Case Study: When the evidence does not support the expected outcome
The situation
A client asked Dakota Blue to carry out an independent investigation into serious allegations involving an employee.
The allegations could potentially have amounted to gross misconduct, so the consequences for both the employee and the business were significant.
The directors wanted someone independent to investigate what had happened, challenge assumptions and give them a clear view of the evidence before any decisions were made.
What made it complex
When serious allegations are made, it is very easy for people to form a view about what has happened before all the facts are known, especially in smaller businesses.
In this case, there were different accounts of events, a significant amount of information to work through and questions about how much weight could reasonably be placed on some of the evidence.
The business needed to take the allegations seriously, but it also needed to avoid making a decision about someone's employment based on assumptions or incomplete information.
The job was not simply to complete an investigation process.
It was to establish, as far as possible, what had actually happened and what the evidence supported.
What we did
Dakota Blue carried out the investigation on behalf of the client.
We:
- agreed a clear scope for the investigation;
- reviewed the allegations and all relevant documentation and evidence;
- interviewed the employee and relevant witnesses;
- tested different accounts of what had happened;
- challenged inconsistencies and separated fact from assumption and opinion;
- identified where the evidence supported the allegations and where it did not;
- considered whether anything further needed to be investigated;
- produced a clear investigation report setting out our findings and the evidence behind them.
Our role was not to find evidence to support the outcome the business might initially have expected.
It was to give the directors a clear, evidence-based assessment they could rely on when deciding what should happen next.
Looking beyond the individual case
Our work does not usually stop with the investigation report.
Investigations often highlight wider issues within a business that need attention, even where they are not directly relevant to deciding the allegations themselves.
We therefore also provided the directors with a separate report setting out practical recommendations for the business to consider moving forward.
Depending on what an investigation uncovers, this might include improvements to management practice, communication, record-keeping, policies, training or wider workplace issues.
This gives the business an opportunity not simply to close the case, but to learn from what has happened and reduce the likelihood of similar problems arising again.
The outcome
Having considered all of the evidence, our investigation did not support the level of misconduct that had originally been anticipated.
The business avoided making a potentially serious employment decision that the evidence did not support.
The directors had a clear report on which to base their next steps and understood why we had reached our conclusions.
They also had practical recommendations about wider areas of the business that could be strengthened as a result of what the investigation had uncovered.
Why experienced HR judgement matters
Good HR advice is not about finding a way to justify the outcome a business wants.
Sometimes our value is in telling a client that the evidence simply does not support the decision they thought they might be making.
And sometimes an investigation highlights issues that are much wider than the individual case.
Our clients trust Dakota Blue to investigate difficult situations properly, give them a clear and independent view and help them understand what they should do next, both with the individual case and within the wider business.