming to you, whether they're talking about their pay, they're talking about a possible uh harassment claim, they're talking about why they didn't get a promotion, why they feel like they're being discriminated against. Remember, you've got major federal agencies watching over how you react to this stuff: wage an hour, National Labor Relations Board, uh, EEOC. And how you handle these situations is almost a guarantee of how the outcome is going to come out if you have to be faced with a conversation with the EEOC or one of these agencies. So I really want to go through and remind all of you what information should you be gathering? And remember, one of the key items when we're talking investigations is that you should be doing this on a very timely manner. You don't put any grass at all between you and the situation. And make sure that if you're not going to conduct the investigation, the individuals who are are going to be thorough. And that's why I love this list that I'm about to give you, because you can literally just hand this list to someone and say, here you go. Here's the path. Get as much information around these particular topics and questions, and then we'll go from there. So start out with the first. Who committed the alleged activity? If someone's coming and complaining about someone, don't just say, I'm not comfortable here, I feel harassed. That's not enough information. What exactly occurred or was said that makes them feel harassed? When did the incident occur? And and keep in mind too, when we're asking for who, we're asking for both the first and last name. We want the details. How many gyms or Joes or Bobs do you have in the company? Ask the full first and last name. Ask when you ask the time or when it happened. Are you talking about Monday? And if you're talking about Monday, is it was it Monday the third, Monday the 10th, Monday the 17th? When did it happen? Who did it and what exactly occurred? Is it still going on? Is it a one-shot deal, or is this something that's actually become a pattern? And if it has, is it still going on? I love the question, and this is on every workplace questionnaire on injuries. Where did it happen? Give me the the the details. You don't just say parking lot. Is it the front parking lot? Is it the back parking lot? Was it in the back of our only parking lot? Or was it in the front of our only parking lot? Where did it happen? Dock one, dock ten, building four, building five? Is it still going on? And why? Why are there any indicators that suggest a source of the motivation? Was there a trigger? There's you know, was it a conversation that turned into a brawl? Is this something that you saw coming that you expected? How often does it occur? Only at lunchtime? After hours? How is it affecting you as a person, as an employee? You know, in many cases, individuals will actually win harassment cases because if it if the harassment is so, if the act or the whatever activity is going on is so severe that the individual cannot continue working, it affects their productivity, it's a help affecting their mental health, there's no getting around it, whether it's per it whether the individual perceives the intent to be harassing or not, it's harassment. And you've got to be very careful about that kind of stuff, especially if it's repeated and um it's it's truly affecting the individual. But get a description of how the individual is reacting. Build on that story, take it further. Is this affecting their attendance? Is it affecting their their ability to complete work on time? Is it affecting their ability to even participate with the team? All this is information that will be absolutely vital for you. Because again, remember, you're building this story, you're asking the whys, the where's, the whos. This is all going to help you come up with a more accurate decision. Has the job been affected in any way? Is very, very important. Very important. Has anyone else been treated this way? Do you believe that you're the only person, or is this uh something that the whole department is experiencing? Has have people, uh, the other individuals in the department, though they're not the individual harassing you, are they treating you differently because of it? You know, rumors, that that rumors are a perfect example of that particular situation. I've heard some really crazy rumors told about individuals. And we've talked about gossiping being a form of bullying. You know, if if someone, if a rumor gets started around about someone and people start believing that rumor, they start treating that person entirely different. And that just destroys a culture, it destroys the morale of your team. It can do a horrible damage. And if you don't really stop that quickly by gathering all the right information so that you know you're dressing the right people, you you're gonna make a big mistake. Does anyone else have relevant information about what's going on? And what I mean by that is again, was there a witness? Is there anyone else experiencing the same thing? Was there anyone present when the alleged activity occurred? Maybe if there's a bystander, we need to know. How about did the individual filing the complaint, did they tell anyone else about this situation? Have they shared details? If the incident first started a month ago and has been repeating itself, who knew about it a month ago? We want to know what they know. And why didn't they come and tell us about the situation? Why have they not come and tried to help us uh be aware of it? Because again, the company can't fix something if we don't know about it. And one of the questions you need to ask as an investigator is uh going to other supervisors, other individuals go to HR if you're not HR, but are there any other complaints about the individual that that's supposedly the alleged perpetrator, the person who's supposedly doing all this? How deep does this story go? Because there might be other supervisors dealing with employees filing similar complaints, and you wouldn't have any idea without asking. And they don't know what to do with their information or their situation because they didn't know that you were dealing with it. What about any notes, any physical evidence or other documentation regarding the incident that your um victim or alleged victim could provide you? And this is this has happened to me a number of times, and it has really worked well for me. Text messages, emails, social media, oh my goodness. In fact, it by asking and gathering that information, remember, anything can be subpoenaed if it goes much further into litigation, but gathering that information has literally flipped situations for me where the individual filing the complaint was actually the perpetrator. And they were angry or upset, and so they decided to set the other individual up. It's amazing what you can, what you can actually get out of a story or where your story is going to take you if you keep asking the right questions. What about any additional information pertaining to the incident that the individual might want to discuss? And if not, how about their supervisor? If their supervisor was not mentioned as a witness, if their supervisor wasn't mentioned as a part of the activity in any way, shape, or form, going to them and asking additional questions isn't breaching the topic of confidentiality, but it will possibly give you some additional information that you can use before you actually make a determination. And let me ask you this how many of you are actually going to the individual representing HR and saying, hey, I want to talk to you about what I found. I want to talk to you about the responses that I got when I did this investigation. Because I can tell you right now, anyone in your in the role of human resources should be the partner before you make a determination because they should be asking you questions like talk to me about the body language of the individuals you interviewed. What actions? Remember, actions speak louder than words. What were they telling you with their actions? Were they speaking super fast? Were they giving you way more details than a normal conversation? Were they giving you eye contact? Were they fidgeting? Were they emotionally shut down? These are valid, valid questions that that your HR person should be asking if you're not the current HR person. And and again, if you're going to partner with someone, another member of management, you should be giving that information to that person. Look, this is how they reacted, this is how it's affecting them, this is the emotion I saw in this conversation. This is why I feel this is the direction we're going with this particular investigation. Because remember, the individual doing the investigation has to be neutral. And so, HR folks, or or anyone choosing an investigator, before you tell someone, hey, I need you to go and look into this. Tell me what you can figure out as to why this person didn't get a raise, or or help me figure out why this person didn't get promotion. You gotta pick somebody who can be neutral. Somebody that's not gonna pre-judge without the actual facts. It's gotta be somebody who can hold their comments and their opinions until they've got all the information and have a conversation. How many of your investigations have actually turned into an interrogation? Especially if emotions get involved. And the person conducting the investigation is already putting their mindsets together, which could turn into a bias, remember. And they're starting to say, oh, I know where this is going. I know this person well enough that I know exactly what they're capable of doing. That is not a neutral. That's a judge. That is not an that is not a neutral investigator. So that's another key item that, again, you've got to keep in mind. And then with confidentiality, yes, these questions are open-ended. They're good questions, solid questions that should give you really good information, but you can't keep everything confidential, especially if they're giving you the names of individuals to go and talk to. Or they're telling you, okay, it happened on third shift about uh somewhere between, you know, 11 and 12. And um there might be other people that they're not aware of that were in that area at the same time that you have to go and talk to. And you have to give enough information and ask certain questions, some of these that we just talked about, to them to determine what direction are we going on this. Look, an investigation can be so rewarding, especially when you know that you're finding out all the right information and that your decision of what to do with that information is solid. It's based on facts. It's non-emotion. It's solid. This is a long list thing. And I'll be more than happy to give it to you. Just let me know. Reach out to me on the team. I appreciate you.