Liars Never Disappoint, and Other HR Investigation Tips

Give liars a chance to lie, and they never disappoint, says Mike Soltis, managing partner of the Stamford office of the nationwide law firm Jackson Lewis. (His suggestions first appeared in our sister publication, the HR Manager’s Legal Reporter.)

For example, when you have videotapes of some activity, ask the witness about it before showing the tape. Liars will lie, he says, and that works for you in two ways: First, their credibility is gone, and second, they’ve violated your policy by lying during an investigation. You can discipline for that. (You do have a policy that requires employees to participate in investigations and to tell the truth, right?)

Wrap Up the Investigation Carefully

Additional tips for investigations come from BLR’s well-known “Red Book,” officially titled, What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State]. When you’ve written your report and taken appropriate action, you’re not done yet, says the Red Book. There are three more steps:

1. Inform the complaining employee that you have taken action; otherwise, he or she may think that no action was taken.

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The HR Red Book® compares fed and state laws on 200 employment topics. Trusted by more than 20,000 companies. Updates 6 times each year. Try the program at no cost. Click for information

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2. Stay in touch with employees who were affected by the investigation to find out:

• If someone was harassed, does he or she now feel safe?
  
• Is there any evidence that an involved individual is experiencing retaliation?
  
• Is anyone resentful of the investigation’s outcome?
  

3. Address any organizational problems uncovered as a result of the investigation.

For those not familiar with it, the Red Book is an extraordinary HR tool born of the recognition that HR managers need state compliance help as well as federal—and they need to be able to find it in the same place.

State Law Adds Complexity … If You Can Find It!

Most states have laws on HR topics that intersect, or even conflict, with the federal. But unless you’re a research superstar, you might not know all you should about these state laws. That’s often because they’re publicized in obscure journals, not widely available. Yet officials still expect you to comply. The answer to this quandary is the Red Book.

Each state’s edition (there’s one for nearly every state, plus the District of Columbia) includes these features:

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6 updates a year are included with your state’s edition of BLR’s What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State.] (Others charge extra for updates.) Try the program at no cost. Click for information

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Presents and Compares Federal and State Law on 200 Employment Topics. (Click the Table of Contents link below to see the full list.) For each topic, there’s first a plain-English explanation of federal compliance. Then, right next to the federal, there’s what your state requires.

Topics Alphabetically Arranged. Easily find today’s HR challenge, from “Affirmative Action” to “Workers’ Compensation.”

Updates Included. Subscribers get 6 updates a year. And each month you get two newsletters: one national, one for your state. No extra cost for any of this.

Compensation and Benefits Reports, presenting what other companies in your state and industry pay for hundreds of jobs. Separate reports for exempt, nonexempt, and benefits are all included.

Prewritten HR Policies and Forms, ready to print and use.

The entire program costs just $1.52 a working day and can be tried at no cost for 30 days. (The links below show samples of the various materials.) If you’d like to see what 20,000 of your colleagues depend on every day, click here and we’ll be happy to set up a no-cost trial of your state’s version of the program.

Download national section sample
Download state section sample
Download table of contents
Download newsletter sample