When the job market is strong, employee engagement moves up the agenda. Leaders worry about retention. Managers are encouraged to listen more closely. Culture suddenly matters. When the job market tightens, that urgency often drops away. People stop leaving. Turnover stabilises. On the surface, things look calmer. But staying in a role is not the […]
Trust Is Usually Lost Before The Findings Are Written One of the things I have noticed after years of conducting workplace investigations is that people often use the word “bias” to describe experiences that have very little to do with bias. When somebody says an investigation felt biased, they may be describing a process that […]
Why Fairness Is Not The Same As False Equivalence One of the concerns I hear regularly from new investigators is whether treating evidence differently risks being unfair. The question usually comes from a good place. Investigators want to demonstrate neutrality. They want everybody involved to feel they have been treated fairly. They want to avoid […]
The Best Investigators Challenge Their Own Thinking One of the misconceptions I come across when training investigators is the idea that investigations are primarily about asking good questions of other people. Good questioning matters. The ability to gather evidence, explore inconsistencies and understand different perspectives sits at the heart of any effective investigation. However, the […]
How Managers Can Respond When Someone Speaks Up One of the mistakes organisations make when thinking about workplace harassment is focusing almost exclusively on the investigation. Investigations are important. They help establish what happened, test the evidence and determine whether workplace standards have been breached. However, by the time an investigator becomes involved, a great […]
Understanding Fear, Uncertainty and Workplace Power Dynamics One of the questions that still appears surprisingly often when discussing sexual harassment complaints is: “If it really happened, why didn’t they report it sooner?” On the surface, it may seem like a reasonable question. We tend to assume that when something serious happens, people will report it […]
Why Emotive Language Weakens Your Findings One of the misconceptions I see most often in workplace investigation reports is the belief that stronger language creates stronger findings, when in practice it often has the opposite effect. By the time an investigator starts writing their report, they have usually spent days or weeks immersed in the […]
How to Stay Objective in a Workplace Investigation One of the comments I hear most often when training investigators is, “What would you do?” It’s usually asked after we’ve discussed a difficult case and, on the surface, it seems like a perfectly reasonable question. People want reassurance. They want to know whether they are looking […]
One of the things that surprises people when they start conducting investigations is that writing the report often feels harder than conducting the investigation itself. At first, that doesn’t make much sense. By the time you start writing, the interviews have been completed, the documents have been reviewed and the evidence has been gathered. Surely […]
One of the most common questions I get asked by new investigators is, “What questions should I ask?” It’s an understandable question. After all, the interview is where the evidence is gathered, so surely having the right questions is the key to a good investigation. The reality is a little less exciting than that. There […]
The new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment by third parties has prompted a lot of discussion amongst HR professionals. Much of that discussion has focused on policies, training, reporting routes and investigations. All of these things matter. Organisations should absolutely be reviewing their approach and considering whether their existing […]
For many adults, conversations around consent simply were not part of school education in the way they are today. Depending on age, background and education, sex education often focused on biology, pregnancy and sexual health, with very little discussion around: That matters more than many organisations realise. Because workplaces are increasingly dealing with the consequences […]
When someone reports sexual harassment at work, the first response matters more than many managers realise. Not because managers are expected to have all the answers in the moment, but because the way someone responds can shape whether the individual feels safe, supported, and willing to continue engaging with the process. Most people do not […]
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