[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I know when working for a large organization all that stuff was being done anyways but rarely would I hear of anyone actually getting flagged for inappropriate web searches or comments etc...

At least in my organization, there isn't much for pro-active monitoring of activities that employees aren't aware of, especially for EEs who have not been accused of anything with a few exceptions. It is almost entirely done on an as reported basis.

I did send an email about a few months ago with ten N-words in it (it was an investigation summary) and I didn't hear anything about it.

One exception to that was that we would monitor our company's social media page and if an employee made a disparaging comment, it would be flagged and followed up on. Another was that IT would occasionally run reports that showed % bandwidth usage. So if someone was on you tube or certain sites, you might flag on that report. It really depends on the IT department. I'll also mention that I wasn't even made aware of the bandwidth report, that was VP level stuff, so there probably is more reporting that I am not privy to that is on a need to know basis

However, companies can pretty liberally violate your privacy, especially when it comes to conducting personal business on company property or with company resources.

If you're secretly asking "will I get caught for browsing CP (Calpuck) at work?", the answer is probably no. Especially if you limit it to an hour a day or something like that, you could always play it off as you were taking a break w/o leaving your desk. It's always safer to use your personal phone though.

Caramon, is there some mechanism, or some sort of flagging that happens to more closely monitor someone’s activities in the workplace (emails, internet searches, recorded calls, etc...) after they’ve been accused? Maybe for a period of time?

It depends. Specifically when talking about harassment, probably not too much monitoring before you are spoken to, unless we felt there was a specific piece of technology we could leverage or some detail we knew about (i.e. person x masturbates at his desk at 3PM each day) or if there was a specific date/time of an incident that we were made aware of, or if there was a vulgar email we needed. You can't really monitor someone easily to catch workplace harassment in most cases.

However, if it was a security related issue i.e. theft, then absolutely we monitor you prior to speaking with you. We can and will hire PIs, access video, billing information, computer logs - anything and everything. If we catch you in the act, that is perfect.

Most incidents come to us via in-person or an ethics line.

What does the investigation entail? Do you purely look at what happened between the two people, or do you also seek to see if there may be a pattern not with just one accuser but with multiple people? Like they may not have evidence, but if they come to you and I.t causes a closer eye to watch them maybe there will be other things that are consistent with what they’re saying? Just curious about the extent of the process after a complaint.

So, part of the reason why there won't be much monitoring of an employee when a complaint comes in, is because you typically want to act with expediency on it. You want put an end to the harassment as quickly as possible. The longer an employer knows about harassment and does nothing about it, they can be liable.

Investigations can be pretty dynamic, it largely depends on what is presented to us and how we go from there. I deal mostly with non-office environment workers (but some office as well). Most of the types of complaints that come in tend to be single incident types.

Investigations can poison the workplace.

We're generally very careful about not expanding outside the boundaries of the initial complaint, unless they is some relevant reason to interview them i.e. someone told them something, they witnessed something specific, observed behavior, etc. If a witness was named, they need to be interviewed. You do need to be very careful that you aren't on a witch hunt and interviewing every random employee under the sun, unless there is really good reason to. If a witness or the accuser gives you the name of someone else this happened to, we will look into it, but won't go hunting for no reason.

Typically I try to gather all the evidence before I talk to the accused. Whether there is video of an incident, talking to the accuser, talking to witnesses, etc.