An internal audit has appeared on the impending schedule and it’s time to make sure that your house is in order. After all, your procedures are about to be combed through in depth and faults and flaws brought to the surface. When faced with this prospect, it is vital to take proactive action, thinking through and identifying potential weak areas. But not only that; the internal audit is a collaborative process that can either reward or reprove. Preparations are key, and a skilled corporate investigator can help you lay the foundation for a prosperous outcome. Let’s examine the process a little more closely.
Aligning With the Objectives of the Internal Audit Process
Internal audits are conducted in an effort to minimize risk and optimize business operations. This will include things like confirming legal compliance and adherence to company policies, safeguarding various assets, preventing fraud and other forms of white collar crime, and ensuring the strength and efficiency of practices.
To yield positive results from this process, it is key to understand the objectives and risks of the undertaking in relation to your unique enterprise—failure to do so will potentially see you blind-sided by obligations following the internal audit’s results. If the behaviours of your team have diverged dramatically from policies, procedures, and business goals, knowing this ahead of time can help you prepare for what’s coming, as well as enabling you to contribute to the course of the internal investigation’s conclusions and follow up.
Crucially, many internal auditors are trained on measuring the metrics that dictate whether standards and requirements are being met, however they may not be experts on the intricate realities of your particular field. Even armed with the goal to steer you toward compliance and help you achieve higher standards moving forwards, their input may make unwelcome waves.
Your tactical preparation for this assessment can help you work with them to meet the targets in question, rather than allowing conclusions drawn to side-track your department’s progress. Who better to help you prepare than a corporate investigator able to approach the internal audit process with comprehension of both perspectives?
Help In Developing An Effective Audit Program
If, in contrast, you are an executive charged with developing an effective internal audit program, drawing upon expert assistance can be invaluable. After all, an internal audit is only as effective as its scope is comprehensive. A corporate investigations specialist from Lauth Investigations International will offer essential guidance in curating an effective strategy.
Extensively versed in designing and conducting corporate audits and investigations, we understand the necessity to develop bespoke internal audit solutions that not only ensure that every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ crossed, but also that operations, assets, integrity, and—crucially—corporate culture are elevated through the auditing process. Our veteran corporate investigations and auditing specialists can assist all branches of business in preparation ahead an internal audit, helping them ensure that they have shone a light into every dark crevice and corner, and are armed with the information and strategies required to make the process as painless and constructive as possible.
For companies aiming to establish or reinvent their internal audit processes, we can both aid in the development of tailored auditing practices as well as offering comprehensive Corporate Culture Audits that assess every facet of an organization’s operations in order to propel it towards its full potential. To discover more about internal audit support from the Lauth team, contact us today.
In the wake of the so-called “Great Resignation” triggered the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses across America are struggling more than ever to recruit and retain the talent they need to drive profit and progress. What many don’t realize is that while the pandemic may have knocked over the first domino, toxic workplace culture is often the true culprit that keeps them tumbling. So much so, that research indicates that the impact of a vacuum in corporate culture is ten times that of perceived under-compensation when it comes to an employee deciding to quit.
When leaders think that they can pay off the problem without tapping into workplace culture from the employee perspective, it remains impossible to slam on the breaks of runaway turnover. So what is the key to fixing workplace culture and restoring employee retention once and for all? In these instances, a Corporate Culture Audit is the ultimate resource. Only when the holes in workplace culture are seen and understood can the work of repair begin.
Why Improving Retention Should Be High on Your Agenda
Not only can a company expect to have to fork out 200% of an employee’s salary to replace them after they head for the door, but the problem is more pervasive than that. Recent research reveals that employees jumping ship often convince their co-workers to go with them. In fact, so rife is this issue that 38% of employees say they have encountered a coworker who encouraged them to leave their current positions with them. Allowing workplace culture to erode is a sure-fire route to a domino-effect that escalates exponentially.
Going beyond the core issue, it’s also worth considering the fact that poor retention can be only one symptom of a far larger problem. When workplace culture has degraded, productivity is likely to plummet, customer care collapse, and misconduct issues ranging from malingering to employee theft and even white collar crime become far more likely to occur.
What Investing in Workplace Culture Looks Like
If retention issues sit among a cluster of warning signs that workplace culture has gone awry, what is the solution? Job satisfaction is key, but boosting this metric is not as simple as flipping a light switch—it calls for assessing workplace culture holistically. Factors such as strength of communication, leadership styles, achievement recognition, development opportunities, and supportive environment-creation all play their part.
Equally, rooting out negative behaviors and habits is essential if they are to be tackled decisively. Re-evaluating company values and improving development programs will only go so far if workplace bullying and time theft is commonplace. Correcting workplace culture cannot be a band-aid solution—it needs to be approached accurately and comprehensively with no stone left unturned.
Building a Road Map to Stronger Workplace Culture
According to Harvard Business Review, satisfied employees reward their employers with 31% higher productivity, 37% higher engagement, and no less than triple the creativity. If you want your team to excel and innovate, the process begins with understanding your current workplace culture standing.
To aid in this process, Lauth Investigations is proud to serve businesses across the country with comprehensive Corporate Culture Audits. With our assistance, a clear picture of the state of play can be realized and a course can be set towards the kind of high-caliber corporate culture that will enhance employee retention, increase performance, and grow your bottom line. Are your ready to get started? Discover more about the process or reach out to our dedicated corporate investigations team to discuss your needs.
In matters both private and corporate, private investigators can be invaluable multi-tools for individuals who are hoping to clinch crucial intelligence, or execute specific tasks. However, there are times when field operations can become extremely dangerous or even fatal, like the tragic fate of a Texas private investigator when he attempted to serve a warrant on a suspect of child sexual assault. The private investigator was shot by the subject of the warrant, prompting a response from the Garland Police, resulting in multiple fatalities.
On June 2, in the early evening, a group of private investigators were attempting to serve a warrant for Little Elm resident, Juan Carlos Lopez, 33, for “multiple counts of child sexual assault,” according to a release from Garland Police. The attempt to serve the warrant was made just after 7:30 PM at a motel in the 6200 block of Broadway Blvd.
As the Texas private investigator attempted to serve the warrant, Garland officers on the scene heard gunfire, subsequently getting word that the private investigator had been shot by the suspect. The Garland Officers made entry to the hotel room and pulled the private investigator from the scene. Three of the officers discharged their weapons, striking the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the Garland Police’s statement on social media, “The three officers will be placed on paid administrative leave in accordance with departmental policy.”
The Texas private investigator was taken to the local hospital where he was also pronounced deceased. They have not yet been identified pending the notification of their family and loved ones. The investigation remains ongoing. According to the statement released by the Garland Police, “Garland Detectives and members of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Unit responded to the scene to investigate according to standard procedures.
Custody battles are one of the most taxing and distressing events that can occur within a family. From the emotions broiling between caregivers to choosing the best possible living situation for a child, both tensions and the stakes can be very high for all those involved. As all parties involved prepare for family court, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the documents and information required. In order to maintain some sense of objectivity, many families hire a private investigator for custody investigations, which has many benefits, both inside and outside the courtroom.
Why hire a private investigator for custody investigations? Private investigators have a wealth of skills and tools that can arm caregivers with the information they need to enter a courtroom and prove their case to a family court judge.
Comprehensive background investigations: While potential caregivers may have personal knowledge of another party’s fitness for custody, proving the absolute objectivity of that information in family court can prove difficult, as most family court judges know inherently that all potential caregivers will have an axe to grind when it comes to their case. However, with an independent, comprehensive background check, a private investigator can identify crucial factors in a potential caregiver’s personal life, such as address history, criminal history, and litigation history. Each of these factors needs a private investigator’s trained eye to discern how relevant they might become within a custody investigation, and present those factors with objectivity.
Documenting relative lifestyle factors: In background investigations, relevant factors may come up that will need to be documented for the court by an independent party. For instance, if a potential caregiver believes that another associates with dangerous individuals or if they keep strange hours due to substance abuse, a private investigator could document those factors through field surveillance. With videos and photographs of the alleged bad behavior, the evidence will be harder to impeach in court.
Examining documents: Private investigators have the ability to get their hands on relevant paperwork regarding a potential caregiver. Many families attempt to procure relevant paperwork of their own accord, but often with less than ideal results. Not only is it crucial to obtain the paperwork, but private investigators can review paperwork with an independent eye and ability to cross-check relevant information that will be of interest to the court.
Evaluation of primary residence: When making decisions about where a child should live, documenting the living conditions will be paramount. Using the same field surveillance technology used to document lifestyle factors can also be used to document the living conditions of the residence. While it’s true that private investigators cannot enter a person’s home without being invited, there are undercover ruses that can be used to photograph the inside of the home. The property around the residence will also need to be documented, especially factors like structures being in disrepair, refuse on the lawn, or heavy machinery stored on the property that could be a safety factor.
Independent testimony: By far, the greatest asset of a private investigator’s involvement is their independence and objectivity. Family court judges know that all parties involved in a child custody situations, all parties involved cannot possibly be 100% objective. Hiring a private investigator for child custody investigations can be a huge step in the direction swaying the judge. Private investigators have no stake in the outcome of the case, and therefore, their testimony can be viewed as objective by the court.
If you need a private investigator for child custody investigations, call Lauth Investigations International at 317-951-1100 for a free quote and learn how we can help you. For more information, you can also visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com.
Last February, Ryan Last received a message from a person he believed to be a girl. What might normally be a harbinger of new beginnings was in reality the beginning of a tragic and criminal sequence of events that would lead to the 17-year-old’s untimely death.
In his final days, Ryan Last was looking towards the next horizon of his young life—a time so typically filled with dreams and promise of exciting things to come. Ryan and his mother, Pauline Stuart, had just returned from visiting several colleges that Ryan was considering attending following his impending graduation from high school. Pauline described her son to CNN as a “usually happy” young man, who was a straight-A student and a former Boy Scout.
It all began with a seemingly-innocuous text exchange “Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation,” Pauline told CNN. Unfortunately, Pauline had no idea Little did Ryan know that the conversation would soon take a dark and sinister turn, and he would soon become the victim of a sextortion scam by a criminal posing as a young girl for financial gain. She was posthumously informed by investigators who had to use text messages and financial transactions to piece together what had happened to Ryan in the last hours of his life.
Like many sextortion scams out there, the scammer sent Ryan an intimate photo—a hyper-common opening-salvo. The scammer then asked Ryan to return the gesture by sending an intimate photo of himself, which he obliged. That’s when things turned sinister. As soon as the scammer received the intimate photo, they began demanding $5,000 from the 17-year-old boy, or else they would publish the intimate photo and send it to Ryan’s family and friends. He told the scammer that he could not afford to pay the entire extortion figure, and managed to convince the scammer to lower the figure to $150, which he was forced to pull from his college savings. Pauline told CNN, however, that the scammers immediately continued to extort money from her son, “They kept demanding more and more and putting lots of continued pressure on him.” Tragically, by 2:00 AM, Ryan had taken his own life, leaving behind a note detailing his immense embarrassment on behalf of himself and his family. “He really, truly thought in that time that there wasn’t a way to get by if those pictures were actually posted online. His note showed he was absolutely terrified. No child should have to be that scared.”
As technology continues to evolve and become somehow more ubiquitous, law enforcement is seeing a drastic uptick in what they are calling “sextortion scams” in which criminals acquire intimate photos or information about their target, then threaten to publish the photos or information unless their demands are met. However, with more and more teens becoming the targets of these sextortion scams, the FBI is mounting a campaign to ensure parents know their teens could be vulnerable all across the United States. According to the FBI, there were over 18,000 sextortion complaints in 2021 alone, with financial losses of over $13 million—not just with intimate photos of adults, but also with the use of child exploitation materials in order to make the target pay up. The FBI has advised that the investigation into Ryan Last’s extorter is still ongoing. “To be a criminal that specifically targets children—it’s one of the more deeper violations of trust I think in society,” says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a team of investigators who specifically work to solve crimes against children.
The FBI has determined that a significant percentage of sextortion scams that occur in the United States every year are perpetrated from a remote location, such as Africa or Southeast Asia, which requires the FBI to collaborate with many international agencies throughout the globe in order to track down these criminals, especially those who are targeting minors with their schemes. However, investigating sextortion scams presents its own series of challenges, namely the fact that many victims of sextortion scams do not report incidents to law enforcement—a factor that the criminals responsible are counting on, especially when it comes to minors. “The embarrassment piece of this is probably one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have overcome,” says Costin, “It can be a lot, especially in the moment.”
It’s difficult to understand why any individual would take their own lives under the threat of having their personal intimate photos released online, but with teenagers, the circumstances are mitigated. Everyone remembers how difficult it is to be a teenager. With their still-developing brains and lack of life experience, their ability to accurately judge the consequences of any given situation is heavily compromised. Dr. Scott Hadland, the chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General in Boston, says that adolescents, especially adolescent young men, are incapable of seeing the big picture, “So when something catastrophic happens, like a personal picture is released to people online, it’s hard for them to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things, they’ll be able to get through this.
Stories like that of Ryan Last have parents all over the country fretting about how they can protect their children from sextortion scams, but there are steps that parents can take. Dr. Hadland told CNN, “The most important thing that a parent should do with their teen is try to understand what they’re doing online. You want to know when they’re going online, who they’re interacting with, what platforms they’re using. Are they being approached by people that they don’t know, are they experiencing pressure to share information or photos?” If your family has been experiencing problems with a sextortion scam, call Lauth Investigations International at 317-951-1100 for a free quote or visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com
