What are the most common signs of a cheating spouse? Some people think they have an instinct for these things—that they know their partner, and they know when something is not right—and can identify behaviors as suspicious when they are actually innocuous. In order to get crystal clear clarification on whether or not your partner or spouse is being unfaithful, you’ll need a seasoned private investigator.
One of the most famed tasks of private investigators in popular media is hiring a private investigator to find out if a spouse is cheating. Private investigators are famous for following spouses who are suspected of infidelity, documenting their movements, reviewing their financial records, and providing comprehensive reports for the client’s use in an subsequent legal action. However, not every suspicion of infidelity might be cause for hiring a private investigator. From the experts at Lauth Investigations International, here are the most common signs of a cheating spouse.
Decrease in affection or intimacy: Intimacy comes in many forms in a relationship, and they are not always sexual in nature. Each couple has their love languages and their personal ways of showing affection to one another. Significant decreases in these forms of affection and intimacy could be a sign that your partner is having these needs filled by another person. This could come in the form of either a physical or emotional affair.
Questionable cell phone and internet use: Everyone is entitled to their privacy, but within a relationship, there must be a level of transparency and communication that inspires trust. If your partner or spouse is being secretive with their phone and internet habits, it is possible its because they have something to hide. Affairs do not have to be physical. Individuals can conduct illicit relationships over the internet and through text messaging. A constant clearing of the browser history may also be cause for alarm.
Drastic changes in appearance and hygiene: It’s not uncommon for cheaters to suddenly undergo drastic changes to their physical appearance when they are having an affair. Sure, one haircut does not mean your spouse or partner is cheating on you, but changes in hair, wardrobe, and workout routine all at the same time may be a red flag as well. In the case of physical affairs, cheaters are known to cover their tracks by increasing the frequency of bathing and opting for strong perfumes and colognes to cover unexplainable odors.
Increased working hours: “Working late” is by far one of the most common excuses for cheating spouses that exists. Partners and spouses use the cover of longer working hours because it is a convenient reason to be absent from the home or from the phone, and their significant other will likely not question their absence because they are earning a living.
If only one of these signs is present in the relationship, there could be a simple explanation. In the case of secretive device use—it’s possible your spouse or partner is planning some kind of surprise; maybe a gift, a party, or a vacation. A decrease in intimacy could be a sign of depression or illness. However, if you or someone you love is experiencing two or more of these most common signs of a cheating spouse, it may be time to call a private investigator and get the answers you need.
Life is difficult enough without embarking on a mission to expose your spouse’s cheating ways. We all have jobs, families, and hobbies that we’d much rather devote time to instead of playing junior private detective. If you suspect your spouse is cheating, it’s time to hire a private investigator. Private investigators have diverse experience in surveillance and field operations and know the sophisticated methodology behind following a person without being noticed. Because they will be a stranger to your family, this dramatically increases the likelihood your spouse will never know they’re being followed. Infidelity investigations are unique in the sense that if the client in question is the subject’s spouse, the client can give a private investigator access to documents that they might not otherwise be able to locate, such as specific bank records or sealed court documents. Private investigators can photograph or record your spouse or partner’s infidelity, compile the evidence along with additional relevant information, and even serve as an expert witness in any legal proceedings that occur as a result of the conclusion of the investigation.
If you are experiencing two or more of these most common signs of a cheating spouse, call Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on our infidelity investigation services. We are staffed by former military and law enforcement and carry a glowing A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Call 317-951-1100 or visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com.
Are you ready to revamp your corporate culture in 2021?
As the world finally bids goodbye to one of the worst years in history, anxious and eager people everywhere are looking forward to what 2021 might bring. With the COVID-19 vaccine having been approved and administered, the country is finally beginning the slow process of healing from this pandemic, and both businesses and private citizens are making plans to move forward in the future. Part of moving forward is examining and improve the corporate culture of the workplace As employers gear up for another fiscal year under the restrictions of a global pandemic, many are seeking to transform their corporate culture to springboard operations once everything returns to business as usual.
That’s a tricky phrase, “business as usual.” Every business encounters corporate crises from time to time, like employee theft or other forms of internal corruption, but when the business has a pervasive repeating pattern of disruption to daily operations, there could a glaring problem with the corporate culture. Corporate culture is a reflection of how operations, relationships between employees, and enforcement by leadership interact to make up an employee’s experience in working with the company. Corporate culture in 2021 will be punctuated by restructuring, employee turnover, and policy reform in order to address systemic issues.
Corporate culture audits in 2021 are not only going to be a new trend, but they will be a necessity to retain employees and control costs. Undergoing corporate culture audits is the first real step in addressing pervasive issues within the workplace. Think of it as an annual physical or checkup with a physician for your business. When you go to the doctor, you undergo an examination, and the specialists run tests in order to determine how healthy you are—a corporate culture audit is no different. A corporate culture auditor comes in and evaluates the level of functionality within your corporation so you can start implementing strategies to improve and grow your business. A corporate culture audit is a type of internal investigation in which the source of pervasive issues are vetted and corrected by an internal investigator.
When there are pervasive issues in your corporation or organization, internal investigations are a necessary evil to get to the root of the problem. In recent years, the public’s interest in internal investigations continues to grow as individuals seek to break the culture of silence that surrounds many industries. This is in the interest of ultimately changing the professional climate that allows abuses and misconduct to occur within the organization. Cultural waves of awareness and learning—like those that occurred during the #MeToo movement, and the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement—bring more attention to some of corporate America’s most pervasive issues, including sexual harassment, racism, and discrimination. Now leadership is seeking the advice of consultants and risk management experts in order to erode bigoted phenomena from their workplace. A private investigator may be the answer.
Internal investigations are necessary, but they don’t necessarily have to be internal. Private investigators are completely independent of the corporations that retain them. Though they are paid for their services, it is not in the bet interest of a private investigator to be loyal to anything less than the truth. Complete transparency and integrity are the cornerstone of their business. Therefore, a private investigator is a perfect individual to document internal issues for an organization, because they are inherently without bias and are able to maintain complete objectivity. With Lauth’s corporate investigators on your side, you’ll receive the unvarnished reality regarding the internal problems in your corporation or organization.
If you need help changing your corporate culture in 2021, contact Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on how we can help you get to the bottom of your corporate culture issues. Call 317-951-1100 or visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com
Private investigations can be a great way to find answers when law enforcement or other investigating bodies cannot provide answers. Both corporations and private citizens turn to private investigators to get to the unseen details in their cases and provide clarification in crucial matters. Given the ubiquity of information technology the lines between private investigations and personal investigations can blur very quickly, and it’s important to know when the line has been crossed in getting to the truth.
Private investigations require a great deal of informational tools in order to generate leads and find answers. With the growing sophistication of the internet, access to public records, and thousands of television shows about investigative procedures, it’s easy to see how a layman could view private investigations within their capability. The internet has already connected millions of people who call themselves “armchair detectives.” Armchair detectives are private individuals with an affinity for mystery and intrigue who use their free time examining the evidence of existing cases and attempt to find answers by collaborating and comparing notes online. Researching and discussing cases online is a great way to pass the time and keep the mind occupied, but when the investigation moves offline and into real life, that is where things can get dangerous.
When there is no justice through the proper channels, it’s not unheard of for private citizens to take up the mantle of finding answers. Parents of missing children often pick up where law enforcement left off when they have exhausted all existing leads in their child’s case. The story of Miriam Rodriguez, the woman who tracked down every one of her daughter’s killers one by one and handed them over to the authorities. Despite her success in this mission, her story ended tragically when she was shot in her front yard by members of the cartel who had kidnapped and killed her daughter as another act of revenge. The dangers posed by private investigations is why you should always seek the help of a professional, licensed private investigator. They can provide the same methodology as law enforcement, with similar tools and more freedom.
Many police officers and law enforcement officials turn to private investigations when they retire from their department. Law enforcement officials by nature are typically doers, and sometimes have difficulty enjoying the great deal of down time in retirement. As a result, many make the decision to get their private investigator’s license so they can continue using their skills to serve the community. However, some former law enforcement officers never take this crucial step, but still avail themselves of private investigations in retirement. Not on the internet mind you, but in real life.
One example in which such private investigations went to far is the case of former Houston Police captain, Mark Aguirre. Like many, Aguirre had been plagued by baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, convinced that fraudulent voting had taken place that would benefit the Democratic party in the outcome. Despite the fact that these claims have been refuted by a series of judges in multiple states and the amount of illegal votes cast by imposters or deceased persons was under 50—which amounts to a statistical anomaly. However, Aguirre remained convinced.
This undated photo provided by the Houston Police Department shows Mark Aguirre. Aguirre is an ex-Houston police officer who was arrested on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for an incident on Oct. 19 in which he pulled over an air conditioning repairman and held him at gunpoint believing the man had 750,000 fraudulent mail-in ballots in the back of his truck. Police say there were no ballots in the truck, only air conditioning parts and tools. (Houston Police Department via AP)
With many states allowing their citizens to vote earlier than normal in the election due to the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of votes were already theoretically en route to be counted through the mail. Aguirre and a few of his friends and associates had set up what he referred to as a “command post” at a hotel in Houston. They had been running surveillance on individuals who they believed to be transporting illegal votes, one of whom was an air conditioning repair man. On October 19, about two weeks before Election Day, Aguirre placed a call to Lt. Wayne Rubio in the Texas Attorney General’s Office and asked him to conduct a traffic stop for the repairman’s truck. When Rubio refused, Aguirre responded that he would take care of the traffic stop himself and “make a citizen’s arrest.” In an interview with police, Aguirre said that he ran the man’s truck off the road, got out of the vehicle, brandished a firearm and forced the repairman to the ground with a knee on his back. Fortunately, no one was hurt in this confrontation, and when law enforcement responded, a search of the truck yielded no evidence of transporting illegal ballots. The truck only contained equipment and parts relevant to the driver’s business. Aguirre was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. If he is convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
While no one was hurt in this incident, it is a perfect reason why taking private investigations into your own hands can be dangerous and ill-advised. If private citizens feel there is a problem that is not being properly investigated, it is recommended they seek the expertise of a licensed private investigator to find answers. They are professionals with the tools and access to get to the bottom of murky situations. Despite their toolchest of experience in law enforcement, former police officers do not have the same resources in retirement as they did on the force. While their expertise could assist in a private investigator’s case, it’s best to leave it to the professionals.
Employee misconduct investigations have spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic in an unprecedented way. The coronavirus restrictions are different in many states, with many businesses still operating most positions in a remote capacity. In correlation with this wave of remote working, there has also been a wave of interest from employers in hiring a private investigator to spy on their employees while they work from home.
Anyone in business knows that due-diligence is the cornerstone of good practice. A proper level of oversight on behalf of leadership reduces the odds of pervasive issues falling between the cracks in the system and ensuring that problems within the organization are handled swiftly and efficiently. It also demonstrates for the workforce that leadership is engaged with the internal issues of a corporation and is invested in creating a better work environment for their employees. However, there is a threshold where oversight becomes disruptive and unnecessary, and has the potential to further disturb the bottom line.
Private investigators across the globe are seeing an increase in employee misconduct investigations. A private investigator based in Manchester, England, told the Daily Mail recently, “That was a type of work you never really got prior to lockdown. Now we see a lot of enquiries. It is quite prevalent. We get employers using us for surveillance to confirm that people are actually working and not going out of the house.” Employers are feeling understandably uneasy about the prospect of employees working from home without direct supervision. Many employers have transitioned to software that tracks an employee’s production level, or spies on their home computer activity while working. Others are taking it a step further and hiring private investigators to monitor employees while they work from home. For example, an employee might express distress over going out in public during the pandemic, but then be seen out and about.
Private investigators have a skillset that is ideal for this type of surveillance and documentation. However, the overuse of private investigators to police the behavior of employees can also have a detrimental effect on the workforce, particularly if employee malingering is isolated and not rampant within the organization. What it comes down to is a question of reasonable suspicion. A reasonable suspicion constitutes evidence to a reasonable degree that an employee is malingering on company time. When heavy employee misconduct investigations are instituted by leadership on such a wide scale, there is an err of distrust between employer and employee. The employee may decided that if they are not worth their employer’s trust, they might disengage from their job. They might be even more inclined to steal from the employer despite the knowledge that they are under surveillance. That air of distrust between employer and employee can rot the company culture from within, leading to lower returns and higher costs in turnover and training.
The bottom line is that leadership should trust their employees until they give you a reasonable suspicion not to. When that happens, leadership should definitely reach out to private investigators for employee misconduct investigations to get important clarification on their corporate crises.
Is there a way to stamp out employee malingering? The answer
is complicated.
Employee malingering is becoming a problem for some employers. As some states move forward with plans to open their states back up during the global COVID-19 pandemic, many are looking forward to life returning to some semblance of normalcy. While businesses make plans to reopen their doors, there are others that will keep the bulk of their operations remote with employees working from home in order to mitigate the spread of the disease. While many employers feel this precaution is still prudent, there is the additional layer of anxiety about whether employees are keeping their noses to the grindstone, or malingering.
Obviously, these are strange times. A majority of businesses
in the United States were forced to shut down direct business to customer
operations in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Employees who were
not furloughed or laid off due to COVID-19 have been forced to adjust to a new
working life devoid of work-life balance—their work is literally in the home—complete
with the distraction of children, family, pets, spouses, and other household
distractions. It is a stressful time, and it can be difficult to maintain focus.
Corporations and organizations should always prioritize their employee’s mental
health for the sake of their corporate culture. These predictable challenges
with suddenly working from home should not be considered employee malingering. However,
willful malingering can lay huge blows to daily productivity and ultimately
profits. Employers must have a way to verify whether or not their employees are
actually working.
Under more normal, stable circumstances, employers have the
benefit of face to face interaction for determining how engaged and productive
their employees are. In addition to output, supervisors can note how many
breaks they take, the quality of the work, and the level of communication from the
employee, both on and offline. However, remote working has made detecting
employee malingering almost impossible.
Telecommunication technology has played a vital role in facilitating
the continuation of the economy despite the quarantine. Meetings are held over Zoom,
employee time is tracked through invoices or through an online time clock of
sorts that allows employees to log their time worked and have their timesheets
stored on a cloud server. Short of a live camera feed that documents the
employee in front of the computer or on the phone, is there truly a way to
verify if they are actually working?
The idea of hiring a private investigator to surveil your
employees may sound strange or even wrong, but it’s a highly common business
practice that legally exposes the drain an individual employee might be having
on your company. Private investigators can track an employee’s movements during
the time they have invoiced or logged, ensuring that any errands outside the
home are work-related and have some value to the corporation. Private
investigators can document these movements with GPS trackers placed under their
car, photographing their activities in public to either prove or disprove
employee malingering. Private investigators are trained to blend in with their
surroundings, and conduct surveillance discretely to prevent their cover from
being blown, so in the event that no employee malingering is found, no one is
the wiser.
If you suspect your employee is malingering on your dime, reach out to Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on our surveillance services. Call us at 317-951-1100, or visit our website at lauthinveststg.wpengine.com
Essential Employees See Decline in Corporate Culture
In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, many states are currently living under lockdown, with Indiana in particular abiding by Governor Holcomb’s ‘stay-at-home order’. Residents are ordered to stay at home unless making essential trips for things like groceries, medical supplies, or reporting to essential jobs for essential tasks—all in the pursuit of reducing the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. However, working persons across the nation are finding themselves in conflict with their employers regarding their compliance level with their state’s level of travel restrictions during the pandemic—landing some companies in hot water with their employees who have come forward citing a toxic corporate culture that some describe as choosing “profits over people.”
While the world watched China and Italy deal with devastating consequences of COVID-19, other countries like the United States struggled with how to respond. The Trump administration is currently facing criticism for the general handling of the pandemic with the consequences being felt across the nation. The homogenized body of information flowing from various sources, the compliance climate surrounding lockdowns has some businesses demonstrating their lack of understanding of what constitutes an “essential” job or business.
Media outlets of all shapes and kinds are publishing lists of essential jobs and services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The list is much longer than many may think, with 35 different businesses and organizations deemed essential, from exterminators to funeral homes. One of the business types not on that list is recreational retail—businesses like GameStop, which sells video games, electronics, and gaming merchandise. Even after many states started initiating lockdowns, GameStop stores remained open, exposing employees and consumers alike to one another in reckless disregard for COVID-19 precautions. At the end of March, a former employee wrote an op-ed for Vice, detailing their declining relationship with the company over seven years, culminating with their departure after GameStop made the choice to keep stores open during the pandemic. Under the pseudonym “CT Collins”, the former employee described a corporate culture that was slowly deteriorating, “As corporate continued to increase expectations, associates began to lose motivation altogether. Since holidays alone, my store saw increased expectations in every metric we were tracked on, despite January and February being extraordinarily slow months…This despite the fact that our store had struggled to meet the previous targets, and our new game sales were nearly halved from the previous year.” Ahead of the highly-anticipated release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, GameStop certainly had an opportunity to recoup lost profits by remaining open during the launch of the popular life-simulator.
GameStop’s difficulty with the definition of “essential” has unflattering optics that demonstrate a level of indifference to their employees with regards to whether or not their contact with customers and each other can contribute to the rising epidemic of COVID-19. The op-ed by CT Collins already documented a declining corporate culture in which employees were trapped in a cycle of disengagement and apathy as a direct result of corporate expectations. Following the outcry from the employees, the decision was finally made to close GameStop stores in compliance with what has become known as “flattening the curve.” We can only hope that other businesses begin to revaluate how much of their daily operations can be conducted in the cloud—allowing employees to work from home and telecommute with the use of technology and business-to-business platforms.
GameStop is not the only retail giant getting bad press. Amazon has come under fire as a documented history of corporate culture issues, including an infamous incident in late 2019 in which an Amazon fulfillment associate died of cardiac arrest while on the warehouse floor and their fellow employees were told to “go back to work.” Now, an Amazon worker, Chris Smalls, has been fired for protesting the unsafe working conditions in the Staten Island warehouse where he works—one of the busiest in the nation. Given that millions now depend on delivery to get essential items, it’s not a surprise that Amazon is struggling, but employees are making their voices heard during these uncertain times, articulating their perceived lack of value to the corporation as many distribution centers fail to protect their employees from the spread of COVID-19.
Amazon is arguably essential as a distribution service that can put much-needed supplies in the hands of people who need them, but if the employees feel as if their employers have flagrant disregard for their health and safety, it should be no surprise that employees disengage and become vocal about their discomfort with the working environment. CEO Jeff Bezos has made repeated promises in the past to address the claims of toxic corporate culture within Amazon, but it seems that extraneous circumstances continue to bring out the very worst of capitalism within its distribution centers. As an “essential” business, Amazon has a responsibility to its employees to ensure they have a safe working environment by respecting social distancing protocol and providing safety equipment to protect them during the outbreak.
Disregarding restrictions set by the Center for Disease Control and other federal agencies during a pandemic as a non-essential business is a perfect storm for rapid deterioration of corporate culture. Even if the corporate culture was previously healthy within a company or organization, such blatant disregard for health and safety become a malignancy within the workforce, where employees do not feel valued, and disengage from their jobs, leading to further drop in productivity. To prevent this from happening to your company, the steps are really very simple:
If you’re not one of the designated “essential” business types, it’s imperative to allow your employees to do as much work as possible from home, and close all brick-and-mortar locations that would allow the continued spread of COVID-19.
If you are an “essential business,” carefully evaluate within the context of your business model constitutes an essential job or task. If it can be done over the phone, over email, or over video-conference, it should be.
Take advantage of any opportunity to limit human contact. Keep all on-site workers a strict 6 feet apart, encourage heavy hand-washing and commitment to maintaining excellent sanitary conditions in the workspace.
The bottom line is that taking care of your essential employees in this uncertain time can only positively impact your workforce. When physical risk is not a part of the job description, it is easy for employees to feel inherently undervalued when they’re asked to risk their health in the interest of their job. Disregarding the limits put in place for the betterment of public health can only incite decline in your corporate culture.
