Employers Blog

What do you do if a witness asks you for legal advice? You don't give it to them. It's as simple as that. And this question goes to people who both are attorneys, as well as investigators who aren't attorneys.

I still take investigative notes by hand for a lot of reasons, but that leaves me, at the end of an investigation, being a person with investigative notes. And I don't really like paper files.

I think you just acknowledge that you cannot control them. There are reasons that people don't participate. If they're hospitalized, they're in a coma – they're not going to participate. That seems awfully excusable. And I think you document that there was a legitimate physical medical reason that the person did not participate in an investigation. And you probably need to explain that if it's a glaring hole in your investigation.

This also comes up a lot, and sometimes it's innocuous and not ... They're not trying to be strategic. But you're having a conversation, and they'll be like, "Oh, well, if you talk to Bill, they'll tell you about this too. Are you talking to Bill?" They don't even think through what they're asking you.

You needed to remind the client that the money they're spending is related to a neutral, independent, third-party investigation.

So, there are some practical things you need to consider. We used to do a lot of work in foundries, and we had to wear steel-toed shoes, which don't go well with business suits all that often.

So, sometimes the reporting party in particular will reach out to me. I do counsel my clients to circle back around with the reporting party when the investigation is done, but they don't always do that well – or consistently or timely.

It's hard as a human investigator to hear that you are the cause of somebody walking out on your interview. But almost certainly that's what people are going to tell you on their way out the door.

The value of a workplace investigation has different importance to people depending on where they are in, sort of, the crisis cycle or the concern cycle.

What do you do if you stumble across some unrelated, bad information? You tell the client, for sure. You document that you told the client, for sure. As a business practice, you make sure the client understands the value of what you uncovered for them.