A Guide To Investigating EEO Complaints & Other Workplace Problems
California Association of Workplace Investigators (CAOWI) members have just voted to change CAOWI’s name to the Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI).
AWI will now begin working to expand its membership to workplace investigators in any geographic location in the country–or world, for that matter. We greatly look forward to new associations with out-of-state investigators.
For best investigative results, travel fraud audits should be performed by an employer on at least a yearly basis if possible. The reason for this is that major hotels routinely purge their systems on a 6-month to yearly basis, so it can be difficult for an investigator to obtain detailed hotel expense information after a…
“charge card fraud”, “credit card fraud”, “P-Card fraud”, “Pcard fraud”, “procurement card fraud”, “purchasing card fraud”…
Continue Reading Fraud: Investigating Procurement Card Abuse
In sexual harassment investigations, it is often the case that harassment occurs behind closed doors, with no witnesses, and it becomes a "he said-she said" scenario. Instead of reaching a finding that the allegations were "sustained", "not sustained", or "unfounded", I have heard of investigators reaching an "inconclusive" conclusion, and in such an instance, the…
Cuiellette v. City of Los Angeles (Case No. B224303, Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Apr. 22, 2011) is a reminder to employers that simply because an employee (in this case, a police officer) has been rated as 100% totally and permanently disabled–for workers’ compensation purposes–the employer is not relieved of its duties…
On October 9, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 887, which prohibits discrimination based on “a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.” The law will take effect on January 1, 2012.
Current California laws already protect employees from discrimination based on…
California Senate Bill 559, a civil rights protection bill was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in September 2011, and will go into effect on January 1, 2012. The new law will protect Californians by prohibiting discrimination based on an individual’s genetic information. This state law follows along with federal law ("GINA")…
I attended a presentation today at the 29th Labor & Employment Law Section Annual Conference where Andrew Friedman of Helmer Friedman in Venice, CA, was one of the speakers. Mr. Friedman typically represents employees in employment disputes; however, he previously worked for a prestigious employment defense firm, so he has a very grounded ability…
Readers may already know that I am on the Board of the California Association of Workplace Investigators ("CAOWI"). I wanted to tell you about our Second Annual Conference that is coming up this November 2011, and let you know about an optional pre-conference session. It’s called "Examining the Investigation: A Demonstration of Trial Testimony …