When it comes to your business, you deserve facts—not fiction. Pervasive internal or external problems in a corporation can run an otherwise solid operation into the ground. Problems between employees, theft of trade secrets, and public relations incidents are just some of the issues that can hamper a company for decades to come. That’s why knowing what qualities to look for when hiring a corporate intelligence firm is key. Not all corporate intelligence firms are created equal and if leadership is not careful, they could just be throwing money down a hole.
Experience
When hiring a corporate intelligence firm, it’s important to remember that while the company itself should run like a well-oiled machine, it’s the quality of the investigators that are the most important. Corporate investigators are tasked with evidence gathering, interviewing witnesses, and deductive reasoning that could make or break your company. While the corporate intelligence firm may specialize in certain types of investigations, the available investigators may not have the background required to meet your needs. Corporate investigation firms typically hire someone with former investigation with law enforcement, often federal law enforcement. While there are highly qualified corporate investigators with no experience working for federal law enforcement, it is up to the client to exercise due-diligence and ask the right questions. When hiring a corporate intelligence firm, no consultant should ever be hesitant about answering questions regarding their history of civil service, or the specific qualifications of the individual investigator or team of investigators who will be addressing the company’s corporate intelligence needs.
When hiring a corporate intelligence firm, the client should never be afraid to get specific with the firm regarding questions about how they plan to meet their specific investigation needs. While many corporations experience similar disruptions to their daily operations—just like the firms themselves—not all investigation types are created equal. An internal employee theft investigation is much different from a sexual harassment investigation, and the right investigator with the right experience could be the difference between getting answers and getting jerked around. Otherwise important details might be missed and the problem continues unsolved.
Technology
Field investigations in which data is aggregated by the investigator is important, but it’s also imperative that companies hire a corporate intelligence firm that has the capabilities to gather data by means of examining and auditing company databases and searching verified background databases in order to develop leads in the investigation. These corporate intelligence firms should be literate in the IT systems your company utilizes and should be able to connect to them efficiently. This means the investigator will be able to follow any leads that develop in pursuit of answers. Most importantly, the firm should be able to use this information under the most rigid of confidentiality agreements. Otherwise, the firm could open your company up to further internal or external threats, thereby exacerbating the existing issue.
Preservation of Attorney-Client Privilege
Corporations can help improve their chances of maintaining confidentiality by having an in-house attorney to oversee the contracting of these investigators. When an investigator of any kind is contracted by in-house counsel, they can maintain confidentiality has the investigator does the fact-finding on the company’s behalf. Without these necessary steps, facts uncovered during the investigation can place the company in further jeopardy and be subject to other forms of investigation that might occur during any subsequent legal action.
If your company is in the process of hiring a corporate intelligence firm, please consider Lauth Investigations International for your corporate investigation needs. We are staffed by former military and law enforcement professionals and carry an outstanding A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. For more information on our services or to verify us, visit online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com.
Corporate culture is more than protecting your employees from each other and the perils of internal daily operations. Employers must also be willing to protect employees from abusive clients.
When employers think of corporate culture, their grasp of it may only extend to the internal operations of the business. It’s true that the factors that effect corporate culture exist primarily in the workplace itself. Corporate culture in general is the daily manifestation of how operations, policies, and enforcement of those policies effect both personnel, workflow, and the overall success of the company. Succinctly, corporate culture measures how easily employees are able to thrive in a particular work space.
There are plenty of internal issues that could cause corporate culture to decline, including unsafe practices, poorly-enforced policies, and problem employees with a repeated, pervasive pattern of misconduct in their position. One factor that most employers choose to gloss over or ignore completely is the factor of toxic clientele in the business. Many industries operate around the sacred creed of “the customer is always right.” No matter how dissatisfied or irate a customer or client becomes, it is the duty of the employee to rectify the situation in any way possible. Low to mid-level employees are often expected to take the brunt of the customer’s anger and accept responsibility for mistakes that might not be their fault. As long as the customer leaves the business appeased, the ends justify the means. However, this often has a lasting effect on employees that can affect the business in the long term.
Corporate culture moves in a cycle. As leadership with power, employers are control of how that cycle begins and ends. When employers take care of their employees—pay them a fair wage, give them a safe environment to do their jobs, and enforce policy in a way that seeks to improve the culture—employees feel valued and are more inclined to fully engage in their jobs. Full engagement from employees results in higher productivity with a higher quality of work. That benefit is then passed on to the customer or client, resulting in returns for the business. This pleases leadership, incentivizing them to further reward their employees—thus the cycle begins anew. Employers are the members of the corporation with the most power to disrupt this cycle.
In dealing with clients, the professional landscape is seeing a disappointing lack of employers willing to protect employees from abusive clients. After all, they should be courting their business, but there should be a hard line that clients can cross that give leadership the option to “fire” a client. As awareness of policy enforcement and how it effects the workplace continues to develop, more professionals are posting their experiences with toxic clients on social media. Houston Golden, one of the founders of a company known as BAMF, posted about his experience with a toxic client on his LinkedIn profile. “I fired my biggest client for calling my employee ‘retarded.’ She called me at 9:47 PM. “Houston, I don’t know if he’s under-paid, untrained, or just simply retarded. Do you have anyone that can replace him?” I was shocked…” Golden felt the client had crossed a line, and as a result, discontinued doing business with her. This is a measure that saves other employees from being exposed to deplorable behavior, and such action from an employer is a message to other employees that such behavior will not be tolerated, and the happiness of employees is more important than an abusive client.
When employees feel valued by leadership, they commit themselves to their duties in a meaningful way. The ripple effects of a workforce that feels valued will extend to the bottom line. Employees give 110% and the business sees a profitable return on their daily operations. This is what a healthy corporate culture looks like. If your corporation is having a problem with its corporate culture, call Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on our corporate culture audit services. Call 317-951-1100 or find us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com.
No reasonable person would disagree that law enforcement have a difficult job. In addition to often being dangerous, lack of funding often leaves many jurisdictions without the right amount of trained professionals or resources to conduct criminal investigations efficiently or successfully. Under the most forgiving of perceptions, law enforcement professionals make mistakes. Hiring another investigative professional, such as a private investigator to conduct a simultaneous investigation can be a way for victims of crimes to ensure that multiple professionals from diverse disciplines have eyes on their case. Hiring a private investigator to conduct a concurrent investigation with law enforcement can be one of the best ways to cover all of the bases in a myriad of investigation types.
It is easy for investigators and other law enforcement professionals to make human errors that can have exponential consequences for criminal justice investigations. Even in the most serious of cases such as sexual assault or homicide, important details can be missed due to bias, lack of manpower, and resources. After the initiation of a police report, victims and their families can go weeks without answers due to those aforementioned roadblocks. This is why many victims and families find it prudent to hire a private investigator to do due diligence in a simultaneous investigation with police.
One type of investigation where this practice is common is in missing person cases. Even if a person is reported as missing by a friend or family member, it might not be the top priority of investigating law enforcement. Sometimes there are violent crimes that must take precedence, or maybe the missing person is someone who the police assume has disappeared of their own volition. In the case of missing person investigations, time is of the essence, and the more time that passes without pursuit of leads, the sooner the trail goes cold. If law enforcement does not immediately follow up, vital information will be lost. That is why hiring a private investigator to conduct a simultaneous investigation is the route many families of missing persons to take. Private missing person investigators can hop on a missing person’s trail while it’s still hot—speaking to witnesses, checking security footage, and notifying proper authorities before the person makes it out of the state. Even if the missing person does cross state lines, as long as a private investigator is licensed to practice in that state, private missing person investigators are free to follow leads from state to state without restriction of jurisdiction.
Hiring a private investigator to conduct a concurrent investigation may sound redundant, but it is one of the only ways victims and their families can ensure all possible leads are being exhausted in their cases. Sometimes professional bias or ineptitude will prevent a law enforcement investigator from following a lead, convinced that their own theory of the crime is correct. Not only does this have devastating effects in the case of missing persons, but this can lead to a brick wall in investigations of all types including corporate investigations where massive financial losses may be incurred, or in domestic and private investigations where a person’s life may ultimately be at stake. Hiring a private investigator also ensures that decisions about your case can be made quickly without the binds of bureaucratic red tape. In order to follow the law, law enforcement officers typically must follow a chain of command before taking specific action. Private investigators typically work for themselves and can exercise independent judgement on when and where to make a move in a case. In this way, private investigators can exercise the autonomy necessary to ensure that time is never lost in a case.
If you have need of a private investigator to investigate a criminal matter with a concurrent investigation, reach out to Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on our investigative services. 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 investigators can serve multitudes of purposes in both the private and corporate realm. Private investigator services are typically diverse and can bring clarity in the murkiest of circumstances. Whether it’s hiring a private investigator to track a missing loved one or to investigate a pervasive pattern of workplace theft, the name of the game is quality. When you’re ready to hire a private investigator, it’s important that you select the correct professional for the job. Here are some questions you can ask a private investigator about their firm and their body of experience when exercising due-diligence in the hiring process.
How long have they been in private investigations? What is their specialty?
While it’s true that many private investigator services can be very similar across all firm types—such as background checks, surveillance services, and location services, also known as “skip traces”—it’s also true that many private investigators choose to specialize in one or two areas of intelligence-gathering operations. For example, many law enforcement officials and investigators use their retirement years getting a private investigator’s license and continuing to serve the people in their communities by picking up missing person cases or helping families find clarity in the complex personal and domestic situations of their every day lives. Other private investigator services skew more towards the corporate side of the United States, such as internal corporate investigations, background check services, and serving as multi-tools for law firms. The nature of intelligence operations is knowing how to spot patterns, anticipate and assess cause and effect, and comprehensively pursue any and all leads that might arise. The more years private investigators have on the job, the stronger their investigative tool chest will be.
What is their level of transparency and communication?
Private investigators should always be straightforward with their clients. It demonstrates a level of integrity and transparency that is crucial in a quality investigator. Private investigators should be willing to meet with prospective clients in person. Quality investigators go the extra mile to establish professional relationships based on trust and transparency. Every investigation type is different, and the unexpected left turns of any case can be difficult to anticipate at times, but regardless, private investigator services should have a price range with the caveat that they may be subject to change. The best private investigator services will come with a cursory phone call and a free consultation from the investigator to determine the client’s level of need and to do their best to estimate what their retainer will be.
Do they have a verbal agreement or a written contract?
In tangent with transparency and communication, the terms of agreement regarding private investigator services should be clear, explicit, and in writing. Private investigators who do not clearly define their services, term of service, or outline terms of payment on paper should be a big red flag. Desperate clients sometimes get bilked for thousands because of dishonest professionals who intentionally keep them in the dark. A comprehensive, quality investigation is always initiated with clear terms in place, in writing, and signed by both the private investigator and the client.
Can you verify their private investigator number?
Private investigators are licensed state to state. Regardless of where the private investigator is located, they must be licensed in the state where the investigation is to take place in order to have investigative power and access to proper resources. Private investigators should provide their license number when asked so the client can run the number when their state’s database of privately licensed contractors.
In private intelligence, due-diligence is key, and that means as a prospective client, you have a right to know that you are getting what you paid for. That’s why you have to ask the right questions when vetting private investigator services for your needs. When it comes to your corporate or personal life, you deserve facts, not fiction.
