2024 Workplace Investigation Trends: What 3 Industry Experts Think You Can Expect

2024 has just begun, but big changes are on the horizon. Use of AI and encouraging speak up cultures to empower employees will continue to gain popularity within HR. Your organization’s compliance team will need to prepare for legislative updates and new DoJ requirements. Workplace investigators must rethink their role within management to protect themselves and their employers most effectively.

Interested in learning more? Read what three investigations thought leaders predict to be the year’s biggest workplace case management trends below.

Growth of Speak Up Culture

While speak up culture practices have gained traction in the last few years, organizations still have room to improve, so our experts agreed that the concept will continue to grow in popularity in 2024.

Sharlyn Lauby, SHRM-SCP and President at ITM Group explains that employers should look at a speak up culture as a “feedback mechanism” that allows employees to come forward with both “the good and the not-so-good” aspects of the workplace.

“If employees are able to provide positive feedback to the organization, if they’re able to provide suggestions to make the workplace better, then, when they have a concern, they will feel comfortable also speaking with the company because they know that it’s not going to be dismissed, that it’s going to be taken seriously, and that the company will act on it,” she says.

“There’s only two reasons people don’t speak up: one, they fear retaliation, and two, they believe that nothing will happen,” agrees Meric Bloch, Principal at Winter Investigations. If employees don’t trust that they’ll be protected and taken seriously when they report, they won’t speak up.

“Everything you say before a report is made is kind of like making a promise,” he explains, “but once a report is made, it has to be credible.”

In other words, don’t put off implementing reporting mechanisms and a culture of speaking up because you’re afraid of the results. Empowering employees in this way helps them incite changes they need and helps your organization reduce risk, attract talent, and maintain a positive public reputation.

Increased Use of AI in HR Investigations

In just a few short years, AI went from science fiction to a handy tool with uses in every industry. It can reduce time spent on tedious tasks, freeing up employees to do more complex work. Organizations will only find more ways to utilize it as time goes on, making it easily one of 2024’s hottest workplace trends.

In fact, a recent poll showed that almost 50% of organizations are planning to introduce AI into their workplace investigations process within 6 months.

While it’s easy to get caught up in the hype, be thoughtful when introducing AI into important workplace functions such as HR and compliance. “You can use AI as a tool, but remember, it is a tool,” stresses author, speaker, and compliance expert Tom Fox. Because it can’t give you a citation or reference, remember to check any work done using AI and, if applicable, send it to your legal or compliance team. He also cautions that when you enter data into an AI tool, “you’ve lost intellectual property protection because it’s open to the world, so be careful what you put into AI.”

Bloch thinks that AI will be useful to workplace investigators, especially for data analysis and writing investigation reports. Humans can forget to include things in reports or miss a data pattern, and AI offers help in both areas. AI is a helpful tool to streamline tasks, but he agrees that “it is not a substitute for the practitioner’s skills, experience, and training.”

New DoJ Workplace Enforcement Policies

In addition, Fox warns that the U.S. government has started taking enforcement actions against companies for their use of AI, based on current laws. For example, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought an action against drugstore chain Rite-Aid “for utilizing AI and facial recognition software to identify potential shoplifters.” Not only did their program present false positive, he says, but “equally importantly, the Rite-Aid employees were not properly trained, and they weren’t given the right tools and they were left to confront and/or call the police before a crime had been committed,” leading to legal issues.

“There’s no unifying principles or guidance from the U.S. government. Right now, it’s on an agency-by-agency basis,” Fox says. “So, until [there is], there’s going to be a plethora of current laws that you could violate using AI.” Bottom line: before adding AI to your everyday processes, make sure it complies with privacy laws and other relevant regulations.

Don’t Neglect Employee Training

With more rapid changes to best practices, legislation, and technology than ever before, it can be difficult to keep up. But that’s exactly why you should keep your employee training modules up to date.

Lauby notes that training doesn’t have to be a long, boring lecture. Instead, she suggests creating internal podcasts or webinars “that will help people remember, keep top of mind, those things that [you] want them to remember on a regular basis.”

These topics could include:

• Conflict management training
• Giving and receiving feedback

• Conducting investigations
• How to get the most out of workplace technologies
• HR issues (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying)
• Ethics issues (e.g., fraud and theft, conflicts of interest, ethical gifts)

The Role of Workplace Investigator Will Evolve

Bloch suggests that in 2024, workplace investigators should strive to be part of the management team at their organization. Whether you investigate an incident internally or use external help, it’s up to you to ensure the process aligns with the organization’s values and processes.

“Sending a case to outside counsel is really just delegating the investigation process,” he says. However, you can’t just offload a case and forget about it. “One of your employees is entitled to the same process [and] fairness rights as if the case were investigated internally.” Bloch stresses that organizations must hold their external partners accountable, checking their work against internal policies and procedures.

“At the end of the day, even an outside counsel investigation has to serve the goals of the business,” Bloch says.

How Case IQ Can Help

With Case IQ’s modern case management platform, you can manage your workplace investigations from intake to final report, all on one secure, centralized platform. Automated workflows increase efficiency, built-in templates ensure consistency and compliance, and our award-winning BI tools help you prevent incidents. Read more about how Case IQ can improve your investigative process here.