Unfortunately I have had to deal with dishonest and unscrupulous people over my professional career. And their behaviors – including stealing, sexual harassment, false harassment allegations, theft by deception, and extortion – were so foreign to me that when I first experienced them I was left feeling naïve and dumbfounded.
What I have learned and do believe is that the “good” people among us far outnumber the “bad” ones. Over 40 years I have come in contact with thousands of people and employees and my list of dishonest and unethical people is short.
However, one responsibility is to properly and fairly investigate allegations of inappropriate behavior. I write “fairly” because sometimes bad people try to hurt good people with false allegations. In a moment, I’ll write about a free webinar we’ll be hosting on this very topic.
But, first, let me share a few cases.
Mack the Thief. Mack was a senior manager who delivered solid financial and operational outcomes. He was a veteran in his field and, except for a few odd personal habits, was someone people liked and who got new business and customer referrals.
Mack was also a thief.
Mack got permission from the company founder to get a Sam’s Club charge card so he could “save the company money” buying office supplies there. Eventually Mack discovered there was no real company control system and as long as his profit center was profitable, no one questioned his office expense line item.
Then, however, an honest team member came forward because she saw what Mack was buying and taking home. She was angry that someone would steal like this from a very fine and honorable family that owned the business.
We carefully planned our investigative interviews. We protected the anonymity of the other employee and gathered factual material. We completed a thorough and fair investigation. In the end we were shocked to discover that Mack had purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of food, clothing, and even furniture for his home and carefully masked the receipts.
The result of our process was that Mack confessed and we terminated his employment. The process was fair to everyone and uncovered control system weaknesses that were then fixed.
A Few Other Cases. Although I can only remember about 20 investigations, here are five brief and fairly common ones where fair internal investigations and interviews got the best results.
- A female employee notified a senior manager that she and her male supervisor had a consensual relationship, but she was now uncomfortable with it. An investigation confirmed the facts and disciplinary action was administered and the supervisor was re-assigned.
- A manager put his wife on the payroll and paid her half of his salary. When this was discovered he tried to sell his decision as a noble and kind gesture to his wife. Upon further investigation it was discovered he did this to keep his income below a threshold level that would reduce his disability check coming as a former Massachusetts firefighter. Of course questions later arose about whether this very able person was really disabled. And, a little later, another investigation found this guy was falsifying his expense reports – not really a shock.
- A female employee made different statements that male customers were making inappropriate advances toward her. Although no coworkers or managers were mentioned, we completed an internal investigation led by our HR vice president. We discovered she was fabricating the stories.
- A manager submitted false receipts and cheated on petty cash and expense reports. An internal investigation uncovered the facts and the employee was terminated.
- In an effort to extract or extort better business terms, a customer lied about an employee never thinking there would be a formal investigation. A fair investigation discovered the lie and the employee was exonerated.
As you can see from these brief examples, the purpose of an investigation is to get the facts out so fair and proper actions can be taken.
If you want to be prepared to do an effective internal investigation, you might want to attend our free 60 minute webinar Conducting Internal Investigation Interviews on Wednesday, November 16th with special guest attorney Naomi Butterfield.
Remember, it is our responsibility as organizational leaders to identify and remove the bad apples and to provide a safe and healthy work environment for the many good team members among us. If you keep this goal in mind, it makes going through the investigative process more palatable, even in the worst of situations.
