The pandemic has impacted many day-to-day activities, but from a compliance perspective, the abrupt halt of a company’s ability to conduct an investigation in-person had significant impacts on the organization as a whole. Together with our partners at Baker McKenzie, we reached out to our Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) community for input via survey, and over 100 companies responded, sharing their thoughts on how they were approaching investigations now.
Those survey findings are now available in our new report, Best Practices in Investigations Staffing, Structure, and Process in a Post COVID World.
This report covers a number of COVID-related issues that impacted investigations, such as how, if an employee had the courage to raise a concern, the organization had to find ways to interview witnesses, collect data, and determine the appropriate response, all at a distance. This sparked some significant creativity and necessitated the building of relationships across the organization, which got us thinking – what of that creativity will survive into the coming years?
The methodology section at the conclusion of this report provides details on how many companies participated, which industries they represented and their relative size. In this report, you’ll find the summation of the data along with thoughts from Baker partners to better understand the application of the practices reflected in the survey responses and our insights to organizations of all shapes and sizes.
This report builds on the analysis we did in 2017 on root cause practices, as well as the research we did in 2019 on investigations staffing, both of which are available to BELA members on the Member Hub. We continue to find the question of how your staff and structure investigations into potential misconduct an area of fruitful inquiry and welcome additional thoughts and questions on the topic.
Regardless of where you might be in your investigations processes, we hope you can use this report for further discussion and transformation. We look forward to continuing the conversation around this critical area.
To download a copy of this report, click here.
