When a Complaint Is More Serious Than It Looks

Most organizations don't struggle with a lack of information. They struggle with information that conflicts with what they want to believe.

This becomes particularly difficult when the information concerns someone respected within the organization, someone with a strong professional reputation or someone who has been trusted for years. Organizations and the people within them can become so invested in what they believe about a person that they start evaluating the evidence against the person rather than evaluating the person against the evidence. This is where organizations can get into serious trouble.

Consider a client who reports sexual misconduct by a professional and provides messages, records or other documentation supporting what they are reporting. The organization does not have to determine whether a criminal offence has occurred. That is not its role. But it does need to recognize when the information it has received may be far more serious than an ordinary client complaint or internal HR matter. This becomes particularly important when a complaint involves sexual misconduct within a professional relationship, particularly where there may be a significant imbalance of trust, power or authority. The professional relationship itself can be relevant to understanding the circumstances of the conduct being reported and should not simply be stripped away when the complaint reaches HR, organizational leadership or a regulator.

The legal framework also illustrates why the circumstances surrounding sexual conduct matter. Canada's Criminal Code defines consent as the voluntary agreement to engage in the sexual activity in question, and makes clear that consent must be present when the activity takes place. It identifies circumstances in which consent is not obtained, including where a person is incapable of consenting, expresses a lack of agreement, or is induced to participate through an abuse of a position of trust, power or authority.

I am not in law enforcement or a lawyer, and I am not suggesting that organizations should attempt to determine whether a criminal offence has occurred. But leaders do need to understand when a complaint may raise issues that go well beyond an ordinary workplace or interpersonal matter. When credible evidence raises questions about consent, trust, power or authority, those circumstances deserve to be understood before an organization decides how to respond.

If an organization receives credible information that potentially engages those issues, the question should not simply be, “What policy applies?” The more important question is, “What are we actually being told?” This is where leadership matters.

A process can become a form of institutional blindness when it narrows the question before anyone has properly considered the evidence. A complaint can be labelled a relationship issue, a misunderstanding, a personnel matter or a client dispute, and once that label is attached, everything that follows can be interpreted through it. This is particularly concerning when an organization is presented with documentation.

Ontario's guidance on workplace harassment investigations emphasizes that investigations should be timely, objective, confidential and thorough. While the specific legal duties will depend on the circumstances, the underlying principle is an important one: serious concerns should be examined rather than simply categorized and dismissed.

I have spent more than 30 years working in communications, reputation and issues management. One thing I have learned is that reputational risk rarely comes only from the original conduct. It can grow considerably when an organization has an opportunity to examine credible information and chooses instead to minimize it, compartmentalize it or explain it away. The instinct to protect a respected professional, a valued employee or an organization's reputation can ultimately become the thing that causes the greatest damage to all three.

As leaders, we do not have to assume that every allegation is true. We do have to be willing to look seriously at credible evidence, recognize when an issue may be more serious than the category in which it first arrived, and make sure the right people are asking the right questions. The real test of an organization is not how it responds when the facts are easy to accept. It is what it does when the evidence is uncomfortable, the person involved is highly regarded and the implications are difficult to face.

About the author: 

Catherine Cameron is a Toronto-based Senior Communications Leader and Strategic Advisor with more than 30 years of experience supporting healthcare and social service organizations. Her work focuses on trust, reputation, leadership communication, stakeholder engagement, crisis communications, and public confidence.

Sources

Government of Canada, Criminal Code, section 273.1 — Meaning of consent https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-273.1.html

Government of Canada, Criminal Code, section 271 — Sexual assault https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-271.html

Government of Ontario — Workplace harassment investigations https://www.ontario.ca/page/workplace-harassment-investigations

Government of Ontario — Code of Practice to Address Workplace Harassment https://www.ontario.ca/page/code-practice-address-workplace-harassment