How to Go About Workplace Investigations in Sydney or Australia-wide

A Workplace investigation is something most employers hope to avoid, yet need to know how to run efficiently and effectively when a situation requires it. A workplace investigation performed professionally and independently of your organisation helps you manage business and legal risks and, importantly, ensures you uphold your duty of care to your employees. Workplace investigations can be conducted face to face and/or online in Sydney and Australia-wide.

The Importance of Conducting Workplace Investigations

Knowing how to deal with issues that arise in your workplace is essential in successfully addressing problems and managing risk. Here’s why you need to know when it is necessary to conduct a workplace investigation:

• You need the facts upon which to make a decision. You may generally have a harmonious workplace, but this won’t prevent clashes between employees and workplace grievance from time to time. Once a problem presents itself, it needs to be dealt with swiftly and objectively, so that all related parties know they are getting a fair and just outcome. Sometimes this means adopting an evidence-based approach to ensure there is procedural fairness for all involved. An evidence-based approach in the form of an investigation will be important if you think you may need to terminate a person’s employment if they have done the wrong thing as alleged.
• To be fair you need to ensure independence. When workplace investigations are conducted, using an individual who is not directly related to the workplace or the issue ensures the investigation is independent and not biased by existing relationships or workplace dynamics. Without independence, you can’t be confident you have dealt with the facts of the matter objectively to ensure a fair fact-based outcome is reached.
• A qualified investigator knows what to look for. You need a workplace investigator capable of the task at hand.  An investigator who has experience and an understanding of workplace environments and knowledge of legal definitions related to employee conduct has the ability to see things objectively. By engaging an external, independent and qualified investigator, you can ensure you have an experienced and knowledgeable investigator who will work through the matter in a way that gets to the root of the problem, minimises business disruption and ensures procedural fairness for all involved.

The Benefits of an Independent HR Investigation

Investigating employee misconduct is a serious process and requires specific knowledge, experience and impartiality to make an evidence-based finding. Here are the advantages to using an independent investigator for your workplace:

• Save your time and effort for positive business activity. Doing a thorough and robust investigation requires considerable time, effort and expertise to ensure the process is fair and the findings can be relied upon by the organisation to make important decisions. By using an independent investigator, you save valuable time for your internal human resource employees so they can continue to focus on other important tasks and you can be certain the person conducting the investigation has the knowledge and experience to do it properly, quickly and without bias.
• Ensure your investigation is fair by being independent. It is always difficult for another employee to conduct an unbiased, impartial investigation which is aimed at arriving at an evidence-based outcome. Often employees are influenced by their own relationships and experiences of the people involved in the investigation and this can make it almost impossible for them to have a truly independent, bias-free position in relation to whatever matters are being investigated.

• An expert investigator enables confidentiality and can elicit more information. Third party investigators are experts who have the experience to manage the investigation process in a way that causes minimal disruption and stress within your business. The investigator manages all aspects of the investigation including confidentiality to ensure the process is fair and as comfortable as possible for all involved.
• Ensure your investigation is fair by being impartial and unbiased. Using an external investigator will give you peace of mind knowing that the outcome of the investigation is objective, fair and transparent. There can be no accusation that an outcome is unfair or made for biased reasons due to existing relationships between employees.

The above benefits give you, as an employer, peace of mind and ensure a fairer outcome for everyone involved.

About Pax People Resolutions

At Pax People Resolutions, we conduct workplace investigations confidentially, efficiently and with the utmost attention to detail. We offer experienced, empathetic and highly skilled investigators who are focused on getting you an evidence-based, unbiased, objective outcome for your company so you can effectively uphold your duty of care to your employees and manage your legal and business risk.

Give us a call to learn more about how our workplace investigation process works.  Please also see our website www.paxpeople.com.au