Know your boundaries: Legal considerations for investigating and interviewing employees

• Understand the science of communication
• Do you know your legal authority for conducting interviews?
• Can you use deception in interviews?
• How do you avoid breaching the employees’ rights under law?
• How do you avoid employee claims of breach of privacy, emotional distress, defamation, false imprisonment, or assault and battery?
• What about trade union protection?

Understand the science of communication

• What are communication facilitators and inhibitors?
• What is the employee really saying with word choice, tone, and syntax?
• What is the employee really saying with body language from the head, face, nose, mouth, eyes, arms, shoulders, elbows, hands, legs, feet, and posture?
• What is the employee really saying with anger, boredom, frustration, and body movements? 

Learn how to prepare for the interview

• How do you properly establish the foundation for your investigation?
• How do you gather evidence and background information for the interview? Where do you get the information from?
• What is the best venue and physical environment for interviewing?
• How should you plan the interview for witnesses, conspirators, and perpetrators? 

Learn how to conduct the interview

• What are 13 verbal clues of deception you need to recognize?
• What are 10 non-verbal clues of deception you need to recognize?
• What is the proper interviewing sequence and use of questioning? How do you open the interview, get good information, resolve contradictions or deceit, and close the interview?
• What is the best approach to obtaining an admission of guilt? How do you help the employee rationalize what he or she did and tell you what truly happened?
• Learn how to professionally conduct an interview in stages with the proper introduction and rapport establishment, information gathering, assesment questions, closing, and admission seeking.

Know how to report your findings

• How should your findings be presented to company insiders, attorneys, defendants & witnesses, the press, or juries?
• What is a good report structure for presenting your findings?