2 Departments, 1 Solution: How to Improve Your HR and E&C Investigations with Case Management Software

Whether you work in your organization’s HR department or handle ethics and compliance issues, investigations likely take up a large portion of your responsibilities. Though the incidents are different, both departments want to encourage ethical employee behavior, resolve issues quickly, and prevent future misconduct.

In this article, industry experts share the ways that case management software like Case IQ can improve your department’s investigative processes.

RELATED: Enterprise-Wide Case Management: Why It’s Best for Your Business

Consistent Processes

A lack of consistency in your organization’s case management, whether it’s within one department or cross-departmental, might not seem like a big deal. However, standardized investigations benefit both the involved employees and your organization.

First, consistency builds trust between employees and your organization. When employees know what to expect after submitting a report and a timeline of events, they’ll feel safer and more confident raising issues. “Trust is built over time through consistent actions,” says Jakub Ficner, Director of Partnerships at Case IQ. “Consistently treating people fairly and with respect” shows your employees that you trust them to report concerns in good faith and that they can trust you to handle these reports properly. “You’re promising your employees, ‘this is how we will respond, and this is the time frame’,” explains Tom Fox, compliance expert, author, and speaker.

Standardized case management also helps build accountability and defensibility should you be audited or asked to provide evidence of your processes by legal or regulatory bodies. When you use case management software like Case IQ, you simply have to go into your “system of record where everything is documented and . . . retrieve that information and . . . prove to the auditor that everything is valid and true,” Ficner explains. All case information is stored in the same place and handled the same way, so it’s easy to find and explain your processes, even if the initial investigator no longer works at your organization.

Safe Speak Up Culture

Using case management software creates a safe speak up culture for employees by providing easy-to-use reporting mechanisms and efficient workflows for faster resolutions, letting them know you take their concerns seriously. “It will help create that psychological safety that allows people to feel comfortable coming to us and talking about what’s happening in the company, versus waiting until something happens,” explains Sharlyn Lauby SPHR, CPLP, and President at ITM Group.

Implementing case management software “is about creating a safe, transparent, and ethical working environment” that empowers employees “to voice concerns and [promote] ethical behavior across the organization,” Ficner says. While employees might think it’s a way to monitor them, he suggests explaining that the system will increase transparency and accountability and proactively addressing workplace issues.

If submitting a report is difficult or seems risky, employees are less likely to do so. That’s why you need a system with multiple reporting avenues. Case IQ integrates with your mechanisms (plus, we offer the WhistleBlower Security Helpline) to instantly create and assign cases when a report comes in, reducing resolution time and ensuring no reports fall through the cracks.

In addition, employees will want to speak up more if they know what’s to come.

“It’s about thinking about response assessment and triage prior to that allegation coming in,” says Ficner. In other words, don’t figure out how you’re going to address a complaint on the fly. If your investigative team has a proven complaint-handling process, employees will feel less anxiety about submitting reports, since they know what will happen and how long it will take to see a result.

Reduce Risk with Business Intelligence

Even if your organization doesn’t have many HR or E&C issues, you still need case management software. “It’s a proactive measure to keep the organization healthy and ethical.”

But how do you know what you need to prevent if incidents aren’t occurring? Case IQ’s award-winning BI tools help you spot case trends so you can address areas of risk before they escalate. “The time to do this isn’t when, ‘oh my gosh, we have a bunch of stuff going on, we need to figure out how to manage it,’” Lauby says. “It’s one of those things that we do on the front end because there’s a benefit of doing it.”

Not only can you analyze incident trends, but you can use your data to determine how well your processes are working based on investigation results, resolution time, and more. “It’s a continuous improvement model,” Ficner says. “You can use that [case] data to effectively assess your investigative steps, processes, and outcomes.”

“By having a process written down, you can judge or measure against that process and then move to either monitor or improve that process based upon the findings,” Fox agrees.

“We have the ability to use technology as a way to . . . make sure that concerns are appropriately documented, that should we need to investigate something, that we investigate it in a consistent manner, and that we have the ability to bring these pieces together and ensure that our efforts to create and maintain an ethical organization continue to exist,” Lauby says

How Case IQ Can Help

Case IQ’s modern case management software makes it easier to investigate, manage, and prevent workplace incidents. Our powerful features including a secure, centralized platform, employee-friendly hotline, and automated workflows help you manage your investigations effectively while providing valuable business intelligence to prevent future issues.

To learn how Case IQ can improve your investigative processes, read about our HR solution here or our E&C solution here.