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 at the situation in the right way or whether somebody with more experience would come to the same conclusion.
What interests me is the assumption sitting underneath it.
The assumption is that the investigator’s opinion is the most important thing in the process.
The longer I have worked in investigations, the more I have come to believe the opposite.
Of course, investigators exercise judgement. We decide what evidence needs to be gathered, who needs to be spoken to and whether there is enough information available to reach a finding. Those decisions matter. However, there is a difference between exercising judgement and making the investigation about yourself.
One of the mistakes inexperienced investigators sometimes make is believing that the value they bring is their opinion, when in reality their value comes from their ability to gather evidence, test it fairly and explain how they reached their findings.
That may sound like a small distinction, but it changes the way an investigation is approached from start to finish.
One of the reasons investigations can be difficult is that we spend a lot of time with the evidence. We read the emails, review the messages, speak to the witnesses and gradually begin to build a picture of what may have happened. As human beings, it would be impossible not to form views along the way.
The challenge is making sure those views don’t quietly take over.
When people think about bias, they often imagine something obvious. They picture an investigator openly favouring one person over another or ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit their preferred conclusion. In reality, bias is usually much more subtle than that.
It often appears when investigators become attached to a particular explanation too early. They start asking questions that support their view rather than test it. They give more weight to evidence that confirms what they already believe. They stop exploring alternative explanations because, in their mind, they have already worked out what happened.
Most investigators do not do this deliberately. In fact, many are completely unaware it is happening. That is why staying objective is not about pretending you do not have opinions. It is about recognising that you do and making sure they never become more important than the evidence itself.
I often see this issue emerge most clearly in investigation reports.
An investigator writes that a witness was defensive. Another was credible. A manager was aggressive. A respondent was evasive.
The problem is not necessarily that those conclusions are wrong. The problem is that they place the investigator at the centre of the report. The reader is being asked to trust the investigator’s opinion rather than understand the evidence that led to it.
A stronger report explains what happened.
Perhaps a witness gave a consistent account throughout the investigation and their version of events was supported by emails sent at the time. Perhaps somebody gave different explanations when asked the same question on different occasions. Perhaps several witnesses independently described the same behaviour.
Once that evidence is set out clearly, the reader can understand how the finding was reached without relying on the investigator’s opinion. The evidence does the heavy lifting and the investigator’s role is to explain how they arrived at their conclusion.
This is one of the reasons I have always been uncomfortable with investigators recommending sanctions.
The investigator’s role is to establish what happened. The decision maker’s role is to decide what should happen next.
Although those roles are connected, they serve different purposes and should remain separate.
An investigator may conclude that an allegation is upheld. That does not automatically tell us whether somebody should receive a warning, whether training would be more appropriate or whether dismissal falls within the range of reasonable responses available to the organisation.
Those decisions involve a wider set of considerations than the investigation itself.
Once investigators start recommending sanctions, they move beyond establishing the facts and into determining outcomes. In doing so, they risk becoming invested in a particular result rather than remaining focused on the evidence that led to the finding.
For me, that is where the line should be drawn.
My role is to answer a single question: what does the evidence tell me?
Everything that comes after that belongs to somebody else.
The more investigations I conduct, the more I find myself coming back to the same conclusion. Good investigators leave very little trace of themselves behind.
A well-written investigation should allow the reader to see the evidence, follow the reasoning and understand how the findings were reached without needing to rely on the investigator’s authority. The focus should remain on the evidence rather than the personality, confidence or personal views of the person who conducted the investigation.
The strongest investigations are not built on the authority of the investigator. They are built on the quality of the evidence.
That is why the investigator does not have a voice, at least not in the way many people think. Our role is not to dominate the process, shape the outcome or become part of the story. Our role is to gather evidence, test it fairly and explain what it shows.
Once we have done that, we step back and let the evidence speak for itself.
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.
