Following the recent reports about Giovanni Pernice's teaching methods on Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC has pledged to handle complaints with ‘care, fairness and sensitivity’.  The BBC emphasised its confidentiality policy and fair process for all parties involved in complaints and reiterated its duty of care to everyone linked to a complaint. The BBC will know that conducting an effective investigation will now be crucial, as there is a significant public interest in the case. 

Most employers will not face the same level of public scrutiny as the BBC, however ensuring fair and transparent investigations is critical to maintaining a positive workforce culture and safe service delivery, whatever the sector you operate in. 

Having conducted or overseen numerous disciplinary, grievance and whistleblowing investigations for our clients, the most common mistakes that I see employers make when conducting investigations are:

1. A failure to prepare and plan - at the start of every investigation you should have a clear outline of the purpose of the investigation and the allegations or issues being investigated. The investigating officer, with assistance from the HR team, should develop a detailed investigation plan, including timelines, key witnesses and relevant documents to review.
2. A failure to appoint an appropriate investigator - any investigator that is appointed should be impartial. They also need the required knowledge, skills and time to ensure the investigation is carried out appropriately. The more serious the allegations, or the individuals involved, the more care and attention should be given to the appointment. From experience, appointing an inappropriate person to investigate, is often where this can go wrong and the integrity of the process is compromised.
3. Careless approach to gathering evidence - everyone knows that the progress of collecting evidence involves conducting interviews. But gathering the evidence may also mean looking through emails, reports, CCTV footage and any other physical or digital evidence.
4. Poor preparation for interviews - many investigating officers attend interviews not properly prepared. It's important to prepare questions in advance,  ensuring open-ended questions are initially used to gather information and avoiding leading questions that may bias the responses. All interviews must be documented accurately and investigators should go back with further questions when evidence remains unaddressed.
5. A lack of analysis of evidence - it is the job of the investigating officer to analyse all collected evidence to determine its relevance and reliability. Investigating officers should spot any inconsistencies in witness evidence and should investigate those further. Consideration should be given to relevant policies, laws and regulations and an analysis of legal considerations should be undertaken. 
6. Narrow investigation report - the investigation report should be detailed and include the background of the case, evidence collected, witness statements, analysis and conclusions. The report should provide recommendations for action, if any, such as whether the matter should proceed to a disciplinary hearing and where appropriate identify any areas for improvement.

How can we help you? 

• We regularly deliver client-specific investigation training aimed at helping your teams become familiar with the company’s policies and procedures and developing their interviewing, evidence collection and report writing. skills. The session includes sector-relevant role-playing scenarios where individuals can practice newly learnt skills. 
• We carry disciplinary, grievance and whistleblowing investigations on behalf of our clients giving them the piece of mind that the process is fair, robust and legally compliant. 

If you would like any further advice on this issue or training, please contact me.