We all like to think that we’re a good judge of character, but when it comes to choosing who to trust with your company’s inventory, intellectual property, and assets, it is always wise to defer to the facts. Today, we live in a world where 90% of all significant thefts from businesses are internal, and almost a third of businesses bankruptcies are triggered by the very same issue. This makes lifting the curtain on your next applicant’s true credentials key to stopping internal theft.
Yes, in such troubled times, it is high-risk behavior to assume that every resume is honest or that every employee is as clean and crease-free as their pressed work attire. Instead, the best tactic is to up your background-check-game and ensure that you catch any and all rotten candidates before they step into the first day of onboarding. For that, you’ll need the right collaborator, so let’s explore what makes some background checks more comprehensive than others and how that difference dictates their effectiveness for stopping internal theft in its tracks.
Outsourced Background Checks Can Be a Smart Investment
Employee screening is something that tends to happen on a sliding scale of seriousness. At its most basic level, your HR team may diligently check the references of employment candidates, however these can easily be faked. When dialing the number on an applicant’s resume, there’s no way of knowing that you’ll find their true past employer on the other end of the line.
The next step that a company might take is requesting a criminal record check on would-be trainees. This is an excellent idea as it can reveal if a questionable past lies between the letters of their application. However, this still means only piecing together small segments of that individuals character and track record. To really grant a clean bill of health to any applicant status, the best option is to turn to a corporate investigator who is equipped to efficiently present a complete composition—the full sense of who this person is and whether they will fit on your team, or pose a worrying threat.
So what might a background check from Lauth Investigations International tell you? Well, our investigators are licensed to access the same verified databases used by law enforcement. This allows up to compile an intelligence report on your candidate, presenting a full and contextual history of the subject as it relates to their potential role in your enterprise. Pertinent paths of exploration might include confirming the validity of their employment record and credentials; uncovering criminal, financial, and litigative history; and joining the dots between the various pieces to ensure that each element adds up.
Stopping Internal Theft Before It Starts
As each new employee is welcomed into your team, with them comes a distinct vulnerability to a diversity of theft types. Undoubtedly, stopping internal theft doesn’t only mean preventing inventory or office supplies from drifting away. It also means safeguarding against financial theft, embezzlement, fraud, data theft, intellectual property theft, and more. To put the scale of this threat in context, we can turn to research from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which tells us that American businesses lose roughly $50 billion each year as a result of employee theft—and that this number is rising by 15% annually.
Avoiding becoming a part of these alarming statistic begins foundationally with background checks. It is always better to prevent the kinds of disastrous disappearances that can undermine your operation than it is to launch into post-crisis damage control. And by developing a dependable collaborative relationship with a corporate investigations firm—one that understands your business and is always ready to provide dynamic support—you can dramatically reduce the risk of internal theft on an ongoing basis and act quickly if the unexpected occurs. Without a doubt, comprehensive background checks are a powerful tool for stopping internal theft before it gets the chance to start. Health-checking your company’s culture with a Corporate Culture Audit is also a highly effective way to reveal risk before it evolves into criminal behavior in the work place. To discuss these services and more with a member of our team, reach out for a no-obligation consultation today—because we know that every unique business calls for unique solutions, so let us help guide you towards yours.
Even the most simple of estate settlements can represent a quagmire of beaurocracy for those tasked with steering the course. But when things get complicated, it can become essential to call in the cavalry.
What if there are estranged, missing, or unknown parties to locate? What if a broad spread of assets transform the probate search process into a puzzle with missing pieces? In these moments, reaching out for support from gold-standard heir search services can be instrumental. So let’s explore where to start in this process so that the route to the finishing line on successful estate settlement can be drawn into focus.
Understanding Your Needs in Relation to Heir Search Services
When probate has been opened and filed, its visibility in the public record may draw the attention of all sorts of heir search services providers. It can be useful to remember at this juncture that the ball is in your court as the family member, trustee, or appointed attorney at the helm of the probate ship. Before picking your collaborator, the first thing to do is identify your needs in relation to heir search services—or even the extent to which your needs are unknown. Doing so will ensure that you can contract an heir search expert with the necessary skills required.
Questions to ask yourself include whether the genealogical investigation ahead will require obtaining records and conducting vital record searches in a local or wide geographical area, or whether the scope is even greater—such as having an investigator on hand and ready to travel when locate missing beneficiaries.
Will the heir search services provider need experience in multi-state or even multi-nation legal navigation? If this may be the case—and even if it isn’t—choosing a seasoned firm that is well versed in evidencing heir searches internationally ensures that a lead that crosses a border won’t become a stumbling block along the road ahead.
Without a doubt, complex probate proceedings can leave responsible parties open to substantial fiduciary risk. Your responsibility is to use resources wisely when commissioning heir searches, beneficiary investigations, and asset identification. With this in mind, the right heir search services can help to mitigate risk factors such as the reality that statutes and administrative requirements vary state to state, and that international investigations call not only for excellent relations but also multilingual capabilities.
Partnering With Comprehensive and Expert Heir Search Services
Whatever an heir search expert uncovers, it won’t serve you well unless it is fully and appropriately documented and ready to stand up in court. An unearthed document may be of little use if it is considered out-of-date or erroneous, while a witness testimony that was poorly obtained may ultimately be rejected. As such, it is essential to align yourself with heir search services affording the skills to efficiently, diligently, and robustly prove the right of inheritance for relevant parties with your fiduciary responsibility held in focus.
Lauth Investigations International are proud to provide a full spectrum of transparent and cost-effective heir search services, with the scalable capability to meet demand for anything from local record searches through to international beneficiary tracing, asset identification, and beyond. Our seasoned heir search operatives are experts in meeting the highest standards for probate court proceedings and can testify to their findings whenever called upon. We strongly recommend accepting nothing less. Our 30 years as veteran investigators serving an international client base mean that there is no estate matter beyond our resources. So, in choosing heir search services from Lauth Investigations International, you can enjoy total peace of mind that the task is in hand and resolution is within reach. Are you ready to learn more? Explore further guidance on the diversity of heir search services that we cater to, or connect with our team for a no-obligation consultation. We are always ready to share our expertize, bringing you one step closer to settling the estate at hand, no matter how complex.
Just like a bad apple in a barrel, toxicity emanating from a bad manager can sour a workplace’s entire dynamic given enough time. Whether the individual exhibiting toxic manager behavior is above or below you in the hierarchy of command, navigating their presence can be challenging to say the least. The first step, of course, is identifying a toxic presence in the management team, so we’ll tackle that momentarily with a toxic manager checklist.
But first, if the toxic manager is your senior or peer, it is a noble move to seek help from further up the chain of command. In fact, even if you decide to move on to greener, healthier pastures, your choice to speak up will likely save others from the hardship of feeling maligned. In contrast, if the manager answers directly to you, having a clear sense of how to proceed can help you deescalate the situation with finesse while documenting it in case further action is required. So let’s dive into these points one by one. Yes, managing a toxic manager is a thing—and hopefully by the end of this article you’ll feel better equipped to master it.
Identifying Toxic Manager Behavior
There are two sources to look to when hoping to pinpoint whether one of your leaders is exhibiting toxic behavior. The first is how they conduct themselves, and the second is how employees interact with them. As such, you can look to a two-part toxic manager checklist:
Examples of Toxic Manager Behavior Traits:
Authoritarian approach paired with unwillingness to hear employee perspectives
Hostile response to feedback and corrections
Leverages hierarchy to disempower others
Deflects attention from important issues or failings—or blames others for them
Inflexibility and resistance to change
A lack of trust in others or constant micromanagement
Unrealistic expectations of the workload that others can carry
Maligning, discriminatory, condescending, or resentful language
Embarrassing or undermining team members in front of their peers
Bullying, withholding, and violence in the workplace
Examples of Team Indications of a Toxic Manager:
Hesitancy to speak up
High stress or anxiety levels
Elevating number of sick days taken
High team turnover
Consistently missed targets
Unwillingness to talk to HR due to fear of retaliation
A siphoned flow of information from the team through the manager
Inappropriate behavior and preferential treatment is tolerated
New ideas are shut down
Promotions remain in-clique and diversity is lacking
How to Manage a Toxic Manager
As they say, most employees choosing to give their notice don’t leave the company—they leave the boss. High turnover, plus the many other worrying symptoms of a toxic workplace culture such as theft, malingering, bullying, and discrimination, can all leave a substantial dent in your bottom line and may even lead to litigation. With that in mind, taking action having identified toxic manager behavior is a must. So how exactly does one go about managing a toxic manager?
It is critical to start with a private conversation in case there is a part of the picture that you’re missing. That toxicity may be the result of troubles at home or financial woes, and you won’t understand the landscape until you’ve explored it. That said, know that the team is also watching, so calm and constructive feedback in the moment—that focuses on the behavior rather than the individual—can let employees know that the current status quo is not considered to be acceptable.
When navigating managing a toxic manager, it is realistic to expect some pushback. They may counter your feedback or exhibit hostility. It is important to document every interaction with HR and scale this diligence in line with the severity of the situation. In some instances, modeling alternative behaviors and providing training and support may bring the manager in question back into alignment with your company’s leadership standards and help them continue to grow. In others, performance warnings and eventual dismissal may become necessary. Thorough documentation and a prudent process will allow you to protect the organization from a claim of unfair treatment or dismissal.
Toxic manager behavior can be a worrying sign that the broader corporate culture is decidedly out of whack. If you are concerned that all is not as it should be in your workplace, consider the value of a corporate culture audit to provide invaluable oversight and afford a clear path towards enhanced culture metrics and team performance. Would you like to know more? Check out how the process works or contact the Lauth Investigations corporate team for no-obligation advice today.
Do you find yourself asking the question, what is forensic genealogy? It’s a perfectly reasonable query given that this is a professional field that most are unlikely to come into contact with—that is, until the need arises.
The term itself may even sounds a little intimidating. We tend to associate the word “forensic” with law enforcement or even our favorite TV crime dramas. But this doesn’t mean that your heart should race if you are advised contract a forensic genealogist. Let’s delve into exactly what this profession involves, and how its practitioners can serve you.
What Is Forensic Genealogy?
Genealogy involves the study of families, family history, and the mapping and tracing of lineages. As you might imagine, this means that genealogists are tasked with compiling evidence from historical records, genetic analysis, interviews, and more to demonstrate kinship.
So where does the forensic element come in? Crucially, this practice becomes forensic in nature when these facts pursued have legal implications. Forensic genealogists will perform their research in such a way as to ensure scientifically and legally sound results that can be presented in court. So we’re not talking about things like fingerprints per se, but a spectrum of evidence gathering, ranging from photographs to local records, historic name changes, DNA test results, common ancestry tracing, and much more.
After compiling the facts, a forensic genealogist will provide research reports, affidavits, and expert court testimony as required on behalf of the client or authority that hired them. Without a doubt, this means that the standards for forensic genealogy is high, and its practitioners should be well versed in every aspect of the legal process and associated obligations.
Who Might Use a Forensic Genealogist?
So who might call upon the services of a forensic genealogist? A common cause to call in this type of professional is when settling matters of estate or probate. A dual genealogy specialist and seasoned investigator is just the expert to identify unknown or missing heirs so that assets can be rightfully assigned. When someone dies intestate, or if local state laws require that all potential beneficiaries are traced before a will can be granted, the testimony of a forensic genealogist may be instrumental.
Other instances that may require forensic genealogy include cases in which kinship must be proven in relation to adoption, foster care, or guardianship; asserting asset rights and royalties; citizenship petitions; intellectual property cases; criminal investigations; and military repatriation. Ultimately, whenever resolving a conundrum relies on demonstrating family ties and lineage, a forensic genealogist is just the specialist for the case.
The Evolution of Forensic Genealogy
In answering the question what is forensic genealogy, it is interesting to see how far the practice has evolved. We can trace this profession—particularly in relation to heir searches and identifying unclaimed inheritances—back to the 1950s. Even by the 1980s, there were only around half a dozen established firms in the United States, but today, it is a thriving specialist field that has enabled the resolution of hundreds of cold cases in addition to the service of everyday individuals.
While forensic genealogists may be greater in numbers within contemporary America, it is no less important to conduct due diligence when hiring a collaborator for your needs. Look for confirmed credentials, a proven track record, and the capacity and resources to carry your investigation through to successful conclusion in court. The forensic genealogy team at Lauth Investigations International are proud to provide an unparalleled and comprehensive service to private clients, trustees, attorneys, law enforcement agencies, and many more entities beside. To learn more about how we can help you in genealogy matters large or small, reach out today for a no-obligation consultation.
For those of us engaged in the niche sphere of delivering corporate culture audits, it came as no surprise when Forbes announced 2022 as the year of workplace culture. Why? Because businesses everywhere are either reeling from recent challenges or learning how to thrive right on through them—and a huge part of the latter is learning how to manifest an enviable and robust culture in the workplace.
Yes, culture plays a powerful role in the performance and overall health of any business. When a workplace is fused with focused energy, cohesion, and intent, mountains can be moved and profits accumulated. Of course, all of that great intention needs to be aligned with the organizations overall goals if it is to pay off. An audit can be a super-charging resource to get all your ducks in a row, but what is a corporate culture audit exactly, and what does the corporate culture audit process involve? Today, we’ll answer all these questions and more.
What Is a Corporate Culture Audit?
A corporate culture audit is a comprehensive examination of an organization’s operations, ethos, and morale. The goal in compiling all of this information is to establish a clear understanding of how current culture is helping or hindering, and how to move the needle towards greater growth and prosperity in the long run. At times, a corporate culture audit may be a reaction to red flag signals such as high employee turnover, poor performance, complaints, workplace theft, and other types of corporate investigation-worthy occurences.
In other instances, the corporate culture audit can be employed as a proactive, preventative, and enhancing tool, allowing companies to avoid the emergence of problematic cultural trends while continuing to elevate both culture and achievement along the way.
Those contracted to perform the audit will look at factors such as leadership and communication styles, workplace environment, recruitment practices, employee behaviors, brand ethos alignment, and historic company culture. Armed with this information, they will then identify culture flaws, conflicts between the organization’s goals and status quo, opportunities to improve governance, and how culture compares with that of the competition.
Choosing the Right Auditor
Thanks to the trend for corporate culture health checks, there are countless companies popping up to advertise this service across the United States. But, it is important to consider the skillset required to make these detailed assessments and the range of expertize that each candidate will—or wont—be able to bring to the table.
For example, by pairing with a corporate culture investigator from Lauth Investigations International, you will know not only that underlying problems and actionable solutions will be identified in relation to culture. In addition, you can leverage our knowledge in areas of threat and security. If a culture audit uncovers a spate of employee thefts or questionable asset handling, we can pursue the matter until the facts are brought to light. We can also illuminate holes in your litigation-readiness strategy so that your legal standing can step up onto par alongside your corporate culture aspirations.
We also offer different tiers of corporate culture audit that can be scaled and tailored for a diversity of business sizes and industry fields. At the introductory level, we will evaluate internal processes and interview relevant personnel, as well as surveying intra-corporate platforms of communication and brick-and-mortar sites before reporting our findings to you. If threats are identified, we can move forward to a corporate investigation so that you can take action on any malignant factors that may be wreaking havoc within your organization. Finally, we can provide detailed security training and assessments, ranging from digital forensics checkups to active shooter training. Whatever resources are required to empower your employees toward success, the Lauth Investigations team are equipped to assist. If you’d like to learn more about our expertize in this field, discover our corporate culture audits information page, or connect with us today for a no-obligation consultation.
