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Overview: This webinar will cover best practices in processes and procedures for internal employment investigations. How to begin (and end) your investigations with a sound methodology for investigations that supports your employment decisions and documents it as such. Other than the alternative, to start your investigation in the middle with methods, documentation and poor decisions that portrays the employer as illogical, judgmental, incompetent, and less than thorough - even if they were not.

Why should you attend: Upon notice of a potential problem, how an employer decides to proceed; gathering facts and evidence, taking complaints, interviewing witness, storing evidence, determining credibility, making decisions and acting on those decisions including follow up, are what comprises an employer's internal investigation.

Gathered, stored and used properly, good documentation - timely, factual, thorough, accurate and objective; can be beneficial in supporting employment decisions, and if need be, even supporting terminations. Proper handling of any physical evidence is also necessary to defend an employer's actions. How an employer interviews employees; who, where, when, how, and why -what they do ask and do not ask, is vitally important as well. Employer investigations, including all the employer's actions and documentation (or not) are records to support an employer's decision-making processes - or not.

Areas Covered in the Session:

• Taking an accurate initial complaint, the foundation to a competent complainant based investigation
• Processes and procedures for processing interviews - before the interview, beginning the interview, during the interview and ending the interview
• What you don't write down can be as important as what you do
• Setting up a good, yet manageable Chain of Evidence, making sure to gather and include evidence you may have overlooked
• Keeping it private - Determining Need To Know vs Want to Know
• "Side" conversations - gathering documentation on the fly; whether in the hallway or remotely and what to do
• When do you know you've investigated enough? Or not enough?
• How to review your actions and documentation before writing the final report
• Writing a solid, objective, professional investigative report
• Checking documentation for accuracy before making a negative employment decision
• Ending the investigation and following up after the investigation

Who Will Benefit:

• Managers
• Branch Managers
• Store Managers
• HR Generalists
• HR Managers
• Plant Managers
• Management
• Business Owners