A recent Fair Work Commission decision provides an interesting case study into what can happen when an organisation is left to investigate serious misconduct without adequate resources to do it properly.
The case involved a correctional officer at Sydney’s Parklea Correctional Centre, dismissed by global business and prison operator Management and Training Corporation (MTC) after a colleague accused him of persistent sexual harassment, including a request for a sexual encounter in the staff carpark. The Commission ultimately found the dismissal was not unfair and the conduct was substantiated – but not before Deputy President Judith Wright described MTC’s handling of the investigation as “woeful.”
The problem with the internally conducted investigation wasn’t a lack of care. It was a lack of capacity. MTC had only one staff member responsible for investigations and, at the time, the staff member was managing a number of other complex and time sensitive investigations. Consequently, it took MTC six weeks to interview the accused employee, and four and a half months to finalise its investigation report. Further, interview notes were never given to the employee to check for accuracy, so the inaccuracies in the investigator’s notes were never corrected, and were relied upon in the decision making process.
The Commission was blunt about the cause; it was not necessarily any failing of the individuals involved, but rather, it was simply that the employer hadn’t allocated enough resources to this critical work.
This case should serve as a cautionary tale for organisations that rely on already stretched internal resources. On paper, workplace investigations look like something that can be squeezed into an existing role. But, as a genuine sexual harassment complaint creates legal, reputational and safety risks, it demands someone free of competing priorities, with a degree of independence, trained in procedural fairness, and available to move quickly while evidence and memories are still fresh. Few organisations, even large ones, have that capacity sitting spare.
The lesson certainly isn’t that internal HR teams aren’t capable of running investigations. It’s that complex, high-stakes investigations benefit from being handled by people whose only job, at that moment, is the investigation itself – with the time, distance and expertise to do it properly the first time.
This is precisely the gap independent investigators are designed to fill. At Perks People Solutions, our workplace investigations team exists to give organisations exactly what MTC lacked: dedicated capacity, procedural rigour and the ability to act quickly on serious complaints, with independence and expertise.
When the next complaint lands, the question worth asking is not whether your team wants to handle it. It is whether they realistically can. The investment in an externally conducted investigation may be a cost in the short term, but may well save greater costs in the long term.
