Trust, but verify
The City of Hamilton recently completed an audit of its internal workplace investigations into employee complaints. They found that 13 of 14 files reviewed had issues, reflecting a “lack of neutrality” and, in some cases, denying employees a fair process. As a result of the audit, recommendations were made to improve the City’s handling of internal complaints. The full report is here.
I say good for them.
Yes, problems were found. But they ran towards the danger, took a hard look, and now are making improvements. If you have not audited your own investigations, why not?
Or, you can go the other way.
RBC was recently the subject of a court case that, to be honest, made me cringe from beginning to end. Among the many problems identified by the judge was a bungled workplace investigation. The investigation was described as “woefully short of being thorough, fair, and contextual,” “deeply flawed,” “a form of ammunition gathering” and “overreaching.”
Oof.
If you want to read the decision, it’s here.
It’s easy to think that big organizations with lots of resources simply don’t make those kinds of mistakes.
They do. Every day.
If you don’t check yourself, you run the risk of skidding out of your lane. I suspect RBC is conducting an audit now, too. (I hope so!)
“Trust, but verify” is a phrase I’ve used throughout my career. Despite our best efforts, humans are imperfect.
I’ve been fortunate to work with capable, high-performing teams. They absolutely earned my trust. But I believe trust should always be complimented by verification.
Verification is not about a lack of trust; it strengthens trust.
It is about continuous improvement, catching our inevitable mistakes while they are still ours to fix, and making sure we are all on the same page before taking action. Most importantly, verification is about risk management. It is less expensive, less embarrassing and the consequences are smaller when we catch errors or poor judgment early.
When it comes to workplace investigations, verification matters even more.
Investigations are hopefully rare, but they are significantly important. Your organization is going to make decisions that may impact people’s employment, or perhaps cause a lack of it. The rest of the organization is watching to see what you do. After all, culture is what you tolerate.
And investigations are more complex than you may think.
If you have never had your investigations audited, I highly recommend that you consider it.
Building internal capacity for investigations is critical for most organizations. But even the best internal processes can develop blind spots, particularly when the same people are responsible for designing, applying and evaluating the process.
That is where an independent audit can be valuable.
A meaningful audit should look at both the process and what actually happened in practice. For example:
Does your policy and process comply with legislative and judicial requirements for procedural fairness?
Did your investigations actually comply with those requirements?
Was the scope of the investigation appropriate?
Is the investigator properly trained?
Was there bias, or a reasonable apprehension of bias, in the investigation?
Did the respondent understand the allegations?
Did each side have a proper opportunity to present their evidence, and an opportunity to respond to the other side’s evidence where appropriate?
Did the investigator properly collect and consider the evidence?
Does the report accurately summarize the evidence and procedure and explain how the investigator reached their conclusions?
This is only a sample of what a meaningful audit should consider.
And that last point is important: a meaningful audit requires an auditor who is willing and able to find something.
If the purpose of an audit is simply to confirm that everything is working as it should, you are probably not auditing. You are rubber-stamping.
The goal is not to prove that your organization’s investigators are doing a bad job. The goal is to find the things you cannot see from inside your own process — before a judge, employee, regulator or public inquiry finds them for you and before they cost you in time, money and reputation.
If it has been a while since someone independent has taken a hard look at your investigation process, perhaps it’s time.
Trust your people.
Trust your processes.
But verify.
