Employee Investigations

The Collingwood Legal Investigation Team works with managers and HR advisers to ensure that your organisation can demonstrate that any investigation that is carried out for grievance or disciplinary matters has been reasonable, independent and impartial.
It is vital for an employer to ensure that if they are required to conduct an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing, either from a work colleague or from a client or a service user, that the investigation stage is carried out carefully and thoroughly to give the best possible chance of successfully defending any litigation action that may be instigated by a complainant.
Our team not only understands the law but also is acutely aware of how the factual circumstances will be relevant should a matter proceed to an Employment Tribunal hearing.
As solicitors, we are familiar with the protection of legal advice privilege and legal litigation privilege which may be of assistance when dealing with highly sensitive and confidential information of a personal nature.
The Investigation Team can support your organisation in carrying out an investigation and, with the benefit of the protection of legal advice privilege, to assist in the preparation of a detailed report in support of an internal decision-making process where a potential Employment Tribunal litigation complaint is anticipated.
Alternatively, we can carry out an ‘open’ investigation which you could rely on and use as part of any employment claims later if needed.  The report would be based on the core principles in assessing factual evidence which would be applied by an Employment Tribunal Judge using the ‘band of reasonable responses’ test, which could be relied upon as evidence of reasonableness and fairness by an employer should it be necessary to defend a disciplinary or grievance decision in an Employment Tribunal.