Corporations that have seen a decline in their corporate culture are turning to internal investigation and risk assessment firms for help in 2020. The discourse around corporate culture has evolved significantly over the last few years, with employees voicing their desire for work-life balance and how corporate culture directly impacts their decision to stay with a company. Leadership is better-educating themselves on how their actions feed into the cycle of corporate culture, and how they can improve employee retention by making meaningful changes that grease the wheels of success in their business or organization. However, many corporations have their anxieties about conducting internal investigations in a fishbowl—where employees are able to see the methodology in motion—and how this will impact their workforce and their business.
Corporations can find themselves open to scrutiny from both
their employees and their customer-base when they announce an impending
internal investigation. Some corporations, for a myriad of reasons, opt to have
internal investigations under a cloak of classification in order to protect the
integrity of the investigation—however, in the interest of transparency, many
corporations opt for a visible investigation, warning employees, shareholders,
customers, or all of the above, of an impending internal investigation. This
means that the investigating bodies will be under a microscope of scrutiny
within the corporation, as their methodology, decorum, and their practices will
a source of debate around the proverbial watercooler.
Regardless of who is contracted to conduct the internal
investigation, or under what level of declassification, if there is visibility
of an investigation, there is a delicate balance of transparency and
professionalism needed in pursuit of the truth. One of the most difficult tasks
an internal investigator has at the inception of the investigation is
establishing a rapport with relevant parties, such as leadership and the
workforce in order to garner frankness from persons who will be crucial to the
fact-finding process.
Investigators must establish credibility with the client and
relevant subjects in the case. This means ensuring those individuals are aware
that the investigator shares their values and is only interested in identifying
problems to improve the business—not damage it—indicating a high level of
accountability that will have a ripple effect throughout the corporation or
organization.
In tandem with establishing credibility, investigators must
be straightforward about their objectives, outlining what the client hopes to
achieve and their proposed methods of reaching that goal. Investigators must
never make promises they cannot keep by making declarations before they know
the facts. Corporate investigators must always pursue a resolution to a
business’s problem that does not impair their long-term goals—by the same
token, it is imperative that the investigator informs the client that there
might be some negative consequences as the result of their findings, such as
turnover, further inquiries, or bad publicity.
Objectivity is key in any internal investigation. It’s one of the reasons some companies elect to have a private investigator or risk assessment firm conduct their investigation, as opposed to an in-house investigator or member of house counsel. No employee with a stake in the outcome of the investigation, even indirectly, may be 100% objective in identifying pervasive issues in an organization. In addition to that objectivity, an independent investigator—unknown to the corporation or organization—investigators can move through a workplace undetected. This will take the edge off of the “fishbowl” factor that is common with internal corporate investigations. Private investigators can adopt a persona and conduct their investigations without the eyes of concerned coworkers; interviewing employees, collecting evidence, evaluating the location, and reviewing internal communications can all be conducted in plain sight.
Internal corporate investigations with a “fishbowl” factor can be an inherent challenge for corporations. Above all, it’s important to remember that employees are your greatest asset, as they feed into a cycle of corporate culture that can successfully stimulate your business or organization. An appropriate level of trust and care must always be taken when subjecting your workforce to an internal investigation. When employees feel valued, they will become empowered and engaged to give their best to the benefit of your organization.
How do you know when your business or organization needs a corporate culture audit? The fact of the matter is that you don’t have to be an educated risk assessment investigator to identify the signs. Many employees can trace their workplace woes back to an internal process or another employee they do not like. Sometimes it’s difficult to discern whether your organization needs a corporate culture audit. Here are 8 of the most prevalent signs that leadership should watch out for when it comes to declining corporate culture.
8. High-Pressure Environment
There is a plethora of high-pressure jobs that can create tension in the workplace, like media conglomerates, financial firms, and law offices. When stress is part of the job, many employers go the extra mile to ensure that their employees can have good work-life balance, such as paid-time-off, vacations, and comprehensive benefits. In high-pressure jobs where these things are not available to employees, the workforce regularly experiences burnout and lack of engagement. When leadership is ignorant or inattentive to these issues within their corporation, it drives corporate culture down and contributes to the overall detriment of the workplace.
Every employee has substandard days for a myriad of reasons, but when the workplace is constantly plagued by low energy and low morale, it spreads like a cancer throughout the organization. Employees who are engaged in the workplace increase productivity and customer experience. When apathy spreads throughout the workplace, it usually indicates that the root cause is pervasive, effects everyone, and needs to be neutralized as soon as possible.
If your organization is running into the same problems
quarter to quarter, this is a major red flag. The nature of the problems are insignificant—whether
it’s a problem with internal processes or multiple complaints of harassment,
the fact that the problem continues to thrive within the workplace indicates
that there is a fundamental issue with internal processes or personnel. While
each issue may have resolved initially, the root of the problem was never
identified or addressed. A healthy cycle of corporate culture cannot grow in
such an environment.
5. Poor Investments in People
When it comes to hiring and promoting employees, sometimes
leadership does not always make a sound investment in a single employee. It
happens in every business, where a new hire or promoted employee does not meet
expectations as predicted. This can bring internal operations to a screeching
halt, whether executives elect to correct this poor investment via termination
and turn-over, or to ignore the issue and allow that employee to continue
stalling the corporation’s mission.
4. Questionable Ethics
“Questionable ethics” does not mean that it’s apparent that
there is illegal or ethically unclear practices taking place within the
workplace—otherwise it would be much higher on this list. “Questionable ethics”
actually refers to individual employees’ understanding and ability to explain
their company’s values. Regardless of intent, corporations are sometimes vague
about their mission or values, using rosy words that denote a company with
integrity and passion for bringing their products and consumers together. This
can make it difficult for employees to intellectualize company goals and
vision. When the workforce does not have a clear, common goal to achieve as a
whole, employees can easily become detached and apathetic.
3. Lack of Accountability
When corporate culture is healthy, there is a mindful unity throughout the workforce, in which individual employees are content, engaged, and working towards the same goal. When the corporate culture is poor, individual employees at all levels refuse to take responsibility when something goes wrong. Lack of accountability for a mistake or oversight leads to a great deal of finger-pointing and shrugging in meetings and over email, and slows down the wheels of progress within a corporation or organization.
2. Bad Behavior in Leadership
Corporate culture audits can catch some of the most elusive culprits of tainting corporate culture: Executives and leadership. The old adage goes, “The fish stinks from the head,” meaning that most distasteful things within a company or organization can be traced back to leadership. Whether it is a supervising manager or an executive, bad behavior on behalf of leadership always trickles down into the rest of the workforce, because the supposition is, “If the boss is doing this, it must be okay.” This applies to all levels of bad behavior, from theft to malingering and everything in between.
1. Lack of Diversity
The number one indicator that your company or organization
might need a corporate culture audit is a lack of diversity in the workforce.
Any corporate culture that is homogenized with regards to race, gender
identity, sexual orientation, or even age lacks the inherent ability to grow
and change. Leadership in the workplace—management and executive positions—are
dominated by cisgender, straight, white men, who are statistically projected to
hire other individuals who are also in this category. Individuals in this
category are hired, mentored, and promoted more than others, which feeds into a
cycle of stagnation that will ultimately disbenefit the company or
organization. The value of diversity comes with the support of trusted
employees from many walks of life—employees who have had different life
experiences and have a perspective that can reinvigorate an organization’s
vision or mission—ensuring that the pursuits of the workplace are growing and
changing along with the rest of the economy.
When corporations make the investment to evaluate their corporate culture, it’s important that they choose a vendor who offers a comprehensive audit program. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) saw an overall increase of 13.6% of sexual harassment filings in 2018. That’s not counting other filings for discrimination based on age, race, and sexual orientation. This has placed corporations on high alert as the nation’s capitalist climate gears up for change in their workplaces. This means that when leadership opts for a corporate culture audit, it’s important that their money is well-spent, and one of the best moves to make is hiring private investigators to handle the audit.
Many corporate culture audits are performed by independent risk assessment firms, which is to be expected. Risk assessment firms specialize in identifying the weak points in a business from their workforce background to their brick and mortar security. However, if leadership is going to invest in improving their corporate culture, it’s important that they pick a program that offers comprehensive services. While risk assessment firms might employ highly capable auditors capable of identifying security oversight or performing background checks, every business is different, and it’s important that the program selected fit every business true-to-form. That’s where a private investigator can be an invaluable asset.
Private investigators as a profession have a lurid
reputation for following philandering spouses and people suspected of worker’s
compensation fraud. The same tool chest that allows them to perform those
services is the same one that makes them ideal candidates to perform corporate
culture audits. Private investigators have an eye for detail, diligent drive,
and a meticulous ability to evaluate and make recommendations based on what
they’ve observed. These are the types of professionals you want when it comes
to assessing the culture of your business or organization.
Independent risk assessment firms are just as excellent in
identifying the risk factors that put a business or organization at risk, such
as vulnerabilities in their securities, faulty hiring processes, and at-risk
employees based on their history—but what about the human element within a
corporate culture audit? Corporate culture audits are so much more than
comparing documents and surveying brick-and-mortar locations. It’s also about
understanding how current employees function in a workplace ecosystem. Private
investigators, with a wealth of experience in evaluating human behavior and
emotions, can be the boots-on-the-ground investigators who can speak with
current employees and collect data on their impressions of the current work
environment and how the culture can be improved. Some of the questions private
investigators may address include, but are not limited to:
Is
everyone in the company invested in the same things?
What
are the valued differences between your corporation and the competition?
What
are the key measures of success within your company?
What
is the functionality of the leadership in place versus the leadership required
for success?
What
are the environmental factors that are contributing to the decline in culture?
What
is the history of your company’s culture from its foundation?
What
are the subcultures that have formed in your organization and what is their
role within the company?
By answering these questions and calculating the human responses, private investigators can provide executive leadership with recommendations based on more than what exists on paper; for example, the last item on that list regarding the identification of subcultures. Private investigators do not only look at the behavior of individual employees, but also how those employees relate to each other. In workspaces where there are employees of 10 or more, it is hyper-common for subcultures (or groups) to form. This happens when individual employees gravitate towards one another as a result of their shared interests, goals, or gripes. Their comradery can either contribute to the cycle of corporate culture, or undermine it. When a subculture forms because the employees all have similar degrees of dissatisfaction with their job (regardless of the reason), their validation of one another in solidarity can be a cancer within the organization. This is why it’s imperative to hire corporate culture auditors who have a high level of understanding of human behavior—they can provide a comprehensive picture of how their current employees are contributing to the cycle of corporate culture.
While
private investigators may not be able to dismantle subcultures, they can change
the conversation within those subcultures. Groups of employees who bond over
poor treatment from a supervisor or frustration with current internal processes
will have to find other things to talk about once these issues are addressed
and remedied appropriately. This is one of the ways that we improve the cycle
of corporate culture. When employees see pervasive issues being addressed by
leadership, they are inherently more engaged in the process, which can increase
the quality of communication, the level of productivity, and the overall health
of the workplace. Private investigators are some of the best professionals to perform
these audits ultimately because they have a grasp of human behavior that allows
them to accurately pinpoint the issues and make recommendations to leadership.
