Improving The Counseling Process

Tips For Conducting An Internal Investigation

31 August 2016 by Martin Franklin

If your company receives a complaint about an incident that occurred or the behavior of an employee, you will likely need to conduct an internal investigation to make sure that you find out both sides of the issue and see if any action needs to be taken. This is important because if there is a problem, you want to make sure that you are able to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. Here are some tips for conducting an internal investigation.

1. Hire or Assign Non-Biased Investigators

The easiest way that you can ensure that you get investigators that are free of bias is to hire an independent third-party to do the investigation for you. However, this can be extremely expensive and draw attention to a potential problem that your company might be having in a way that you do not want. Another option is to simply find someone in the company who is familiar with company policy but also removed from the situation. For example, if you need to investigate a certain employee, assigning an employee who would get the employee who was being investigated's job if he or she were fired is not a good choice.

2. Set a Goal

Determine the goal of your investigation. You are going to be looking at different things if you are trying to avoid litigation than if you are trying to justify the firing of an employee. Set a goal for the investigation ahead of time and then make sure that every action that you take is a step to fulfill that goal. This will help you make sure that you are using your time in the best way possible.

3. Protect Confidentiality At All Costs

You need to make sure that your employees know that they can come to you with any potential problems. If you don't protect their confidentiality, then they will be more reluctant to come to you in the future and your business's productivity could suffer greatly. Make sure that you wipe any witnesses' names from the record and conceal the identities of anyone in the case until the investigation has been resolved. This will also make it easier to get unbiased reports.

For more information, talk to a company that specializes in teaching companies how they can conduct their own internal investigations, such as First Line Resources. This will allow you to conduct your investigations with a greater level of care.

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