(From Venable LLP) An internal harassment complaint is a critical moment for an employer; how it's handled can affect workplace morale, the likelihood of a lawsuit or an administrative charge and the defenses available to the employer, among other things. Venable LLP offers five common mistakes employers make when they receive an internal harassment complaint and how your organization can avoid the same slip-ups:
- Meeting with the complainant and the accused together. When an employee comes forward to complain about being harassed in the workplace, he or she very likely does not want to be stuck in a room with the alleged harasser.
- Forgetting to interview all potentially relevant witnesses. The failure to interview all potentially relevant witnesses can cause problems, including the loss of evidence or an allegation that the employer did not conduct a good-faith investigation.
- Forgetting to preserve all potentially relevant information. Some employers forget that this obligation extends to more than just emails and personnel files. Savvy employers will go a couple steps further by quickly preserving other buckets of potentially relevant information, such as security camera footage and text messages.
- Failing to inform the complainant and the accused of the outcome. Even if the employer determines that the complainant's allegations are unsubstantiated, it is almost always a good idea to communicate the result of the investigation to the complainant.
- Failing to ask the complainant their objective. Bringing the complainant into the conversation can often help the complainant feel that their allegations have been taken seriously.
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