If you have reason to suspect wrongdoing in your organization, you might consider conducting an internal investigation. If executed properly, a good internal investigation can help you better understand what’s going on, fix standing issues, and set yourself up for success, regardless of what you find.
But how exactly do internal investigations work? Why are they initiated? And how do you make sure that your internal investigation is successful?
Why Initiate an Internal Investigation?
Together with lawyers, investigators, and other experts, any business, government entity, or other organization can initiate an internal investigation. Generally, there are three main goals:
- Determine whether wrongdoing occurred. Conducting an investigation of your organization should allow you to determine whether or not wrongdoing occurred. If your organization is accused of committing a crime, or if you’ve fallen out of compliance, this is your opportunity to gather the facts and determine what, exactly, happened.
- Fix the situation (if necessary). In many cases, this will be an opportunity to remedy the situation. If an individual is responsible for wrongdoing, you can discipline them. If there’s a process or structure problem in your organization, you can correct it. If you’re no longer in compliance, you can bring your organization up to snuff.
- Build a defense. This is also an opportunity to build a defense for your organization, especially if you’re facing criminal charges or fines. If you can show that you addressed a complaint or concern quickly and resolutely, you can successfully defend and protect your organization.
The Phases of an Internal Investigation
The phases of an internal investigation typically go something like this:
- Initiation. There are many ways an investigation can be initiated. It might originate with an anonymous complaint, a whistleblower accusation, or even a question from one of your investors or stakeholders. It’s also possible for a leader on your team to initiate an investigation if they have grounds for suspicion that something wrong has occurred.
- Outlining scope and goals. Next, you’ll outline the scope and objectives of this investigation. What exactly are you trying to determine? How are you going to determine it? What types of evidence are you looking to gather, and how are you going to gather it?
- Putting together the team. You can’t conduct a full internal investigation by yourself. Instead, you’ll typically need to work with lawyers, investigators, niche experts, and other professionals to capture a full body of evidence and assemble those findings appropriately.
- Investigating. During the investigation phase, you’ll gather any evidence that might be relevant to your objectives. You may conduct interviews with your employees and professional contacts, you may review forensic evidence, and you may dig deep into your records to determine everything that’s happened in the past several years.
- Collecting and consolidating evidence. Once you’ve had an opportunity to sort through all these pieces of evidence, you can assemble the relevant pieces to form a coherent picture of this situation. With the evidence organized and consolidated, you’ll have a much easier time determining what to do next.
- Analyzing and reporting. In most cases, the team will analyze the evidence and make an official report. This report will summarize the situation and potentially recommend what to do next.
- Reviewing and taking action. At this point, leaders on your team will review all the information and decide how they want to take action. This may include making changes to internal processes and teams, or preparing a legal defense, among other actions.
Keys to a Successful Internal Investigation
These are some of the most important keys to launching a successful internal investigation:
- The team. Much of your success depends on the team you assembled to conduct the investigation. Working with competent lawyers, analysts, and investigators can make sure your process is much more comprehensive. Do your due diligence before hiring anyone.
- The objectives. You also need to set the right objectives. If you don’t have clear direction for your investigation, or if you aren’t sure which questions to ask, you’re not going to draw the right conclusions.
- Confidentiality. Internal investigations are often pursued because they remain private and give the organization time to take action. Accordingly, it’s important to make sure your internal investigation is completely confidential and out of view of the public.
- Neutrality and objectivity. If you want to be effective, you need to be neutral and objective in your investigation. It’s common for organizations to be biased in their own favor or overlook things that seem routine. You’ll need to fight back against these impulses and stay as impartial as possible throughout this process.
Internal investigations aren’t always necessary, but they can help your organization strategically position itself if it’s ever accused of wrongdoing. Just make sure you assemble the right team and maintain an objective focus on your most important directives.
