The best way to build camaraderie among employees is to lead them to work together toward a shared purpose. Along the way, they will share experiences, leading to a shared identity as a member of the team. Without that shared identity, it’s hard to build camaraderie. That’s why offices with these three traits not only…
Category Archives: Blog
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Are Your Agency’s Employees Just Showing Up for a Paycheck?
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Establishing a Pattern of Facts in HR Investigations
One of the most important jobs of an investigator is to establish a pattern of facts. Multiple witnesses reporting the same sequence of events bolsters confidence in the accuracy of the claim. Finding the same error at multiple locations establishes an agency-wide challenge. And multiple instances of the same bad behavior help establish intentionality in…
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Why a Consistent Process is Critical to an HR Investigator’s Success
Agencies that care about their culture and creating a positive work environment provide higher-level jobs and better pay to high-performing staff only if they treat their co-workers with respect. In contrast, agencies that don’t care about values or culture tolerate bad behavior by promoting “high-performers” regardless of how they treat their co-workers, which makes the…
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Managing Up: Demonstrating the Value of Taking Action
This is the first in a series of blogs on encouraging team members, co-workers and supervisors to help your team accomplish its objectives and pushing for your findings to lead to action. Agency leaders have a mission to accomplish. The vast majority of them have no corrupt intent – they simply want to lead an…
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Do Your Employees Really Feel Safe?
When most Human Resources professionals hear the phrase ‘employee safety’, several things come to mind: OSHA compliance and workers’ compensation, for instance. But while some workers face many physical safety risks in their daily job duties, for most employees safety at work means something completely different. How Many People Feel Unsafe at Work? There are…
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HR Investigation Witnesses – Starting the Interview Off on the Right Foot
In many cases, the best evidence you collect during an investigation will be from the witnesses of the alleged event. If you can get their full perspective, it can bring clarity to disputes between the complainant and the accused. Unfortunately, witnesses who are fearful of facing retribution often provide a less than complete account. Click…
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An HR Investigation Isn’t a Trial, But It Can Land You in One!
Whenever there are divergent accounts of potential workplace misconduct, the HR department works hard to get to the facts. Hard evidence, such as financial account information and audio or video recordings, is gathered. Witness accounts are collected, and their credibility is assessed. Circumstantial evidence, such as the historical behavior of the accused and the complainant,…
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Why Is HR on the Government Accountability Office’s High Risk List?
Since 1990, the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) has published its “High Risk List”. And HR hasn’t managed to escape its scrutiny even once since 2001. The 2017 report lists Strategic Human Capital management as an area for concern for the 17th year in a row – will the 2019 report (scheduled for release next month)…
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Federal Shutdown: Will It Kill Government Employee Recruiting?
With the federal shutdown now in its fourth week, the country’s attention is rightly on the present. What services aren’t getting completed on behalf of taxpayers? How will this impact the economy? How long will essential government employees continue to report to work even though they’re not getting paid for it? Eventually, however, this shutdown…
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The Fragile State of Large Companies without Succession Planning
Over the past 20 years, Carlos Ghosn has become one of the most successful executives in automotive history. In 1999, as CEO of European car company Renault, Ghosn helped rescue Nissan, orchestrating a two-way stock trade that left Renault owning 44.4% of Nissan. With Ghosn at the helm in 2017, Nissan acquired a controlling interest…