A CEO is caught having a relationship with a direct report. Another is accused of submitting false expense reports to fund travels with his girlfriend. Two executives are caught embracing each other at a concert.
Such incidents may shock the public when they appear in headlines. But for HR professionals, misconduct and allegations of misconduct are commonplace — and it’s often their department’s job to sort through the details and chart a course forward.
“It happens all the time,” said Rey Ramirez, co-founder of Thrive HR Consulting. “And we as HR are brought in all of the time to figure out what to do.”
It’s a role that, while natural for the profession, presents many difficulties both personal and professional. Holding leaders to account requires an understanding that threats or negative consequences are not uncommon, said Ramirez. David Rice, executive editor at People Managing People, an online HR community platform, agreed and noted that doing so can put an HR person’s job at risk.
But the task is also not one that members can shirk given that they are tasked with ensuring policies and legal obligations apply equally to all members of an organization, Rice said; “You’ve got to be a guardian of standards and not a protector of power […] You’ve got to take those concerns seriously regardless of who’s involved.”
In responding to accusations of wrongdoing against top leaders, practitioners should anchor themselves in the organization’s processes, Rice continued, particularly when the details or internal politics of the situation leave things murky.
Get the full story and document ‘relentlessly’
Launching an inquiry of this magnitude requires HR to understand who the source of the accusation or report is and whether other sources can provide additional details. From there, practitioners can determine the exact nature of the behavior and what specific policies have been violated, Ramirez said.
It’s important not to jump to conclusions, Rice said, but HR also shouldn’t ignore signals of wrongdoing. Regardless, practitioners should document “relentlessly” all observations, both directly reported and implied, all the while assessing the credibility of the observer.
The nature of the transgression is key, said Jason Walker, who is also a co-founder of Thrive HR. Clear-cut violations of policies are one thing, but if the leader has done something that borders on rude or impolite, the potential disciplinary action may be mild, if it happens at all.
Walker gave an example from a past career stop involving a manager who reported to the CEO and had been accused of berating employees for not keeping pace with projects on several occasions. Walker said the manager was never disciplined despite the CEO and CFO hearing about his behavior, in part because he successfully got the company’s products out on time.
Sometimes, a company will look the other way, Walker said.
But when there are clear signs that a significant wrongdoing has occurred, it has to be escalated to the right place, Ramirez said. Depending on the role the leader holds, this could mean a direct notification to the C-suite or even to the board of directors accompanied by a list of recommendations on how those on the receiving end of the report can move forward.
Practitioners must assess whether the behavior is a one-off concern and whether it involves harassment, discrimination, retaliation or a threat to the safety of another person, Rice said. Investigations of leaders are similar to those of other employees in that HR has to consult organizational policy and legal guidance.
“This is not a place to improvise,” Rice said. “The process you follow means a great deal.”
HR also might consider involving legal or ethics counsel. It’s equally important to protect those who report misconduct from retaliation, Rice said, both for that person’s safety and for the sake of preserving the ability for other employees to speak up.
Assess whether outside help should be involved
Practitioners need to approach the prospect of bringing in external investigators carefully. Rice said this is a step that should be avoided unless it is truly appropriate and necessary. According to Ramirez, a third-party investigation may be absolutely necessary in cases where top leaders are involved, as those parties can report directly to the organization’s board.
The culture and type of organization also may affect the decision, Ramirez continued. Wrongdoing at a publicly traded company can affect that firm’s reputation and stock price, among other things, including the potential for negative media coverage. Private firms and those led by an individual owner or founder present their own challenges, Walker said, and it can be harder for HR to act on reports at all depending on the leader’s internal influence.
“The reality is that if you can’t survive holding one person accountable, your culture is as fragile as a piece of glass.”
David Rice
Managing Editor, People Managing People
Either way, an individual practitioner is likely to need to rely on both their internal and external peers to deal with such a situation, Rice said. He advised HR to “pressure test” situations with other practitioners whom they trust as a form of risk management. This can also help HR understand whether it has any blind spots in its approach and gain needed emotional support.
External HR people “can hopefully share with you how similar cases played out elsewhere,” Rice said, as well as any “second- and third-order consequences” that came about as a result. “They’re outside the organization and can be honest in a way that internal stakeholders can’t be.”
Know that discipline is ‘just the beginning’
HR’s work doesn’t end when a leader is disciplined. In the short term, where a leader is ousted, the department will likely be tasked with finding a successor for the affected role, Ramirez said. Additionally, there will likely be a need to have an internal education process for others at the company outlining what happened and how to prevent similar future occurrences.
To that end, companies might consider doing internal culture audits as well as policy reviews to locate where their internal processes may have failed. Training leaders on preventing misconduct can be difficult, Ramirez acknowledged, but it’s important for HR to try anyway.
Even if a leader is successfully held accountable, organizational trust is often still damaged, Rice said. HR will need to be as transparent as it can be within legal limits while informing employees about the standards it has enforced and will continue to enforce. To that end, HR might consider hosting listening sessions or publicizing new leadership commitments in an effort to provide a cultural reset.
Rice also pushed back against the idea that holding any one leader accountable is a structural risk to the broader organization or an idea that should be feared. HR, he said, has to demonstrate that an individual’s power or performance doesn’t outweigh the organization’s standards.
“The reality is that if you can’t survive holding one person accountable, your culture is as fragile as a piece of glass,” Rice said.
Keep the bigger picture in mind
The sheer difficulty HR faces in addressing a leader’s misconduct shows how valuable it can be for practitioners to seek fixed-term contracts with their organizations over a more typical at-will arrangement, Walker said. This is particularly the case when the contract is between the HR person and the board of directors, as this can empower HR to investigate an executive’s misconduct without the risk of being fired by the same executive.
Otherwise, the decision to pursue investigations of wrongdoing will always require HR people to take risks. Walker said it’s up to practitioners to ask themselves whether they can continue in their jobs if they look the other way and to assess what they can realistically do to address a complaint.
“Sometimes as an HR person, you have to put your badge on the table and say, ‘Fire me,’” Walker said. “I can put my badge on the table and lose my job if I do the right thing.”
HR shouldn’t fear doing what it needs to do to protect an organization’s integrity, Rice said, adding that HR should know that investigating misconduct is not disruptive. “That’s going to be uncomfortable in the short term, but being silent is going to be far more damaging,” he said.