You’re an HR manager and an administrative assistant approaches you with a complaint against her supervisor, a senior level executive. The assistant would like someone to look into her concerns and is worried about bias because the executive is well-regarded. After consulting with legal counsel, you don’t think there is any legal liability for the company, but you still need someone to investigate the assistant’s complaint.
You need to decide whether to ask your HR team to investigate the assistant’s complaints or to hire an external investigator. Perhaps you are on a tight budget. You have a trained HR investigator on staff, and you are confident in their ability to handle this investigation. In fact, this would be an excellent opportunity to empower your HR investigator. These are all well-intentioned reasons to keep your investigation in-house, but you may be making a “penny wise and pound foolish” decision. Even if the complaint does not initially present any legal liability for the company, there are additional considerations that may warrant hiring an external investigator. External investigators conduct unbiased investigations because they do not know the personalities and politics at play at your company and they are not concerned about future consequences of upsetting a well-regarded executive. By using an external investigator, a company communicates to a complaining party that they want to ensure an unbiased investigation by hiring someone and not relying on internal resources. When an external investigator meets employees without any preconceived impressions, interviewed employees may feel more comfortable, divulge more information, and reveal new facts that HR and counsel did not previously know or consider. Finally, trained external investigators who have experience working at corporations understand the dynamics at play inside your company and may have creative observations that will help HR professionals and legal counsel formulate value-add solutions. For example, an internal investigator may be reluctant to recommend that a senior level executive go through management coaching for fear of future retribution, or the investigator may not consider that the assistant’s talents may be better recognized working for another manager who values loyalty more than early morning arrivals.
External investigators are a great resource for ensuring that your company is conducting thorough, fact-finding non-biased investigations.
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