HR How-Tos: How to Conduct a Workplace Investigation

Melanie Naranjo] (0:01 - 8:44)
Oh, hi, welcome to today's call. I'm so, so, so excited to be chatting with you all. We have a huge group today. Clearly, investigations is a top of mind thought for people, and so we are very, very glad and excited to be chatting through it with you all today. A couple of notes for anyone who is new to one of my webinars, and oop, shame on me, I gotta mute my alerts right now. A couple of notes for anyone who's new. My name is Melanie Naranjo. I head up the people team here at Athena. We are a compliance training company, which means we cover things all from harassment prevention to cybersecurity, so how great that we picked this particular topic for you all. And the way that we run these webinars is we try to be as interactive as possible, because we know if we talk at you for one hour, that will be very boring and not engaging. So know that I will be asking questions to you all. I will be calling on people. If you don't want to be called on, no worries. In your responses in the comments, which is how I interact with you all, just put an asterisk next to your response and that will be my cue not to call on you, because I don't want that to be a deterrent to you participating in the comments. With that said, before I officially kick it off and we head into the topic for today, which is investigations, oh my goodness, I would love to introduce Chantelle Egan, who is partner and head of advice and counsel practice group at Medina McKelvey. Chantelle, I've done another webinar with you. It was amazing. You are the coolest lawyer I've ever met. I'm not going to lie, sometimes I talk to lawyers and it's like a little bit robotic, you know what I mean? It's going to be a plus one if you know what I'm talking about. I love lawyers. Chantelle, talk to me. Who are you? Give me a little bit of your context before we jump into it. Oh, thank you so much for that introduction. So yes, I am the advice and counsel partner. I lead the practice group at Medina McKelvey and I also am the lead investigator and lead our branch of MM investigations. So I have a long history in investigations and at my fire firm, which was an international law firm, Cypher Shaw, I was one of the co-founding partners of our crisis management and investigations practice. But now that I'm at a boutique firm, I'm able to do more of these investigations, which is just brings me infinite joy. Hopefully all of you out there, you're joining this call because you are, you love investigations, you want to get better at them, or for those of you that it's nail biting, hopefully this call today, this webinar will help you feel a little bit more confident without jumping in. But I would say that my practice really dovetails into three groups, the actual doing the investigation themselves. The second part is being on the backend, supporting the company, supporting their HR, helping them through an investigation and managing all the crisis that kind of flows from an investigation or thereafter. And then the last piece, which I will admit is the thing I probably love the most, is I lead investigation training and I work with HR teams and their legal teams to help design their investigation practices as well as teach them the fundamentals. I love that so much. And I'll add that's actually part of the reason why we were so excited to have you on the call is because, and I imagine people tuning in are thinking the same thing, is one thing for an HR person who's doing investigations, you know, day in, day out, which we do. And at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, we're not legal experts. And so there's always like a bit of second guessing, not knowing if we're doing it quite right. And so it's so, so helpful to be able to partner with or reach out to someone who is a legal expert trained in this. And I love the idea of having, you know, a legal team, a legal expert come in and actually train your people team. These are some resources that unfortunately people resources, people teams often never get, especially smaller teams. It's sort of like, hey, hey, go figure it out. Go make it happen. Give me a plus one in the comments. If you are a people person who ever led an investigation without any formal legal training, I'm just- Never. That never happens. Okay. All right. We're getting some love in the comments. All right. It makes me feel like I'm not alone. And for the record, let me just say, I will like, I'm making jokes about it. And also I want to recognize that like, it kind of is such a shame because there's, there are real humans and real lives on the other side of this. And like, I know that we're going in with the best intentions, but if we're not properly trained, there's real impact to a real human being who maybe has a poor experience because we weren't trained. And so, you know, to the extent that we at Athena can partner with you to help spread some of this knowledge and information to, you know, our audience here, you know, that would make me very, very happy. So with that said, let's go ahead and kick it off. I promise we're not just going to be chatting, although I could chat with Chantelle forever. We're going to be cutting into the meat of this. So agenda for today and what to expect. I'm going to share a fun promo, actually. We're going to be giving out some prizes. And so I'll share with you all how you can get $100. And then we're going to do investigation best practices. Something I want to emphasize here is we're really going to get into the gray. What we don't want this webinar to be is an hour of us talking at you, a list of things that you could just Google. We want to actually get into those gray areas, those nuanced situations. And so that's what we're going to be emphasizing. But don't worry, we've also got you covered on the tactical stuff. We'll touch on that lightly, but then we'll send you follow up resources after this call. Don't worry, we've got your email. So we'll send those, what questions to ask on the live session, what your checklist is before you even start the interview. So don't worry, we have got you covered, I promise. And then we'll do a Q&A. So you all sent in some great questions beforehand. If any questions come to mind while we're chatting that we don't get to, please drop it in the Q&A function here and we will get to it at the end. And then I would love if you all could stay tuned for a two minute quick Athena spotlight on a product that we offer actually that helps with managing investigations. With that said, let's go ahead and get started. Let's talk about our promo. So all, if you would like to receive or would like a chance to win a $100 gift card, we are giving them out for Amazon, for Uber, for DoorDash, you pick. And the only thing you have to do is make a post about Athena, about this webinar. Tag Athena, share one thing that you really liked from this workshop. And on Friday, we will pick three lucky winners to give out some prizes. So, you know, put a post, build your brand, and get $100. Not a bad deal. Have fun. Yeah, love it. Okay, now let's jump in. Yes, Holly, win-win. Let's jump in with a classic Pulse question. In the comments, if you could put on a scale of one to five, how much you agree with this statement, five being super agree, one not at all, don't know what you're talking about. How much do you agree with the following statement? I sometimes second-guess myself during employee investigations. I didn't even get to put a 92. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you out. Go ahead, Chantelle. I would say like lots of fours and fives. Yeah, a hundred percent. Look, I didn't even get to finish the sentence and they're like, it's still going. Like I'm trying to scroll up to see who put the score. It's just like wild. Okay, first of all, I'm glad it's not just me. Thanks, Holly. You're making me feel better today. Second, I would love to call on someone, someone with enthusiasm. So Jessica Nelson, you gave 10,000 unless I'm, maybe it's 100,000. Please unmute yourself. Tell me more. What do you mean when you say 10,000? I agree. I sometimes second-guess myself. Aren't we all HR experts? How is it that we're all feeling so uncertain here? Tell me more. Yeah, can you hear me okay? Yes, perfect. Totally new to this. So that's why I gave myself a thousand. Oh, I love it. Okay, so you're brand new. Have you ever done an investigation before? No, no. Oh, this is, you joined the right place. And let me just say kudos to you, Jessica, because I don't think I was as resourceful when I first joined. I sort of thought like, oh, like why do I need to go outside? Like my team will tell me everything I need to know. And in fact, that's just not true. Chantelle and I were actually talking about that where sometimes HR teams can be echo chambers, and sometimes they give false information and it's just like going in circles, right? So thank you, Jessica, for tuning in. All right, let's call on someone who maybe has done it before, but still second-guesses themselves. Let's do Christine Amotayo, O-M-O-T-A-Y-O. If I mispronounce your name, I apologize. Please correct me. You gave a seven. Why a seven?

[Chantelle Egan] (8:44 - 9:22)
So for me, I have done a couple of investigations before, but I've never done one on my own. And I think depending on what the subject is, sometimes I wonder if you're asking the correct questions to get like an uninfluenced like response from the person that you're speaking to. So I think having not just an understanding of how to do investigations, but also how to ask questions that you don't accidentally take the investigation is something that isn't really taught very much. So I would love to hear more about that.

[Melanie Naranjo] (9:22 - 45:04)
I love that. Thank you, Christine. We'll definitely get into some of that nuance. Chantelle, I'm curious as we listen in, and then I promise we'll jump in, you know, how familiar is what you're hearing sounding like? Are you kind of like, oh yeah, I hear this all the time. What a surprise. Let me just tell all of you, you're not alone. I hear this both when I'm getting the call to help out that, oh geez, we started an investigation. I need some help. How do you think I should structure it? Oh, this investigation is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. I also have seen it as a litigator. That's actually how I started my career, which I had the training opportunity of kind of being a third party viewer of how HR handled investigations and then how we were going to defend it in the litigation down the road. And so being able to, as one of my favorite expressions is, you know, take the meat and leave the bones. It's like, oh, I like that technique. I'm going to take this. I'm going to say, oh no, maybe I wouldn't do that. So leave that one behind. So I have that extra perk of being able to also just go to school by trial by fire as a litigator as well. But you are certainly, you are certainly not alone. And frankly, even the most seasoned investigators feel that way as well, because there's always a sense of, you know, could I do better? But that's the sign of somebody who's really committed to this craft and this profession. I think it's so great that we're calling attention to this and that you're sort of like helping build that reassurance by sharing that like, even when you're super experienced, you can still second guess this. Because I think sometimes there's this idea that's like two dimensional image of an HR professional. It's like, you should know, or like, you must know, or, you know, or like, sometimes, you know, people sort of like forget that HR people are people. And we do that ourselves, right? Especially because I think so much of this happens behind closed doors. So it's not like we get to see other people doing it to compare notes. It's just like, I hope I'm doing it right. I've never seen anyone else do an investigation. This is what I think is happening, you know, or like, please watch my investigation and give me feedback. Like, it's very hard to make that happen. So with that, let's get into it and hopefully try and quell some of these fears. Chantelle, and excuse me, while I look away for a second, I'm pulling over my notes, so I can follow along. One of the questions that I had for you is I wanted to start from the beginning, which is, you know, what does someone do when a report falls onto their plate? But, you know, more specifically, because I want to get into this gray area sort of thing. How do you determine whether this is investigation worthy or not investigation worthy? Like, what do you do when there's that classic dilemma, as you put it in one of our calls earlier, which is sort of like, oh, I want to share this with you, but it's not a formal complaint. Like, please don't like, you know, or someone gives you a thing, and they're like convinced it's a big bad thing. I've been discriminated against, or I've been wronged. And you're kind of like, um, no, like, actually, it's not discriminatory to like, not offer this particular cereal brand that you want, you know, like, like, what do you do when a thing comes on your plate? What are those first initial steps? Okay, so I would say the first thing you're going to want to think about is based on the information you have in front of you, does this feel like a policy violation? And, and I use the word feel, because I don't want you to get hung up on the magic words. You know, someone might not say harassment, they may not say discrimination, they may, you know, not identify with Christian or national origin, or some other protected characteristics that's protected under your policy. But it, it kind of looks and feels that way, you gotta use your spidey senses a little bit like, all right, this is something that is, if this is true, this is a policy violation, and we're going to need to take some form of remediation action. That's kind of your barometer, right? Now, the two sides of the coin really see all the time are the person that comes in and is like, well, I'm not making a formal complaint. But I just want to talk to you about it. Or I just want to make you aware. There is no required step to make a formal complaint, you may have an internal process at your company that wants people to fill out a particular form, for example, when you have a complaint. And those are all great processes. But if somebody says, Nope, I'm not doing it, that doesn't alleviate your need to investigate if they're telling you, you know, they were, it's January, I'm sure some of you are dealing with some post holiday party, fallout, or join Melanie on an INR prior webinar, you know, if somebody's telling you that they were inappropriately touched at the office party, and I don't make a big deal about it, hey, the bells, the bells rung, you got you got to investigate it. Conversely, I've had situations where people use very charged words, colloquially, but it doesn't rise to a policy violation. And I was sharing that there's actually a real life example where I got a call once where somebody said, Well, do I have to investigate it? We, we offer free kombucha and snacks in in our in our office, and we changed out the flavors of the kombucha. And somebody said, I feel discriminated against because the kombucha has been changed. So I will tell you, my gut response on that is like, probably not an investigation worthy. But I will say, when you hit those, those types of situations, don't be afraid to ask follow up questions. Because perhaps that person may have a reason that is a policy violation that's kind of under, you know, bubbling underneath that thing that seems a little bit silly at the beginning. So for example, you know, using your cereal example, maybe the person has a glucose, you know, their glucose intolerant, and they've changed the cereals. And now there's nothing, there's no longer a glucose option. And the person who made the decision is their boss, who found out that they're needing medical care. So that initial complaint may feel like, okay, this seems like a whole lot of nothing. But don't be afraid to ask just a couple of follow up questions to figure out, you know, is there actually something, you know, deeper here that we do need to look into? I think it's so great that you give that example, in particular around dietary restrictions. Because like, at the end of the day, like, I could see the argument, like, that's still not discriminatory. But like, certainly, it could make for a more inclusive environment. And what comes to mind for me is sometimes, you know, we saw something, there was an article recently about, you know, I don't know if anyone's seen it, I won't go into details, because I don't want to, you know, make anyone too uncomfortable. But, you know, a CEO is under sort of like hot water right now and focused because they basically, the way that they treated a mother who needed to go take care of her baby who was in in NICU, and not sort of being flexible around it. And, and, you know, the story sort of going viral, because at the end of the day, the CEO didn't didn't break any rules, they didn't violate the law. And also from an optics perspective, it was terrible. And so I'm curious to you, Chantelle, like, as you're partnering with people, does this question ever come up between like, the letter of the law versus optics and like how to balance the two? Well, it's actually a really important thing to remember. All of us who are doing investigations, whether you're doing an internally as part of your HR team, or there's someone like me, you engage me to be an outside neutral. None of us are making legal findings. What we're doing is making fact findings. We're not trying to figure out is this legally harassment? Is this legally discrimination? It is what is this conduct? And did this conduct actually happen? And then you have to ask yourself, is this conduct that is either a policy violation, or maybe it's not something we contemplated under the policy, but we don't want to tolerate here at the company. So we really need to rewrite the narrative of not just asking, is this a legal issue? Because obviously, that's gonna, if it could be a legal issue, you're going to want to do an investigation, because it's really an essential part of any defense down the road. But our role is to do fact finding, and not to make any legal conclusions. I'd love to go into that a little bit more. You talk about being fact finding. And you know, we had a question earlier on around like the questions that you asked, and are we doing it right? Can you speak a little bit to the interviews themselves? And I will caveat that with what I imagine will be representative of many of our feelings for any HR people tuned in, which is the innate awkwardness and discomfort of these interviews, not just for the person on the other side, but also for us where it's like, did I set the tone right? What if I know this person, this is a person that I've partnered with, or that like I make jokes with in the kitchen. And now I'm suddenly like on the other side, like, do I put on my HR face? Do I, you know, stay the Melanie that they've always seen? Like, how do you, you know, what do you recommend in terms of initiating those conversations, setting the tone and, you know, any context that you give on one of those calls? Yeah, I mean, that's such a good question. I feel like kicking off an interview is so essential to establishing the groundwork for the question and answers in the conversation that you're going to be having so that you can gather the information that you need. I think the most important thing that you remember is that your sense of humanity in the whole thing. So whether you are a person who's bringing forward a complaint, whether you're a person who's been accused of a complaint, whether you're just somebody who's, you know, man, I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody actually wants to be talking to you about any of these things. They don't want this situation to have occurred. They don't want to feel like they've, you know, gotten in trouble. So sometimes I find it's helpful to just kind of acknowledge that at the beginning, especially if I get the impression that the person is hesitant to speak to me. So, you know, for example, someone who's come forward and it's their complaint, I just acknowledge that, you know, I recognize that you didn't, you didn't ask for this to be to happen to you. But, and I just, I want to thank you in advance for sharing with me your experience so that I can understand what happened. And, and frankly, that also goes for people who are witnesses where sometimes you just need to remind them like, Hey, you know, you're not in trouble. You didn't do anything wrong. Part of the reason I need to talk to is because I need to understand and I need to see it from different people's points of view so that when I look back comprehensively, I can kind of look at everybody's point of view and look at it from a big picture perspective to try to figure out what more likely than not happened. You know, for the HR folks out there that are dealing with members on their own team, the advice I have on that front is, if it is possible to leverage other members of your team to conduct an investigation because you're dealing with people that you deal with all the time, don't be afraid to pull that lever. And sometimes, you know, you may not need to do it in some instances, but then other instances, because of perhaps the leadership that's involved, because of how closely you work with a particular person, you worry, you're like, look, I think that, you know, not that you are going to be have any kind of bias or not bring neutrality to the investigation, but you're worried that the people that you're interviewing may perceive that you can't be neutral. So just don't be afraid to raise those issues with your HR team so that perhaps you can do some swapping. So it's not people that you work with regularly. And if it is the people that you work with regularly, you may need to remind them like, today, my role is different. Normally, when we are together, we're collaborating, we're trying to problem solve. Today, I'm wearing a different hat. You know, today, my hat is to act as a neutral. And my job is to listen to the things that you have to say so I can understand your point of view. I find that so, so helpful. And I don't know if you've seen, but definitely, I'm getting some love in the comments. And I'm seeing heart emojis. It's so funny because it shows up on my other monitors. I'm like, oh, look at that. You know, one of the things that always comes to mind for me is I always try to remind people, I always say to people at the beginning, like, hey, because I feel so guilty sometimes asking what feels like very invasive questions. And I always sort of like give them a heads up, like, you know, I'm going to give you a heads up from the beginning. You know, I am going to have to ask some questions that might feel uncomfortable to you. And please know that that's not my intent, is I'm trying to get to the bottom of this so that I can help make, you know, the right decision or help draw the right conclusion. And I just want to mentally prepare you for that. Let me know if you have any questions. But I love that. I love that. Think of it almost as like a bit of a trigger warning, you know, where you're like, okay, we all know we're going to talk about this tough thing. So let's just acknowledge it at the beginning. And let's acknowledge that you didn't ask to be here. But I want to thank you. And sometimes just holding space for that person and showing your appreciation for them from the outset, even before they do anything, I think really changes the dynamics in an interview and helps build the trust that you're going to rely on the process. You're not making decisions in the moment. You are not believing the person in the moment. You're just there to gather information and understand what they think. That's really fascinating. Because actually, it makes me think of another point that you had made earlier when we were talking previously, or on the flip side of that. So I know we're talking about like, how do we make sure how do we help people feel comfortable? How do we help reassure them, so on and so forth. But I wonder, especially thinking about when we're asking, well, actually, on either side, sometimes the impact of asking those questions is less about them feeling like we're being invasive. And more, I have found sometimes when you ask too many follow-up questions, it can almost feel like you don't believe them. And so like, oh, I already answered that. Or like, why are you asking deeper? Why are you probing? And to your point, you're trying to make clear, like, I'm neutral, I promise. I'm just trying to get to the bottom. So I want to get as detailed as possible. But it's not, it's not that I don't believe you, I just need specific information. I'm curious, Chantelle, because you had, I saw you had a great note about like, being thoughtful about the way that you word questions, because it's all about like the wording and that can lead to someone feeling a certain type of way. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Sure, there's kind of like two things to think about with that. Sometimes it's really, what I try to do is bring the person into the process. So most people want to be helpful. Even those that are being guarded, they ultimately want to be helpful. And so, especially when I get to that place where I really kind of need to get into the nitty gritty, I will sometimes say like, okay, this is like, can we just do a quick, like, almost like a pulse check, like, this is what I'm hearing you're saying. Like, am I right? Because I also want to give them the opportunity, as well as in, you know, embolden them to say like, no, you're wrong. Like, you're not picturing it right. That isn't what that isn't what's going because sometimes when you're asking all these nitty gritty follow up questions, it's because your picture is not clear yet. I also like using that particular phrasing, like, I had a situation where there was an incident that happened at a bar, and it really mattered where things were located in the bar, which can sound, you know, can get really nitty gritty. But if you use words like, okay, so based on what you're saying, this is what I'm picturing, like, this person's over at the bar, the other person's to the right, there's a, you know, there's a person that just walked in with a dog. And that's, you know, probably about 10 feet away, like, do I have the right picture? And then they can either say yes or no. And if they say no, that's really like an invitation for you to be like, okay, like, correct for me what's wrong and get some knowing that it's, it's really a collaboration, because you want to know what their experience is. And I would also just, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry. But please finish your thought. Well, I just want to say there's also just, you know, there's, there's another way to also just think about like the type of questions that you need to get answered. And like, I think a classic example is the person that has, comes forward with a concern, way after an event happens. And you need to know why that person delayed in coming forward with the complaint. That's going to impact your credibility, that's going to impact potentially other witnesses that you need to talk to, that's an essential piece of information. How you phrase that question is so essential to continue to build the trust, because remember, not only are you gathering information, but you're trying to give this person trust and confidence in the process. Because not all investigations find out that the complaints are substantiated. And it's also remember the accused, they, it may not be something you can substantiate, you know, it goes both ways, we really need to hold space for everybody. So instead of saying, like, why'd you wait so long to come forward? I like to rephrase it in a way that it's that says, like, you know, what was it that made it, you know, what was it that encouraged you to come forward, sometimes you end up also getting more information that way. For example, you find out that the person has been in therapy since the incident, and their therapist is the one who finally was like, you got to tell the company, which is going to inform your investigation, which is going to inform your credibility assessment. But if you ask it in this open ended way, you're going to get more information. And you also are going to avoid having the person shut down, think that they're accusing you that you're accusing them rather. And also, with many of these incidences, we don't want to re traumatize them. You know, it's hard enough having this incident happen to them. We don't want this investigation that we know is going to be hard, but have it be a traumatizing event. I think that's so helpful. And so well worded. I really, I really love those reframes. You're getting tons of hearts right now. Let me do a quick pulse check. And then we will we will try so hard to get through as many more of these questions as we can. You know, Chantelle, one of the things that that I personally have experienced that I've heard from many other HR professionals as well is, you know, you were talking about this earlier, a little bit about like, what face do you put on? How do you interact? And the question of empathy on on all sides, whether it's the accuser, the accused, the witnesses, you know, I've been in some tough situations where people are crying on the call where people are getting, you know, really emotional in other ways. And, you know, it's always this interesting balance of, you know, how do I express empathy without appearing as though I am taking sides, you know, you don't want to say like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they did that. But at the same time, you also, you know, want to be like, I'm here for you, you know, I'm so sorry, you know, you're feeling this way. First, let me do a quick pulse check to the audience to make sure I'm not just making this up. One to five, actually, let me let me put it on the screen, in case that's easier. How much do you agree with the following statement, I sometimes struggle to know the right balance of expressing empathy, but not appearing to take sides. Yeah, okay. Okay, so I am not alone. Great. This makes me feel so much better. In the interest of time, I won't be calling on anyone. But Chantelle, can you tell me a little bit more, you know, as you're working with HR professionals who are like, Chantelle, please help me like, I don't want to be inhuman on this call. Robotic. What advice do you have for them? This one is so hard, because we've all had those moments where you're dealing with the witness that is just so rocked. And you, your instinct is like, I just want to hug him and say, like, I'm sorry, obviously, you can't do that. But it doesn't mean that you can't kind of connect with them as humans. So instead of, you know, speaking to the facts, I try to really focus in on the moment and say, you know, I'm seeing that this is hard for you to tell me this, like, do you need a break? Do you need to take some time? Sometimes it's just about like, making eye contact with the person and holding space for them, that lets them know that you're, you're there. And you are seeing how hard this is for them. But I really focus on leveraging my kind of empathy and sympathy in the moment, rather than focusing on, like, the facts that they're sharing with me. Because I think that helps me maintain my role as a neutral while continuing to help people recognize that, you know, my role here is as a helper, my role here is to figure out what happened. And, you know, I think one of the things that I want to touch on with this empathy issue is, you know, we all kind of focus on the person that's really emotionally distraught. I've also had a lot of experience, and I'm sure many of you have had there too, where either the person has told their story so many times, or part of their defense mechanism is just to be completely robotic, to be a shell. And once again, they may not need that, like, you know, pause, they may just want to, you know, have it all be over with. But the, the power of saying thank you for sharing your, your experience with me, and doing that, at times, anytime during the interview that you feel like this is challenging, is so impactful. Because then they know you're listening. Like, I just, it's not about thanking them for their time. It's not about time. It's thanking them for sharing this, their story, their point of view, how they saw what happened with you. And I actually had a situation where somebody who was accused of doing some wrongdoing, told me halfway through the interview, he's like, I really feel like you're listening to me. And, and I'm hearing what I'm saying. And that is how you convey empathy. That is how you connect, is by showing that you're listening. Because like I said earlier, you have to remember that the accused, we also need to that person too. Okay, I have to, all of this is not a planned question. So Chantelle, I'm very excited for your impromptu response here. Let's do it. Yes, I think you've stirred up, to be honest, something that I imagine many of us have experienced, which is, unfortunately, sometimes people, hopefully not HR people, but people can incorrectly equate severity or height of emotion with credibility. And so the more emotional someone is, they must be right, the other person might be wrong, the less emotional someone is, they must not be, you know, if it was, if it was a real thing, it would be affecting them more, they'd be whether it's on the accuser side or the accused side, right, they'd be more defensive, they're not being defensive. And, and I've seen sometimes this, what can get in the way is, you know, maybe you have a manager, or a team lead who's breathing down your neck, and you're trying to do a neutral investigation, and they're pushing you, like, you're not investigating close enough. No, you don't understand this person was crying to me last night. I know they're right. You know, how do you, do you, give me a, please help me make sure I'm not alone here. Give me a plus one if you know what I'm talking about in the comments. And Chantelle, if you've witnessed this, yeah, okay, I'm getting a thumbs up, getting some plus ones. Okay, Chantelle, what advice do you have for HR professionals who are in this position where they're just trying to do their job, they're trying to be neutral, they're not trying to appear to be callous, but at the end of the day, they cannot base their investigation or their decision or conclusion on how emotional someone was or wasn't? Yeah, and that is actually so essential to not have, to not lead to the conclusion that just because someone appears sad, that this must be true or not true. Because there is a whole range of emotions. People are different. And some people show their emotions because they're crying. Other people show their emotions because they're angry. Other people just keep it all inside. Like we want to make sure that we're keeping an open mind and that's so essential. But with the fact pattern that you gave, I think the part that's actually had a real life investigation experience for this topic, what that person shared with the manager and how they interacted with the manager is an essential component of the investigation. So when a manager is the one that's intaking a complaint, then they're going to be on the witness list. And you're going to want to talk to them about what did the person tell you? How did they react? What happened? Because part of that is obviously like a check between what's going on now that you're hearing from the person who's complaining and what they said to their manager. But also when we see events that could potentially be traumatic in nature, everybody has a different way of dealing with that. And sometimes seeing that evolution of emotion can be very informative when it comes to credibility determination. So for example, I did an investigation where somebody was solicited for sex. And when they made their initial complaint, which was actually the day it happened, the person was an absolute wreck, was in pieces. Then this person had to talk to another person. And they were still emotional, but they had already kind of gotten out the puddle on the floor. And by the time they talked to me, it was the third time they were telling the story. And also time had gone by. And the person was extremely robotic. But when I look at it comprehensively, because remember, you're not making a credibility determination in the interview. You're doing it after you've collected all the information and you look back on it in this holistic way. But I really saw this person's emotional trajectory. And it really added to her credibility that she was now, in essence, was engaging in behavior that was a defensive strategy to try to protect herself as she was telling her story. And of course, there were other things that then factored into my conclusion. But in terms of her credibility, it's not a black and white assessment as to whether or not somebody cries or not and what that means. Yeah, I think that's such a great point. I think what resonates to you is you had touched on a point earlier in terms of how people react. There's a spectrum of emotions and how people react to things. And I really do think the reality is, to your point, there could be an evolution of emotion. And also the reality is I think that someone could experience a tough thing that was tough for them, but not necessarily a policy violation. And that doesn't mean it's to your point, to our earlier point around the serial. There might be a thing that we really do need to look into. And we need to create a better environment. And also, it may not have actually breached a policy. It might not mean that someone needs to be terminated. It might be so many other things. So I think what's interesting is just there's so many gray areas. And it can be scary to talk about these things and feel like you're taking sides or not taking sides. But to your point, not making a determination until you've collected all the information. Sorry, were you going to say something real quick? I was just going to say too, as like an HR professional, I think the other key thing here is really letting yourself make your fact determination before you then move on to the recommendation. Because you want to have that in a nice little box. Because there's lots of factors that influence your recommendation afterwards. So you really want to just have a, this is the fact finding full stop. And so like with the serial example, for example, let's just say that for whatever reason, it required an investigation. Because the person thinks that it's actually her manager that knows that she has a medical condition and is upset that she's had to go to doctor's appointments who orchestrated the whole thing. And so then you're going to want to be like, all right, here's the situation. This is what I found from a factual perspective before you move on to the remediation piece. Super helpful. Okay, I'm going to move us along and see how much of this we can get through. And I want to leave some time for Q&A because you all sent some great questions. And oh my gosh, even more. We're up to 18 questions. Okay, we can get through. We'll get through some of them all. We just got to do a part two, right? I'm curious to know, we were talking a little bit about balancing empathy and managing and like helping people feel seen, but also helping sort of like understanding emotions, managing our own emotions. I'm curious to know, one thing, and I imagine I'm not alone in this, that can be difficult is actually sort of outside of the things that we are doing. So let me be more specific. One thing is an investigation and we come in and we have specific questions. Another thing is the things that are happening in the background. So okay, you invest, you finished interviewing someone, moved on to the next person. It's been about a week and that person maybe feels like, hey, you haven't given me an update. What's happening? Or hey, am I expected to still have to work with this person while you continue the investigation? Or hey, you know, maybe some people are talking and they're sharing information that you maybe would not want them to share. And actually we don't need to go into this, but it did for a second, as I was prepping this question, I was thinking about the recent TikTok trend. Let me know in the comments, if anyone has seen it or has any opinions on, there's a trend happening right now where people are actually recording themselves as they're being terminated and posting it on TikTok. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're posting their reaction. And I know it's giving a lot of HR professionals heartburn. If anyone's curious, DM me, I'll send you the link. It's wild. And, and so, you know, these, yes, nightmares, Jeanette. And so these are the things that people, and I understand, you know, HR teams often, you know, maybe you want to try and control it and minimize the extent that people can control. Anyway, my question is, you know, what, what, what thoughts come to mind for you as when you are guiding HR professionals towards managing those behind the scenes things that are happening? So the most important thing that you can do is at the outset of the investigation, telling each witness expressly that this investigation is being conducted as confidentially as possible. And that then you give them an instruction that during the pendency of the investigation, they cannot talk to other employees about the investigation. So now in a lot of other contexts, we can't restrain employees from talking about things in the workplace, but there is good case law that supports that we can, as long as we are, have a clear instruction. And as long as it's limited to the timing of the investigation, we can ask them to keep things confidential. I like framing the issue for them. So, and maybe it's me, as a former teacher, maybe it is me as a parent, but I just find that people are more likely to follow the rules. If they know why you are asking them to do this, that it's not something nefarious. I'm very honest with them. Like one, I want to make sure that we're respecting people's privacy. I want to make sure that people feel comfortable talking with me and that they know that the things that they share with me are not going to be widely circulated. And then the other piece is like, this is to protect the integrity of the investigation. Like, I just want your point of view. I'm just talking to you. When I want someone else's point of view, I will talk to them. I don't want a bunch of groupthink. I don't want people refreshing their memories. I want to get people's instantaneous responses to the questions that I'm asking. So this is why I'm asking you to keep this confidential. So level setting those expectations goes a long way, because then if someone does start chit-chatting about the investigation, that actually may be something that's really important to the investigation. It could impact their credibility. It could impact, you know, frankly, it could be a policy violation. And so if you're very open and honest with them at the outset, I think it's helpful managing it. Then I think another part of your question, though, is just like how to manage all the other dynamics in the workplace when you're doing an investigation. Frankly, that's part of the reason we want them to be prompt, is so that we can quickly bookend them and move forward with whatever it is appropriate. So you may be getting pressure from leadership, like, do we have an answer on this? Like, where are we on this? I want an update. And it's also a very different dynamic than really anything else you do in the workplace. Because typically, you know, you're bubbling things up to leadership, like, all right, this is where we are. And you're giving them blow-by-blow descriptions here. Because of the confidentiality piece, you're not going to, and because of the fact that you can't make any conclusions till the end, you know, with certain key stakeholders, you may be giving them appraisals in terms of where you're at, where you anticipate ending, in terms of timing, but you can't tell them like, like, spoiler alert, this is what I'm thinking in the ClipNotes version. So for sure, if you have an advocate, especially in the legal team, to help you, I would leverage that if you're feeling like you're getting pressure to either move faster or share information that you're not quite ready to share. You know, to the extent you have a legal team, leverage them. And then if you don't, just be honest. And sometimes part of it is just educating the leaders that this is actually the standards put out by the EEOC, I need to protect the confidentiality. You know, you'll be apprised once the investigation is closed. And you know, I got three more witnesses, and I'm thinking it's going to be in five days. Let's put a meeting on calendar for us to do a readout at that time. So that, in essence, you're managing expectations for them, but you're not doing anything that compromises the confidentiality of the investigation. We have time for just one more question. It's a, it's a juicy one, Chantelle. I hope you're right.

[Chantelle Egan] (45:04 - 45:04)
Okay.

[Melanie Naranjo] (45:04 - 88:47)
It's a two-parter. I like juicy. I'm an investigator. I love juicy. Love it. So my question is, okay, so we've talked through the investigation process, some of the side things. What about making that final decision? What you recommend? And the reason it's a two-parter is I'm curious to know, one, how you navigate that when maybe there's misalignment, maybe there's disagreement. So you recommend something, but, and I've talked to many people who have this, the CEO is adamant. They disagree. No way we're not taking that action. I don't think so. You know, like it's not that big of a deal. You know, I think you're being a little harsh. I think you're being a little dramatic here. So that, but then two, the communication piece of it, you know, I think it's almost easier when the decision is, the determination is, you know, hey, a policy has been violated. You know, maybe you decide that we're terminating, but harder when, hey, we've actually determined the policy hasn't been violated. We sincerely do appreciate that you've shared this with us. Unfortunately, we didn't, like, even now saying it on this call, I'm nervous about how to word that because certainly the last thing I would want to imply is, oh, we didn't believe you. We think you're making things up. And also we can't just do something because it's a hard conversation to have. And so I'm curious, Chantelle, on both sides, making the decision when there's misalignment and then communicating that whatever that decision may be. Oh, that's, that is a juicy one. That is a doozy too. So I'll do my best. And if you feel like I didn't answer your question, you know, let me know. So on one side of the puzzle, it is about, frankly, these are the facts. Did this or did this not happen? And then the second piece of the puzzle is, is this or is this not a policy violation? And then the last piece is, all right, what are we going to do about it? And frankly, sometimes even when there's not a policy violation, it still makes sense to do something about it. So for example, you could determine, look, there's actually like a, just a real communication breakdown. Nobody, nobody has harboring any ill will. I figured it out. There's, there's no animus here. This is not because, you know, this person has a particular protected class or anything's a policy violation, but these two people just don't jive very well together. That doesn't mean we then turn back and say, well, no policy violation, best of luck to you. Like, no, there's still work to be done. And once again, I think that's an opportunity while it feels like a tough conversation to be having, especially with the person that raised the complaint to let them know that they're, you know, it wasn't substantiated what they said, but now hearing all the information, we understand that this is maybe some action that needs to be taken that actually can give them some faith in the process. So letting them know that like you heard what they had to say, and even though it isn't a policy violation, you want to give the manager and the subordinate tools to have better communication style. And these are, you know, what it is you recommend. So some way, maybe this is just my disposition. Like think of it as this is potentially an opportunity. And then I would also say, when you're in your role, it's really tempting to give everything as a package to say, all right, here's my fact finding policy violation. And here's my recommendation as to what you're going to do. And I'm going to put it all in a nice, neat document and send it off to the business to make a decision. I will just say, as someone who's litigated these issues, I think the other thing we need to be mindful about with investigations is investigations have the present purpose of determining what happened, but they also have a future purpose. And the future purpose is to defend the company in the future that they took action once they become aware that potentially there was behavior that could be legally, you know, could be, have a legal consequence that is a legal violation. And they took, they responded adequately with a thorough and complete investigation. And then if there's a lawsuit, very likely all your notes, all your reports, all of that are going to end up as evidence. And so you have to think about what you put in writing as both. It's memorializing it so that if there's a lawsuit three years later, everybody knows what happens because they have all your materials, but also making sure that it is something that will make sense when it's an exhibit. And so my personal preference and what I typically recommend is if the HR is not going to be the ultimate decision maker, and typically, you know, HR typically isn't, if they have a recommendation, I suggest that you have an oral dialogue with the, with the business leader, because HR has kind of two things in its pocket. And sometimes the HR has the full big picture. So for example, hey, I know we didn't substantiate this. And boss, you may not know, because this is a new direct report for you. But this is actually the fourth similar complaint that we've received. We haven't been able to substantiate anything. But you know, we got to do something here, because something's not right. And you have that bigger picture, because you have access to all the other complaints and all the other investigations. And then conversely, you may not have access because you don't work daily with this person. And the manager may have some insight, like what you're recommending they do, for example, go do an executive coach or something like that. You know what, I've worked with this person for a year, that is not going to be effective with them. They this is not the dynamic that they learn in, I actually think that we should do XYZ instead. So I suggest that you have that as a collaborative conversation. And then what you memorialize is not your recommendation, but you memorialize the actual action plan of what it is that you are going to do, based on the information that you gathered in the investigation. Chantelle, you are getting so much love in the comments. We never get love. I love this. Thank you all. Oh, yeah, I think we've all been so hungry for this. I'm actually going to make an executive decision. I'm going to switch things up, because the number of questions we have is wild. Like we've never had this many questions. And I can see that people are still engaged. And people are like send do more send follow ups. One, I promise you all we're going to send some tactical follow up details that we created in partnership with Chantelle. So you're getting a straight from the lawyer. Okay. Two, I'm going to finish out this deck. Three, what I'm going to do all and if you hate this, you can give me the feedback in our in response to our emails and I will learn from it. So thank you. Let me know. We are very open to feedback. I'm going to and Chantelle, I believe you still have this hold. So hopefully this should be okay. But let me know if it's not. I think we're going to replace we have a 90 minute hold for this instead of doing 30 minutes of group session. I think let's extend this and do the 30 minutes. Let's do the q&a. Let's have let's 30 minutes AMA with Chantelle questions that you have Chantelle will answer them. Okay, I'm seeing nodding. Okay, yes. So we're gonna we're going to replace the group coaching session with an AMA with Chantelle. Yes. Okay, I'm getting a lot. Melanie, you made a good decision. And what I will do is I promise you all in our follow up emails, keep a lookout both for the resources that we're going to share that we created with Chantelle. And we will create a separate hour long peer coaching session where I will facilitate a session. So you all can connect with each other. What are challenges you're facing? What are things you're nervous about? What best practices do you have about investigations? And that way, we'll still have a chance to interact. So with that said, let's finish out the stack. And then at the four about roughly the four o'clock mark, we will we will do an AMA and q&a. Okay. So all I know, Amanda share this with you, I'm going to put it up here. If you all could do me a favor, anyone who is using this code, because we're actually interested to understand how important offering SHRM certification is for these sessions. If you here's the code, put it in if you use it, if you need it. If you are using this code, and you attended this event, because you're interested in leveraging this, can you please put in the comment section code, just write code. And then afterwards, we'll pull the transcript, and we'll just tally up like how many people actually care about this code. Okay, I'm seeing a lot. So maybe this is helpful. Great. Okay, please keep doing it. Like if you if you are using this code, please put it in the comment section, we're going to count this up. And this will help inform whether or not we continue to offer SHRM credits with our courses. So thank you. We do not offer HRCI. If you are interested in us offering that in the comment section, please put HRCI in the comment section. Oh my goodness. Okay. So maybe we should offer that. So great. Please put it in. This counts as your vote. Okay. So if you don't vote, then I won't know. With that said, Amanda, while this is happening, and the votes are coming in, can you put up the poll question? Before we do Q&A, I would love if you could do us a favor, I'll be quiet for about 20 seconds. This is very helpful information for us as we continue to shape our product as well as our webinars. Please take a few seconds just to answer these quick poll questions. And then we will move it along. Amanda, let me know when we've gotten a good amount of responses. And then we can close the poll. Or you can let me know by closing the poll. Oh my god, yes, I love seeing Athena customers on the call. It's great. Okay, I feel like that should be enough time. Amanda, you can go ahead and close the poll. And the last thing I'll do is, before the Q&A, let's do a quick spotlight as promised. And then at four o'clock mark, we'll start with the AMA that Chantelle, people are so excited for this. I want to share with you Athena's hotline and case management tool. So we are a compliance training tool. So we offer all kinds of trainings around compliance. So very legal heavy, whether it's harassment prevention, DEI, hiring and interviewing within the law, managing within the law, and for example, how to train your managers on what not to say or what to say when an employee reveals to you that they are pregnant or they have a disability or they are requesting reasonable accommodation. So we offer all those trainings. And in line with that, we also offer a hotline and case management tool, a hotline where your employees are able to anonymously submit feedback. You can respond to those anonymous points. Anyone who uses Google Forms for Hotline totally get it. It's cost effective. And also you probably understand the hassle or the frustration of seeing anonymous feedback and not being able to ask follow up questions like we talked about in this investigation process. Our hotline tool allows you to do that and also provides on the homepage answers to some of these frequently asked questions, which, you know, some of which Chantelle talked about to set that stage. You know, sometimes people are nervous to speak up because they're nervous. Where will this information go? Who's going to see it? What can happen? Can I be retaliated against? How long should I wait before hearing response? So our tool helps answer those questions. You can customize it to answer in the way that you would like. And additionally, and I think this is the really helpful piece, especially helpful, is it comes with a case management tool. So whether it comes in through a hotline or whether somebody, you know, comes to you or a manager tells you, hey, somebody shared this thing with me. If you're in HR, you know the hassle and the anxiety of, you know, an HRBP leading the company and all of their historical knowledge goes away with them. And you don't know who has previous complaints against them or it's tracked somewhere, but in these five different folders and you don't know how to track them all. This is one easy to track way where you can track anything. You can run reports by complaint types. You can assign by complaint types if you have, sorry, I should call it report types, report types based on, you know, who the HRBP is or what kind of situation is, if this is more of a legal thing, a compliance thing, an HR thing. So if you are interested, I highly recommend that you check it out. We'll send links out in our follow-up emails. Please let us know if you're interested and let them know that you heard about this through the webinar. With that said, I think it's time. I think it's time for our AMA. Chantelle, are you ready? Okay. I am. Let's do this. All right, all. If you have more questions, please know it's hard for me to track it if it's just in the free chat because so much is coming in there. Please drop your questions in the Q&A function instead. We've got quite a few. So I'll start by, you know, which ones have the most upvotes and we've got quite a few. So let's pick one with four. Oh, this is a good one. Chantelle, can you explain in your opinion how someone would determine when it's time to outsource an investigation versus navigating it internally? Oh, this is something I've given a lot of thought to. There's going to be two moments in time. The perfect time to do it is at the beginning, before the investigation starts. But I also just want to give everyone permission that if an investigation starts to have scope creep and all of a sudden you're realizing this is a bigger issue, this is involving, you know, leadership in a way I didn't think it was before. It's in essence that like peeling back the onions. Don't be afraid to then also speak up and say what we were investigating at the outset is completely changed and we need to press the reset button. But most of the time you're making this decision before the investigation starts. When you're dealing with people that are in leadership roles, so we're talking about the C-suite here, very likely it makes a lot of sense to bring in an outside investigator at that point. The issue of bias, even though I know that you're going to come at this with neutrality, if we end up in a situation where there's litigation down the road, any attorney is going to try to make a big deal about the fact that you obviously are going to be influenced by leadership. So it makes sense if you're dealing with the C-suite or very senior folks to bring in an outside investigator. Likewise too, as like a quick aside unrelated to this question, but just also keep in mind that depending on which individuals there's a complaint against, it may be something that you need to tee up with the board or your in-house counsel needs to tee up with the board. So for example, if the CEO is the subject of the investigation, that's going to be something that's going to be brought up to the board. The board's going to manage the investigation and once it's the board's managed investigation, it's almost always an outside investigator that handles it. The other options when we really see frankly situations where we see an outside investigator is sometimes having specialized knowledge that the factual intricacies of the investigation would be helpful to have somebody with that subject matter expertise in the background. If it's a highly sensitive topic, so for example, sexual assault or something like that, that would be something that would make a And then there's also the piece of, hey, you're just overloaded. There's a ton of investigations going on right now. There's a backlog and we need to outsource some of these because our obligation as the EEOC has made clear is to conduct a prompt investigation and the fact that you have too much work is not going to be a great defense. So sometimes I've certainly seen it in organizations where they've just hit a point where they have too many and they will just outsource a bunch simply to not because the investigations themselves are complicated, but because the volume has just gotten to be so much. And one other thing that I think is also worthwhile to consider is when you start seeing a situation where there is linkage where you're like, wow, I just got five complaints in and I actually think that they're all related, but they're in various different departments. That may make sense to have a outside investigator handle that because of the intricacies of managing how all these investigations are and all these complaints are interrelated. That is such a great point, especially when there isn't a designated HRBP per business unit. It really can get a little bit tricky about whose domain it falls into and how much context they do or don't have, how open the potential is for bias. And I will just say, for anyone who's interested in leveraging Chantelle's services, if you ever want to outsource, we will be sharing Chantelle's information in our follow-up emails, so keep an eye out. Oh, you're so sweet. I'd be happy to support all of you. And one other thing I think is actually worth mentioning, now that I think about it, is there's also a situation where you have somebody who's raised quite a few concerns, and perhaps you've run into a situation where those concerns have not been substantiated, and yet this person continues to be dissatisfied. Sometimes also bringing in an outside investigator once again reinforces the process, how it is that we're taking things seriously, and perhaps you can use the process and the fact that you devoted resources to an outside investigator to really show this person that you care about their experience. And frankly, also as a level set to be like, hey, is there something we've been missing? Because we've gotten a lot of concerns from this person and nothing's shaking out. So I think that's actually another time that it makes a lot of sense to bring in an outside investigator. I really love that point, in particular because any team can become an echo chamber. I won't go into specifics, but I was sharing with Chantelle something that a previous HR team I was a part of, we just were doing it wrong and we didn't know. So it's helpful to get somebody else to look at this stuff. Okay, Chantelle, we have one question that's got seven upvotes. So let's ask it. How to determine if an employee relations issue requires an investigation? Okay, so we kind of touched on that, but didn't get deep into it. So like how you decide if this is worthy of a full on investigation or it's more like a mediation situation or so on and so forth. And then hang on, let me see the rest because I think the rest might be tactical, in which case, no worries, all we will be sharing these tips after the call. Oh, how to handle an investigation if the employee is coming to you with the report against the head of HR? So that's such a good question. Yeah. Or what if they come against the complaint against you? That's happened before too. By the way, halfway through the interview, there was a report against the interviewer. And yep, please share. It happens. So one, that's a really good example of you got to bring in an outside investigator in that situation. There is just too many opportunities to make arguments that it wouldn't be a neutral investigation. And I think the other thing that's important to say in this instance is you're receiving a complaint about the head of HR. That means that it probably makes sense for not only are you going to give the head of HR notice that there's been a complaint, but frankly, not a lot of details, but you're going to want to go to the next level up to advise about, all right, here's the allegations that have just been raised against my boss and the person that reports up to you, because that may be a situation where it makes a lot of sense for the person to be put out on leave in the interim, depending on what the allocations are, maybe both the complainant and the accused get pronounced leave. There's going to be many levers to pull in that situation. So you want to make sure that you have backup outside of HR. Okay. Thank you, Chantelle. Okay. We've got another one. This one had even more votes. How do you deal with situations when the employee outright denies any allegations against them and there are no witnesses? So it's a, they said, they said, I'm trying to be gender neutral here. Okay. Well, first of all, you know, this kind of situation could happen quite easily. You know, it's like something happened in the supply closet and there's no witnesses and you're just listening to the person that brought forward the complaint and the person that is accused. And ultimately, you ultimately have to determine if you can make a credibility determination. And sometimes, frankly, how a person denies and inform whether or not you think that they are credible, or it could be other witnesses. So for example, I had an investigation where there was really only two people. It was the person that the event happened to. And then there was a person who had been accused of misconduct. They were the only two people in the situation. But the reality was, is that there were other witnesses for tangential facts, so that I could test whether or not the person's denial was accurate, even based on other things the person had said. So in one instance, for example, a person had said, you know, that he had used a, he'd given somebody his credit card. And then when I talked to that person, that person's like, I wasn't even there. And so they start, their memory of what happened starts to fall apart. So I just, I want to really embolden you to do two things. One, think outside the box about other witnesses that you can bring in, even though they didn't see the actual event that was being complained about. Is there other tangential facts that can help you make a credibility determination and how you can leverage other witnesses to get you there? And then the other piece of the puzzle is who you believe and why. And like I said earlier, you know, thinking about how somebody denies something, sometimes it's very informative. Sometimes people outright deny things, sometimes people deny and then they have like a big excuse afterwards. If you can kind of dig into that, that could be something that you leverage to make a credibility determination. And then if you can't, if you ultimately can't make a credibility determination, I think it's imperative that you detail that, that based on the facts you were able to gather, you weren't able to make credibility determination. And that's based on the facts being, you know, completely, you know, one sided on either end, there just wasn't enough facts available for you to make your determination. But you really need to explain why you were not able to make a credibility determination. Actually, the next question I think builds on this. So I'll jump right into it. You know, it seems like there's a little bit of hunger to dig in a little bit deeper on the question of how much can you or should you disclose once that determination has been made? You know, like, okay, can you share the decision you've made? But also can you share what actions have been taken, especially because sometimes there is that hunger for, I just went through this whole complicated process. You're not going to tell me anything. Walk me through that a little bit, both like the pros, the cons, the challenges, what do you recommend? Yeah, and I would say too, that like, this is one of those things that may be impacted by which state you're in, and what the expectations are in that particular state. But as a general matter, both the person that comes forward with the complaint that experienced the misconduct and the person who was accused of the misconduct, assuming they're both employees, they both have a right to know what your ultimate finding was. And while you may not be telling all the witnesses, you can just be telling them that it's over, and there may be a different standard if somebody's a former employee. As a general matter, you're going to want to close it out with both the person that came forward and the person who allegedly engaged in the misconduct. And then in terms of like how much to share, frankly, that couldn't be more aggressive. As a general matter, we tend to want to protect the confidentiality of our employees, personnel decisions, things of that nature. And so we need to balance that with ensuring that the person has kind of faith in the process and that they are feeling that they have been heard irrespective of what the ultimate findings were. So where I find this to be especially important, and this is really where you want to partner with legal about like how much you want to share, is folks where it either wasn't substantiated or it was substantiated and the person who raised the complaint's like, I want the accused fired. We see this a lot where it's like, well, I want them fired, and I can't believe you're not firing them because that's what I want. And this is where the HR, that's not their decision to make. They are not the decision maker. You have to hear them out. And I think it's helpful during the investigation to ask them like, what do you want? Like, I never want to see the person again. It's helpful to know that going into determining what the remediation measures are going to be. But sometimes you're delivering bad news because they want something much more severe to happen than what is actually going to happen. So there is no bright line rule. Frankly, it's a risk analysis of how much you're willing to share. I will say, especially if it involves the two people, you really kind of want to talk through that. Like, all right, we're actually going to do coaching, but I want to do coaching with both of you. And your boss is going to get coaching on interpersonal relationships. And we're going to give you skills on, let's say you have a liberal arts background, and now you've been plunked into an engineering team. And we're actually going to give you some resources about an education about how an engineering department is worked and structured so that when they're giving you feedback, you realize that's actually how engineers give feedback to other engineers. That doesn't mean it's appropriate for you, but it'll help kind of reframe it for you. So I'm sorry that I can't give like a more exact answer other than to say, I think the most important thing when you're going through this process is that you're closing out with both individuals. And you're also giving them an opportunity to check back in with you. And I actually strongly encourage you to schedule that. Be like, hey, let's just have a touch base in a couple of weeks to see how things are going. One, that's going to protect you so that you can say like, hey, I gave them an opportunity to let me know if they've been in retaliation or anything like that. But also, that gives you an opportunity to kind of figure out like, hey, are these remediation measures that we put into place? Are they working? Are things not working? Do we need to make other changes? And once again, reinforces that philosophy that the process, if we put our faith in the process, that while it may not be the outcome that you wanted, we still are here to support you. I think that's so helpful that you share with that framing and with that thought process. Because I think sometimes in the HR world, and I say this like from my own experience, so I'm certainly not trying to speak for everyone. But in my experience, there can be this real fear around, you know, a lot of our jobs can feel like risk mitigation. And so we just want to be out of that. I remember when we were preparing for our holiday webinar, like how to avoid like holiday, you know, drama. You know, somebody had commented on a post that I made that was basically like, I leave after two drinks. Like, that's it. I don't want to be around when things start to go off the rails. And the reality is, I think what I'm hearing implicitly, and please let me know if I'm misinterpreting. I think what I'm hearing implicitly is, actually, we don't have to be so scared. In fact, sometimes that can backfire if we're completely removing ourselves from the situation. And I'll be more specific. I could imagine in this case, how it applies is, I finished the investigation. I never want to talk to either of these two employees again, because I don't want them to get mad again. I don't want the issue to rise up again. I just want it to go away. And what I hear you saying is, actually, no, check in with them. And also, it doesn't have to be so black and white. Even if the person is not, even if corrective action is not taken, that doesn't mean there are non-legal or non-termination or non-written warning options available to you. And I'll go one step further, because I don't see you disagreeing, so yay, is maybe you do. So you can jump in after this. I would go one step further and say, I think sometimes, you know, you're talking about like, oh, I'm sorry, I can't give you like a specific answer, because it's not like a straight letter of the law thing. I actually think, while that can sound scary, in some ways, it's a little bit of a relief to know that we can do some work to think, because part of it certainly is optics, right? And how will this be received? And what is the impact it will have across morale, across the company? And so to think about, okay, we did the letter of the law stuff that we had to do. And now me personally, thinking about it human to human, would it be helpful for them to have a little bit more information, not in a breach in confidentiality way? Or do I genuinely think that this might stoke the flames? So anyway, I'll pause, because I threw a lot there. I don't want to put words in your mouth. Please refute anything I said, if it seems off. No, no, no, I actually really agree with you. Because, you know, this conversation in terms of how the mediation is going to flesh out, especially when we're talking with the person who's the claimant, and they've come forward, and they've raised a concern, and we're trying to give them feedback about what's going to happen next with the person who's accused, especially if they're staying at the company. It really is a delicate balance. And the word that kept buzzing around in my head as you were talking was control. And when something happens to you that you don't like, you can have a sense of loss of control. So part of this process, really on both sides for the HR professional, is getting some control back to the claimant, but within appropriate boundaries. They don't get to pick the remedial measure. But you may make the decision that it's worthwhile for them to continue to give feedback on whether or not the remedial measures are working. So for example, let's say that the decision has been made that the accused is going to get coaching. So you're not going to get into the weeds of it. You may not even say that there's going to be coaching. You're just going to say, you know, don't worry, we're handling this. We are engaging in remedial measures to address these issues. There could be a myriad of reasons about why you share or don't share the details. But by circling back with the person, you're giving them some control and you're giving them a construct that they know in four weeks, you're going to talk again. And you're going to make, hey, how are things going? And let's just use that coaching example. It's like, hey, are you seeing any changes? Are things improved at all? And you have to be ready that the person may, I think a good outcome is, you know, I'm seeing improvements. It's not great yet. Okay, great. Do you want to schedule another follow-up meeting? Sure. Okay. Once again, it's giving the person control and something that's measurable. So they feel like the company is doing something and engaged, but they're, you know, they're not actually seeing how, you know, the bread's made or however the expression goes. And then I would also say kind of conversely for you as the HR person, by putting that meeting on the calendar, then that worry that you feel, because maybe it's just me, but sometimes I hold that worry. And especially, you know, when you're dealing with people on their lives and it's so important what happens at work, that this gives you a say to be like, all right, for four weeks, I don't have to worry about this. And four weeks from now, I'm going to check in and I know the parameters of what it is we're going to discuss. I know that if this person brings up a bunch of stuff that we've already investigated, that I'm going to be armed with the knowledge to be like, great, thank you for bringing that up again. Like just as a reminder, like that was actually part of the last investigation. Is there anything new? You're going to be prepared for the conversation instead of going in and being blindsided. So maybe it's a way to not feel afraid. I love that. Speaking of control, our next question, I think touches on that. And I'm going to read it word for word because it's hilarious. I think I scared people a little bit with the TikTok thing, which is true. I'm not making it up. You can look it up. I can actually share. I spoke to a reporter about it because it was really making the rounds. With the new era of recording termination meetings, yikes, in all caps, is there anything we can do as a preface to a meeting or something to cover our butts? And I just want to give credence to anyone who's reading this. This sort of topic of especially the question of liability on HR has become increasingly, I think, top of mind because I think for so long, lawyers had this liability that HR people don't. And then about a year ago, there was a McDonald's situation. I don't know if you remember that, Chantelle, if you were aware. There's a whole McDonald's case where it was like, oh, gosh, is that of HR actually culpable? Are they responsible for action not having been taken appropriately? And so anyway, Chantelle, how would you recommend HR people worried about being recorded on TikTok or in other ways, this coming around to bite them? How would you recommend they prepare? Yeah. So I actually think about recording a lot because quite a few of my investigations are done virtually now. It's so funny. Pre-COVID, I was flying all over the country doing investigations. One day I was in three different states in 24 hours trying to catch people before the rumor mill started. Nowadays, most of the time it's via Zoom. And a real essential component as part of that lead up, and I'm actually going to have as part of the tactical materials that gets circulated, you'll get some language, a reminder on this issue, is confirming that you are not recording this session and you want the confirmation of the employee that they're not recording it either. One, in certain states like California, where I am, it's a dual consent state. So if both of the people don't consent to being recorded, then the recording is an unlawful recording. But also, I think it really just kind of like level sets it, and we can't then, someone could still have their phone in their pocket or whatever it may be. But I also tell people that I'll stop the investigation if they're recording it, and that's not our policy. That's not how we do it. This is not, that doesn't create an environment where people are open, and then there'd be inconsistencies amongst all my interviews. So I don't do recording. I'm not afraid to stop an interview because of that as well. And so it's one of those things that you need to be kind of mindful about. But just like some of the other things we've talked about, I actually think just addressing the elephant in the room at the outset is a lot better. Because then you certainly will get people that will say, oh yeah, I am recording it. And then you can deal with it in the moment instead of having to deal with it on the back end. And frankly too, if you decide to proceed with the interview and they are recording it and things start going off the rails, you know you're being recorded, you'll stay calm, you'll end the interview and say, you know, I don't think actually now this is the right time or place for me to get, you know, your point of view. And we'll reschedule at a different time when you feel more comfortable sharing with me your story. And then you're just going to exit the interview. Okay, thank you Chantelle. All right, I think we have time for one more question. So let's see who it's going to be. I'm trying to go based on upvotes rather than me determining. So let's see. Okay. Chantelle, by the way, let me know too if you have seen one or if there's a thing that you in particular wanted to address. Okay. This is an interesting one. Should you ever ask the complainant if what they'd like the outcome of the invest, what they would like the outcome of the investigation to be, does that indicate anything on behalf of the company? I actually think that's a really helpful question. It really helps you get inside the person's head. You'd be surprised how often people say I don't want anything bad to happen to this person. That may actually be why they didn't come forward initially is because they were worried the person was going to get in trouble. Now, what I think that helps with is it helps inform the conversation after the fact when you're figuring out what are we going to do here? And sometimes, you know, the solution becomes apparent because of what the claimant has asked. And, you know, something else that I think is really funny, not funny, but I just think is really insightful is that you may get information that is really irrelevant to your investigation, but it's really helpful for the company to understand whether it's either the investigative process, how to handle the remediation, or just, you know, dynamics in the workplace. And what I kind of do when I'm organizing my investigation is like, all right, here's all, once I've looked at everything, here's all the facts that either I wrote, that I relied on in order to find my factual findings. But here's the facts that I think are really informative as to insights about the company, insights to the dynamics in a particular group. And as the outside investigator, how I usually phrase it is, if I was HR, these are things I'd want to know. And so then I also, you know, will just highlight some of the things that people shared. Now, I'm not going to get substantial about whether or not those facts are true or not, more likely to be true or not. But it is a really great pulse point. So back to the original question, I absolutely think that it's a worthwhile question to ask, and could help both with remediation, and frankly, sometimes also just credibility. Lovely. I'm very sorry, because I realized that was a repeat question. So apologies, Chantelle. I will, I will squeeze in to correct for one last question, 60 seconds or less, and then what do you do when you're speaking with the accused, and they raise a complaint against the accuser? Oh, that happens more often than you want it to happen. So I got some laughter on that one. And sometimes it just happens when they find out about the investigation to begin with. So what I do is, you know, you gather the information, and then this is when as HR, it's really essential for you to have somebody that you can partner with to figure out like, okay, what is our plan of action here? Is my plan of action here to deal with this complaint in the moment, because it's related, and I just want to keep it all as one investigation? Is it like, so far in left field that I actually want to keep this investigation in its little bubble, and do a separate investigation as to this particular complaint? And that's actually so fact specific, but that's where it's really essential that you're partnering with someone on your team to figure out what your best bet is. In situations where I call them like dueling complaints or concerns, what you want to be able to do is structure the investigation so that the initial complainant has their time to raise all their concerns. You're gathering information about those concerns, and then ultimately presenting them to the accused. Then the accused raised a new complaint. Before you circle back with the complainant, you want to do the same process in essence in reverse, where you then say, okay, here's your concern about the initial complainant. I'm now going to look at gather facts as to that, and when I circle back with the complainant, I may ask some clarifying questions about the initial complaint, but I'm also going to present the facts that are being brought forward by the accused. That's if you're handling both of them at once. Super helpful. All, thank you so much for joining, Chantelle. This was amazing. I could tell there was a lot of hunger for all the wisdom that you shared. I promise, as discussed earlier, we will send emails out with additional tactical resources, a link to register for a group coaching session. All, if you're hungry for more Chantelle, we can make it happen. Let us know. Chantelle, you're a rock star. We will be sharing your information. Reach out to Chantelle if you want her services. I could not thank you enough, Chantelle. Thank you so much. Such a great session.

[Chantelle Egan] (88:47 - 88:48)
Thank you.

[Melanie Naranjo] (88:48 - 88:51)
Thank you. Thank you. All right. Bye, everyone.