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 the difficult part is over.
In reality, the challenge is only just beginning.
The reason is that most of us have spent our entire lives learning how to write persuasively.
At school we were taught to build arguments. At university we were encouraged to take a position and defend it. Throughout our careers we are rewarded for influencing, convincing and presenting our point of view.
Investigation reports require almost the exact opposite skill.
The investigator is not trying to persuade the reader that somebody behaved badly. They are not trying to win an argument or prove a point. Their role is to explain what happened, set out the evidence and show how they reached their conclusions.
In many ways, a good investigation report has more in common with a science report than an essay.
That sounds straightforward. In practice, it is remarkably difficult.
By the time an investigator sits down to write a report, they have usually spent days or weeks immersed in the case. They know the witnesses. They know the documents. They have listened to difficult accounts and developed views about what happened.
The challenge is making sure those views don’t accidentally find their way onto the page.
When I review investigation reports, I can often tell within the first few paragraphs whether the investigator is writing like an investigator or writing like an advocate.
Advocates tell you what to think.
Investigators show you the evidence.
The difference often comes down to something as simple as the language being used.
Take a sentence such as, “The manager was aggressive.”
Most people read that and assume it is a statement of fact.
It isn’t.
It is a conclusion.
The real question is what happened that led the investigator to that conclusion.
Did the manager raise their voice? Did they interrupt repeatedly? Did they swear? Did they stand up during the meeting?
Those behaviours are evidence.
“Aggressive” is an interpretation of that evidence.
The distinction matters because different people may interpret the same behaviour in different ways. One witness may describe somebody as aggressive. Another may describe them as frustrated. The individual themselves may say they were passionate about the discussion.
The behaviour is the evidence. The label is the interpretation.
One of the most common mistakes investigators make is believing that stronger language creates stronger reports.
It’s easy to understand why.
If you’ve spent weeks investigating poor behaviour, neutral language can feel inadequate. There is often a temptation to help the reader understand the seriousness of what you’ve found by describing behaviour as intimidating, shocking, inappropriate or clearly unacceptable.
The irony is that this often weakens the report rather than strengthening it.
As soon as the investigator starts relying on adjectives, the focus can shift away from the behaviour itself and onto the language being used.
Was it really intimidating?
Was it actually shocking?
Was it clearly unacceptable?
The discussion is no longer about the evidence.
It is about the investigator’s opinion.
Compare these two examples.
“The respondent was aggressive, intimidating and clearly attempting to undermine the complainant throughout the meeting. Their behaviour was highly inappropriate and demonstrated a concerning lack of professionalism.”
At first glance, it sounds convincing.
Yet almost every sentence relies on interpretation.
Now compare it to this:
“During the meeting, the respondent interrupted the complainant on seven occasions. Witness B recalled the respondent raising their voice during the discussion and Witness C described the respondent pointing across the table whilst speaking. The respondent accepted that they interrupted the complainant but stated this was because they disagreed with what was being said.”
The second example feels less dramatic.
Yet it is considerably more powerful.
The investigator has stepped out of the way and allowed the evidence to speak for itself.
That is where real accountability comes from.
One of the biggest misconceptions in investigation report writing is that accountability is created through strong language.
In my experience, the opposite is true.
The more factual a report becomes, the harder it is for behaviour to be explained away.
Readers do not need to be told what to think. They can see the behaviour for themselves. They can follow the evidence, understand the reasoning and see how the findings were reached.
That is what makes a report credible.
The strongest investigation reports are rarely the most persuasive.
They are the most disciplined.
They separate evidence from opinion. They distinguish between observation and interpretation. They resist the temptation to strengthen findings with adjectives and instead trust the evidence enough to stand on its own.
Because ultimately, an investigator’s job is not to tell people what happened.
It is to explain what the evidence shows.
At Tell Jane, we carry out independent workplace investigations and support organisations to strengthen their investigation capability through training, mentoring and quality assurance. If you’d like support with a complex case or want to improve the quality of investigations within your organisation, we’d be happy to help.
