Neil Sands
Recent court decisions that clarify an employer’s obligations and responsibilities when dealing with workplace problems mean bosses must step up and conduct their own inquiries, rather than simply “passing the buck” to external investigators, experts have told TLANZ’s Burning Issues conference.
The conference in Auckland earlier this month examined a range of topic relating to employment law, including the rise in external workplace investigations when things go wrong.
As Employment Court Chief Judge Christina Inglis noted in her keynote address, the “legalisation” of employment issues had resulted in an “explosion of independent employment investigators, who now routinely assist employers with their disciplinary and other processes”.
But employment law specialist Margaret Robins said it could be difficult for employers to know when an external investigation was appropriate or when to handle a matter in-house.
Robins, who operates Epsom-based Workplace Law, said the test for when to appoint an external investigator was contained in s103 of the Employment Relations Act.
“The authority or court will ask, ‘could a fair, reasonable employer have commenced an investigation and, given the employer’s resources, was the employer’s choice of an in-house or external investigator the choice that a fair and reasonable employer could have made?” she said.
“If the employer decides an investigation is appropriate, who should conduct it? The case law suggests that the employer...
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