Tips for Proper Employee Investigation for Avoiding Lawsuits

Often employers have to undergo the nasty task of terminating an employee’s service, often for lack of proper conduct, not reaching deadlines or may be some other charges. This however, should be done with caution, because the rank of the employer, though superior and more powerful in position has its own responsibilities and there are some binding rules which he too has to follow, failing to abide by which he may find himself in a compromising situation, if the employee chooses to file a lawsuit of unreasonable firing.

Employers may often have to terminate an employee’s job on charges of sexual harassment or abusing behavior with other colleagues. In an environment where a number of people work together, such things are bound to arise. In that case, first and foremost, the employer should have made a provision for receiving formal complaints, and the responsibility may rest with him directly, the HR or the head of the respective departments.

Lodging Formal Complaint: Insist that, complaints if any should be lodged in writing and not just verbally. Often the person in charge may be transferred suddenly or may be absent from office for personal or professional reasons, so the written complaint should be present to enable the next person in charge to take action against the offender. Once the official complaint is lodged, immediate action must be taken, because on the on the other hand, the person offended may take further action by filing lawsuit against the offender, and this too is sufficient to jeopardize the company’s reputation if the charges are sufficient in nature.

Procedures: While starting with the investigation, make a list of all the aspects that have to be looked into. Those include, interrogating the eye witnesses if any, collecting evidences like photographs and e-mails sent by the offender, noting the exact place and time of the event, and if possible to keep in record the exact words of both parties when the incident happened.