In this featured episode of California Employment News, Lizbeth (Beth) West and Meagan Bainbridge present part two of the Workplace Investigation Series, discussing best practices for collecting information during a workplace investigation.

Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel and find the first installment of this series here.



Meagan: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this installment of the California Employment News, an informative video resource offered by the Labor and Employment Group at Weintraub Tobin.

My name is Megan Bainbridge, and I'm a shareholder in the Labor and Employment Group. And today, I'm joined by my partner, Beth West. Today's episode is part two of a four-part series discussing effective and defensible workplace investigations. In the first part of the series, Today, we discussed what steps to take when an employer first learns of a complaint or has knowledge of some alleged misconduct in the workplace. Today, in part two, we're going to discuss best practices for gathering information. Beth, why don't you start us off and tell us what investigator should do first to ensure they gather all relevant facts about the allegations.

Beth: Thanks, Megan. Well, in order to conduct an effective investigation, the investigator must gather all relevant facts about the allegation. There are some planning The following steps that you as the investigator can take in order to stay focused on the issues within the scope of the investigation and avoid what is called scope creep, which we'll discuss later. First, create a plan before you begin interviewing witnesses. If there is a written complaint, you can use that as a starting place, a roadmap or blueprint of the issues that define the scope of what's going to be investigated. This can also help identify which witnesses to talk to first and what if any, may need to be reviewed prior to interviewing witnesses. If there's no written complaint, discuss the verbal complaint or concerns that have been raised with the client or stakeholder, and prepare a scope outline or memo to ensure that the scope of the investigation is clear. Determine your initial witness list, but don't be wed to it. As you speak to witnesses or gather information, other witnesses may be identified that you'll have to interview. Determine what documents need to be obtained and you're going to obtain those.

You may be able to request some of the documents from the client or stakeholder, for example, an org chart or policies or some other company document. However, some documents may come directly from the witnesses that you interview. You should also carefully consider whether you need to view certain documents. For example, is it necessary to do a full review of the complainant or respondent's personnel file? The allegations and scope of the investigation will help determine this, but investigators should not make it a standard practice to review personnel files and other documents that aren't apparently relevant. Doing so could potentially influence the investigator in a way that's not appropriate and could result in bias. Create an outline of the issues, the topics, or the questions for your witness interviews. Again, it's not a script and you shouldn't be wed to it. Instead, it should contain the overall topics to address with the witnesses based on the allegations within the scope. Remember to always consider scope, what it is you're trying to investigate, what information you're trying to obtain. It's important to check in on scope at the planning stage and throughout the investigation and be aware of what's called scope creep.

Scope creep happens when you start focusing on issues and investigating allegations that are not within the scope of the investigation. Finally, consider where the witness interviews take place.