How to Prove the Value of Your Investigations Program to Stakeholders

In today’s corporate landscape, every department and team is under scrutiny to demonstrate its value. As budgets tighten and organizations demand data-driven insights, workplace investigators must go beyond reporting case numbers. To prove the true value of your investigations program, you need to showcase not just activity, but impact. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do that effectively.

1. Go Beyond Activity: Showcase Business Impact

It’s not enough to tell stakeholders how many cases you’ve handled. You need to show how your work identifies and mitigates business risks. Are your investigations uncovering process gaps? Are you helping management fix broken systems? Your goal is to demonstrate that your department isn’t just solving isolated problems but is contributing to broader organizational success.

Meric Bloch, Principal at Winter Investigations, suggests asking of yourself and your team, “Are you promoting the business success of the organization or are you investigating just for the sake of investigating? Are you looking at things where you’re treating investigations as a one-off solution to a problem, or are you really using them as a way of finding out what’s broken so you can fix it?”

Action Tip:

When creating a quarterly report for stakeholders, include a section highlighting how your investigations led to:

• Process improvements
• Identification of issues or gaps
• Reduction of business risks

2. Leverage Data: Provide Insights, Not Just Numbers

Data is your best ally, but raw numbers alone won’t cut it. Your quarterly report should include key metrics such as:

• Open and closed cases (for closed cases, include how they were resolved)
• Categories of cases
• Average case closure time
• Ratio of anonymous vs. named reports
• Distribution of cases by region, department, location, or brand

In short, don’t just present the data—analyze it. Show stakeholders what the data means and how it informs business decisions. Offer insights into trends and explain why they matter. Bloch says, “Anybody can tell you what the number is. But if I can tell you what the number means and what we should do about that as a result, that’s where the value comes in. And that’s gonna be your differentiator.”

Action Tip:

Develop a dashboard that provides a high-level overview of key metrics, but always accompany it with commentary that explains what the data is telling you and how it should guide decision-making. In other words, don’t just supply stakeholders with a packet of printed-out graphs; explain what each one means for both your team’s and your company’s success.

3. Benchmark Internally: Measure Progress Over Time

External benchmarks using data from other organizations can be useful, but they don’t always reflect your unique realities. Instead of relying solely on industry benchmarks, focus on measuring your own program’s progress over time.

Internal benchmarking highlights improvements and identifies areas that require attention. It allows you to tell a story about your program’s evolution, making it easier for stakeholders to appreciate incremental gains. “Develop your own internal data and compare it to year over year . . .  Compare it to yourself and look for trends and look for improvements,” suggests Bloch.​

Action Tip:

Compare quarterly data to your own historical trends. Show year-over-year improvements and identify both short- and long-term patterns. This helps you make more informed decisions about implementing corrective and preventive measures.

4. Highlight Qualitative Insights: Identify Root Causes and Trends

Quantitative data provides a baseline, but qualitative analysis provides context. Your investigations team adds the most value when it can identify the “why” behind the numbers. Dig into the root causes and reasons for trends so you can offer actionable insights to stakeholders.

Examples could include:

• Why did anonymous reports increase last quarter?
• Are any regions or departments showing unusual trends? Why?
• Did changes in training or communication impact reporting behavior?

Action Tip:

Use your reports to highlight trends and anomalies. Offer recommendations on how to address potential issues before they escalate. Remember that you are providing insights and recommendations, not demands for policy changes.

5. Measure and Communicate Outcomes

Showing that you conducted investigations isn’t enough. You need to show what happened as a result of them. Did management take corrective action? Were policies or processes changed? Did training programs reduce similar incidents?

Stakeholders care about outcomes. They want to know that your work leads to tangible improvements. Bloch explains, “By the time you write your quarterly report, whatever that management response is, you should indicate.”

Action Tip:

Track and report on outcomes after investigations. Highlight corrective actions, policy changes, and training initiatives that resulted from your findings.

6. Define and Measure Case Efficiency

Efficiency isn’t just about speed—it’s about how quickly you can work while maintaining a fair, thorough, and consistent process. While it’s tempting to focus on closing cases ASAP, quality and procedural fairness should be the priority.

While your team knows how efficiently they work, you need to be able to measure this for stakeholders. To do this, track the ratio of open to closed cases over time. Use an efficiency factor (number of cases closed relative to the number opened) to show whether your processes are keeping pace with your caseload.

For many companies, “the problem is not that a case takes too long to close,” says Bloch. “The problem is the case takes longer than it should take to close. It’s inefficiency that is the problem.”

Action Tip:

Aim for a ratio of one or higher, indicating that you’re closing as many cases as you’re opening. Highlight any improvements in efficiency while emphasizing your commitment to quality.

7. Proactively Recommend Solutions

Don’t just identify problems—suggest solutions. Your investigations can provide valuable insights into operational weaknesses, compliance gaps, and cultural challenges.

When you recommend targeted training, policy changes, or management interventions, you demonstrate that your work is forward-looking and solution-oriented. Executives and other stakeholders can’t be everywhere at once, so they’ll appreciate suggestions from employees who see what’s “really going on.”

“Provide an early warning that something needs attention. It makes good business sense to be proactive and take action early when problems are likely to be less serious,” Bloch says.​

Action Tip:

Include actionable recommendations in your reports, categorized under:

• Training and awareness
• Policy adjustments
• Monitoring and audits
• Messaging and communication

8. Supplement Reports with Professional Context

Stakeholders might not understand the terms you team uses or background that informs your work. To ensure your quarterly reports stand alone as valuable reference documents, attach a supplemental section including:

• Definitions of key terms
• Explanations of case/investigation categories
• Summaries of particularly impactful cases
• Notable legislative or regulatory updates that affected your work that quarter

Bloch explains, “I always put a supplement at the back because I want this [report] to be freestanding. I’ll have a section that’ll list all my issue categories . . . to explain to my reader that here is my whole taxonomy, that this is a very professional operation.”​

Action Tip:

Position your investigations program as a professional function by providing comprehensive context and showcasing ongoing development. When you showcase how well-organized your team is and how involved your work is, stakeholders are more likely to value them highly.

Final Thoughts: Be the Strategic Partner Leadership Needs

To maintain and grow your program, you need to make your team’s value visible. Demonstrate that your investigations function is not just a cost center but a strategic partner that mitigates risk, enhances compliance, and strengthens the organization. By using data, insights, and outcomes to tell a compelling story, you position yourself as an indispensable asset to your organization.

Important: This resource is for informational and educational purposes only. This post should not be taken as legal advice or used as a substitute for such. You should always speak to your own lawyer.