Canadian HR Reporter

N E W S 12 www.hrreporter.com Virtual investigations could prove popular even after pandemic The use of video platforms such as Zoom and Skype is proving popular when it comes to conducting workplace investigations, writes John Dujay, as employers and legal professionals have come to appreciate the benefits of prompt responses and lower costs — especially when people are back at the office, says Samantha Lucifora, an employment lawyer at Monkhouse Law in Toronto. "If it's a serious issue where an employee doesn't feel safe with another employee in the workplace, it's obvious you don't want those employees to continue to be working together; they're not going to continue to feel safe. It's important both for the productivity of the workplace but also to the employer's obligations that these investigations take place quickly." Legal costs could also be lowered considerably due to the ubiquity and ease of use of modern video tools, she says. " B e f o r e C O V I D, I p e r s o n a l l y travelled to Toronto many times, even to Vancouver, to conduct in-person interviews that really could have been done just as well over Zoom or Skype, but the culture around investigations was just not ready for that. The employer and these particular situations mandated me to travel and incurred the cost and the time associated to that, because they really preferred me standing in the same room with a particular witness. "A lot of employers are realizing today that the resources allocated to those travels just to be face to face is the norm, to expect that it's going to be virtual," says Christopher Achkar, founder and employment lawyer at Achkar Law in Toronto. There is a perception that the legal world is quite traditional and conservative, and a lot of the tasks lawyers or investigators do need to be done in person, says Vanessa Lapointe, a lawyer and investigator at Borden Ladner Gervais in Montreal. "Through COVID, we didn't have a choice but to find new ways to meet our ends," she says. "A lot of investigators realized that virtual investigations were just as possible… In my experience, this is a lot more popular because of COVID. But I believe this is something that will stay very popular." Benefits to virtual approach For effective investigations, the issue of timeliness is important and the promptness of technological interviewing tools can help address this, according to Lapointe. "Witness memory is one of the biggest components of an investigation with many witnesses, so if we wait too long, individuals start forgetting what happened and sometimes speak among themselves and that could change the testimony." And when there is an allegation of assault in the workplace, getting the investigation launched quickly will help with a witness are really not necessary, ultimately, to adjudicate the complaint and to conduct a proper investigation," says Lapointe. Conducting interviews quickly and efficiently through digital means can also help the actual investigation, says Lucifora. "The same goes for the electronic or documentary evidence as well — whether it's text messages or phone calls or calendar invites, emails — you're more likely to be able to preserve that evidence if you react quicker versus several weeks or months later when evidence might be inadvertently deleted or intentionally deleted. It's certainly better for the quality of evidence as well." Potential downsides to virtual investigations But the constraints presented by employing internet-based video tools might make certain virtual investigations less reliable, says Achkar. "A lot of physical cues are also normally looked for through the lens of an investigator that are a lot more difficult now to do. Even if we were to do them by video, a lot of body language is still "It's the default way of doing an investigation since almost mid- February, March. That is the norm." Christopher Achkar, Achkar Law DESPITE the many downsides of the C O V I D -1 9 p a n d e m i c , when it comes to the workplace, one potential upside has been the rise of virtual investigations. " There's no clear law on how investigations must be done, so it may not be a new breed of investigations that we're seeing, but there's certainly more focus on it now because it's the default way of doing an investigation since almost mid-February, March. That VIDEO CALLS SEE UPSURGE IN USAGE 2.7 billion Number of meeting minutes on March 31 on the Microsoft Teams platform — a 200-per-cent increase from 900 million two weeks earlier 1,000% Growth in use of video in Microsoft Teams in March while the number of stream videos per week increased over five times 47% Percentage of time Canadians use video on Microsoft Teams Source: Microsoft

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