Do disciplinary and grievance procedures help bridge the ‘Resolution Gap’?

In 2013, Richard Saundry coined the phrase ‘resolution gap’ when arguing the need for informal conflict resolution as an intervention to mitigate the rise in Employment Tribunals. Following Ury et al.’s (1998) argument that conflict is best resolved locally, informal resolution interventions such mediation or facilitated discussions should always be an organisation’s primary approach to conflict.

However, what happens when informal resolution fails? To me, there are two stages of Saundry’s ‘Resolution Gap’ – the informal resolution stage and the formal resolution through the disciplinary and grievance procedure. When informal resolution fails, individuals and organisations have recourse to utilise the disciplinary or grievance procedures.

Currently academics take a mixed view on how formal resolution impacts on the levels of workplace conflict: Williams (2020) argues that disciplinary and grievances help “contain and accommodate” (p321) workplace conflict, to the extent that managers rely on them as a default option when they are unable to resolve the issue informally (Saundry 2020). Nurse and Devonish (2007) argue that such procedures ‘institutionalises’ the conflict. Containment and institutionalising the conflict does not necessarily lead to the conflict being resolved. 

I agree with Saundry and Dix’s (2014) research that invoking such procedures is an escalation of conflict. Not that this should be perceived negatively. Sometimes an issue can only be resolved if it is escalated. However, mismanagement of the procedure has been known to lead to further escalation in the conflict (Bennett et al., 2020, Cappelli and Chuvin, 1991).   

Currently I do not feel that there has been sufficient attention to what needs to happen to ensure that conflict is appropriately managed during formal procedures. What we do know is that conflict escalates when employees feel dissatisfied in how their issue has been managed (Abbot, 2007). We also know that on occasion, parties become entrenched in their positions and as such find it difficult to reach an mutually agreeable resolution (Gibbons, 2007).

Certainly, the formality of disciplinary and grievances has an impact – not just on the employee. Ainsworth (2017:80) describes the process as “a kind of contest”, where individuals are “striving to prevail” which suggests an underlying sense of competition. The enactment of procedures has also been found to impact on relationships between HR professionals and operational managers (Fisher et al.’, 2017), arising from mis-managed expectations (Gennard and Judge, 2005).

Amanda Oates of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust describes the situation quite nicely:“it is ironic that the very people processes that are designed to keep staff safe and legally protected are often the vehicle with which we do the most harm to our own people” (2022: 146). 

From a research perspective it suggests that further work is required to be able to say that formal procedures can offer effective conflict resolution. From a practitioner perspective, this is a real need. My team and I hear first hand accounts from individuals who are embroiled in conflict, talking about the impact that it has had on them professional and personally. There is a need to understand how organisations can manage this better - or does there a need for a fundamental policy shift? I don’t have the answer, but I do know that there is no silver bullet.

References

Abbot, B. (2007) ‘Workplace and employment characteristics of the Citizens Advice Bureau client’. Employee Relations. Vol 29 (3) pp. 262-79.

Ainsworth, J. (2017) ‘Procedural Justice and the Discursive Construction of Narratives at Trial’,  Languages Cultures Mediation. Vol 4.

Cappelli, P., Chauvin, K. (1991) ‘A test of an efficiency model of grievance activity’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 45, pp. 3–14.

Fisher, V., Kinsey, S., Saundry, R. (2017) ‘The myth of devolution? The role of HR practitioners in the management of workplace conflict’. Paper presented at the CIPD Applied Research Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Gennard, J., Judge, G. (2005) “Employee Relations”, London, England: CIPD, 4th edition.

Gibbons, M. (2007) “A review of employment dispute resolution in Great Britain”. London: DTI.

Nurse, L. Devonish, D. (2007), ‘Grievance management and its links to workplace justice’. Employee Relations, Vol. 29(1), pp.89-109.

Saundry, R. (2013) Plugging the Resolution Gap? ESRC Seminar: Reframing Resolution. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde.

Saundry, R. (2020) The Impact of Covid-19 on Employment Relations in the NHS. Available at: www.socialpartnershipforum.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NHS-Covid-ER-Report.pdf

Saundry, R., Dix, G. (2014) ‘Conflict resolution in the UK’.  In Roche, W., Teague, P., Colvin, A. (Eds.), “The Oxford Handbook on Conflict Management”. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Ury, W.L., Brett, J.M., Goldberg, S.B. (1988) “Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict”. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Williams, S. (2020) “Introducing employment relations: a critical approach”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5^th edition.

‘Mundane Reasoning’ & the art of resolving misunderstandings

As investigators our role is to listen to every person we interview, taking their recollections of events at face value. However, it is not uncommon to find that two or more people have completely different recollections or perspectives around what occurred when discussing a particular event. How do we reconcile this?

Maybe it’s not our role to reconcile different perspectives, but our role is to determine, on the balance of probability, what actually occurred. When facts are available (e.g. emails, reports, training logs etc), we will revert to them. However, how does that resolve the underlying issue from an employee’s perspective?

I recently was recommended a book called “Mundane Reason” by Melvin Pollard. His argument is that there needs to be synergy in perspectives / recollections (I don’t necessarily agree with that).  But if there isn’t synergy then:

• The person has hallucinated or is lying (or other equivalent reason) or
• Steps need to be taken to ensure that the employee is informed of the wider context, or provided with missing information, so that their perspectives then become aligned.

Now, it’s not part of our role to determine whether an employee we are investigating is hallucinating or lying! But I am more interested in the second point.

I feel that it is our role as investigators to ensure that our reports provide a level of detail which ensures that an employee has an opportunity to learn about what happened from another person’s perspective; to provide that missing information. With that new information will the employee’s perspective shift? Will they understand better what has happened that has caused the underlying conflict?

To be honest, it really depends on what the other person says. But where there are genuine misunderstandings, or where information has not been fully shared, providing another’s perspective could be helpful in restoring relationships.

Reference

Pollner, M., (2010). Mundane reason: Reality in everyday and sociological discourse. Cambridge University Press.

How transparency helps reduce conflict

The start of a new year is not only an opportunity to look forwards to what we want to achieve over the coming year, but also an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and how we have grown over the previous year.

In a discussion during supervision with one of my team this last week, they reflected on a particular interaction which for them had been a ‘game changer’ in terms of how they approach their work.

A few months ago, my colleague contacted me as they had recieved a ‘challenging’ email from a person that we were investigating. It was aggressive in tone and asked numerous questions about the investigation procedure – some of which we could answer but others were outside our knowledge or understanding.

We worked together to draft a response. My colleague had initially preferred a shorter response, to close the matter down. I talked about the importance of answering every question the ‘angry employee’ had asked, to make sure that we had attempted to address their concerns. If we did not have an answer, our role was to highlight who they could approach in order to get an answer. It took time to craft, but at the end I felt that we had demonstrated our fairness and transparency through our response.

The next email from the ‘angry employee’ was……..well not angry. They described how they appreciated our attempt to reassure them by providing the information that they had been seeking. From then on, all the correspondence between my colleague and this employee was professional and polite.

None of this should be a surprise. One of the ‘prongs’ of Organisational Justice is interactional justice - which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a supervisor and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies and Moag, 1986). This can either be on an interpersonal basis, which considers the respectful treatment of an employee (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993); or on an informational basis, where the fairness of the explanations given are considered (Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993).

By taking time to ensure that emails from others are answered in full, we’re not ‘shutting people down’ and denying them a voice. We’re demonstrating transparency and respect. Since then, my colleague has adopted this approach and has found that their relationships with others has tangibly improved – just by taking a bit more time to reflect and ensuring there is attention to detail in a response.  

References:

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986) ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds.), “Research on Negotiation in Organization”, Vol 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. In Cropanzano, R. (Ed.), “Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management”, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Niehoff, B.P., Moorman, R.H. (1993), ‘Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behaviors’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36 (3) pp. 527-556.

Why do we have disciplinary or grievance procedures?

I had an interesting conversation with a client this last week. We got to talking about a grievance that we, at Senatus, had investigated a couple of years ago. As time has passed, we were both able to objectively reflect on what had happened, both from an employee and an organisational perspective. During the discussion, my client talked about how they had “used the procedure to protect ourselves”, and perhaps that was not the right course of action to take.

I found this perspective to be interesting. Not because the client was wrong; I think that he was right. I found it interesting because using formal procedures to protect the organisation has not arisen during the research I’ve done to date around the purpose and use of disciplinary and grievance procedures in the workplace.

I’ll start with the origins story:

Conflict in the workplace is a known phenomenon (Edwards, 1986). In the 1960s, the focus was on the conflict between employers and trade unions, which resulted in the Government launching the Donovan Commission. The Commission sought to improve union-management relationships, to the benefit of both employees and the employer. Their recommendations were published in 1968, one of which was to strengthen union-management relationships: this was to be achieved through the implementation of (or in some cases, the strengthening of) formal policies and procedures, including disciplinary and grievance procedures.

However, the minimum standards for what these policies and procedures should contain was not defined until the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (1992), when the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures were published.

Whilst the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures outlines a basic procedural framework as to how to manage formal disciplinary and grievance matters, the reality is that in some settings, such as in the NHS, the formal process is far from simple. In fact, it can give the illusion of fairness (Kaiser et al., 2013; Dierckx et al., 2023) – but that’s a discussion for another blog.

We are 50 years on from the Donovan Commission’s findings and the nature of the workplace has changed. Until the last couple of years, there had been a signficant down-turn in union-related strike action compared to the 1960s (resolutionfoundation.org). In contrast, the number of disciplinary and greivances has risen. When I first started working in the NHS some 20 *cough* odd years ago, nobody lodged a grievance. I remember being acutely aware of my skills and knowledge gap in this area due to lack of exposure compared the significant experience I was gaining from being involved in disciplinary matters. In comparison, a recent Freedom of Information request made by Senatus to every NHS Trust identified that there has been over 20,000 grievances lodged in the NHS since April 2017. Grievances are now commonplace.

Nowadays, organisations will frequently rely on formal disciplinary and grievance procedures to ‘contain’ the conflict between parties (Williams, 2020). Although it is best pratice to resolve issues locally and in a timely manner (Ury et al., 1998), we have all witnessed cases where the matter was considered ‘too difficult’ to resolve informally and the formal procedures have been evoked. This was evident in Saundry’s 2020 review of the state of employee relations in the NHS, which identified that local managers were choosing to formalise issues. Their approach was considered to be adversarial and “heavy-handed”, which is opposite to ACAS’ preference for an inquisitorial approach. Sadly, it is not uncommon for the use of formal disciplinary and grievance procedures to lead to increased levels of workplace conflict (Cappelli and Chauvin, 1991), due to employees feeling dissatisfied in how their issue has been managed (Abbot, 2007). Formalising the conflict can make a difficult situation become more difficult.

So it goes back to the ‘why’ – bearing in mind that the (limited) research available shows that formal disciplinary and greivance procedures, in many cases, do not help contain or effectively resolve concerns. I haven’t seen any research about disciplinary and grievance procedures being utilised to protect individuals or an organisation, but maybe ‘protection’ is another underlying reason that academics have yet to identify.    

  

References:

Abbot, B. (2007) Workplace and employment characteristics of the Citizens Advice Bureau client. Employee Relations. Vol 29 (3) pp. 262-79.

Cappelli, P., Chauvin, K. (1991), ‘A test of an efficiency model of grievance activity’. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 45, pp. 3–14.

Dierckx, K., van Hiel, A., Swart, H., Valcke, B. (2023) “The irony of fairness: How procedural fairness climate perceptions can hinder disadvantaged group members’ support for social change’, Group processes & intergroup relations pp.1-22

Edwards, P.K. (1986) Conflict at Work. Oxford: Blackwell.

Kaiser, C.R., Major, B., Jurcevic, I., Dover, T. L., Brady, L. M., Shapiro, J. R. (2013) ‘Presumed fair: Ironic effects of organizational diversity structures.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.. 104(3), pp. 504–519.

Saundry, R. (2020) The Impact of Covid-19 on Employment Relations in the NHS. Available at: www.socialpartnershipforum.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NHS-Covid-ER-Report.pdf (Accessed:  31^st July 2022)

Ury, W.L., Brett, J.M., Goldberg, S.B. (1988). Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Williams, S. (2020). Introducing employment relations: a critical approach. 5^th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

How to behave in an interrogation

Whilst on a weekend break in Tallin, enjoying the Christmas market, I decided to visit the KGB prison museum situated a few doors down from my hotel. It might appear to be an odd choice of tourist attraction, but I’d read that this small museum gave an insight into life in Estonia under Russian rule. I don’t know much about Estonian history and felt this might be a good way to educate myself on this particular era.

For many years, the KGB prison in Tallin was where they tortured those who they suspected of anti-Soviet behaviour. In one of the small prison cells (there are 5, plus a ‘cupboard’ which was used to hold prisoners) there was a document that caught my interest.  Labelled ‘How to behave in interrogation’, it was a document created by a dissident Estonian, written from the perspective of a KGB officer. The instruction manual attempts to describe what a KGB officer will say to a dissent during an ‘interrogation’, thereby giving the illusion of fairness and transparency. However, as the document progresses, the tone of the language changes. Regardless of how a dissent responds, the outcome is biased; they will be found ‘guilty’.

I found myself comparing how this document is the absolute opposite of how workplace investigations should be approached. Organisational Justice theories are central to workplace investigations, especially interactional justice which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a manager and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies & Moag, 1986). Informational justice, a sub-section of interactional justice, relates to how an individual perceives the fairness of the explanations given (Colquitt 2001; Greenberg, 1993). In other words, the content of the information given to an employee is key when judging whether something is fair. Whilst a supervisor might provide an employee with a detailed description of what is going to happen, it does not mean that this is fair. 

In a workplace investigation, the start of an interview is a key stage for an investigator in ensuring organisational justice. Before the first question is asked, an interviewer will spend time providing information to the interviewee, such as the format of the interview, the taking of notes and generally outlining the process. This information not only provides reassurance to the interviewee that it will be a fair process, but it helps build a rapport between the interviewee and the interviewer.  When an interviewee feels comfortable, their ability to recall past events also increases (Vallano et al., 2015; Nahouli et al., 2021).  And of course, the introduction also acts as a form of consent, required under Data Protection law. Without consent, notes cannot be taken and the interview cannot progress.

I recognise that the principles of organisational justice would not have benefited Estonian dissents under Russian rule. However, they do apply to the current-day workplace – as investigators, commissioning managers, and line managers in general.  But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few paragraphs of advice about KGB interrogations…..

References

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986), ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds), Research on Negotiation in Organization, Vol. 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. Cropanzano, R., (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Nahouli, Z., Dando, C. J., Mackenzie, J. M., Aresti, A. (2021). ‘Rapport- building and witness memory: Actions may ‘speak’ louder than words’. PLOS ONE, 16(8), Article e0256084.

Vallano, J. P., Schreiber Compo, N. (2015). ‘Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal suspects: A theoretical and empirical review’. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21(1), pp.85–99.

To escalate or not to escalate?

In a discussion with a client this week about a case we recently completed, I found myself explaining Bartos & Wehr’s (2002) Conflict Theory as a way to explain why the behavoiur I had seen from the manager in a conflict situation was avoidable.

Bartos and Wehr’s (2002) Conflict Theory seeks to explain how the actions of one person and the reciprocal behaviour of another can influence workplace conflict or resolution. It commences with one actor taking an action, which could be percieved by the second actor as an act of hostility. If one actor wishes to escalate the conflict, the other party is unable to detach themselves from that conflict and is required to respond. They can respond by either matching that hostility (and the conflict escalates) or by acting in a conciliatory way that seeks to resolve the conflict. It is only when both sides deploy de-escalation tactics, which reduces the hostility to zero, that the conflict can be resolved. When escalation occurs, it is due to either the actor’s own interests; as an act of retaliation; or driven by the level of hostility felt by the actor.  

In the scenario with my client, we reviewed an email exchange over (what I considered to be) a trivial matter. However, due to the way it was managed, the matter escalated and it snowballed into being an issue about disrespect, failure to follow instructions, feeling unheard, the list could go on……..

The point of my discussion with the client was that the manager did not show appropriate management or leadership skills when dealing with conflict situations. But, this should not come as a surprise. Paul Latreille, Richard Saundry and others gave an excellent webinar this past week to talk through their early findings of their recent research on the competence and confidence of managers during conflict situations. One of the key take-aways from the discussion is the fact that managers are not receiving sufficient training around how to manage conflict. This is a real concern: the CIPD published research in 2021 that highlighted that conflict costs the UK £28.5 billion a year.

It could be argued that addressing this development need is an institutional responsibility, or that there needs to be a change in national policy to address the impact on productivity. In the meantime, my view is that every person has individual agency to determine how they respond to others. It’s aboout using emotional intelligence to realise that an email or a conversation might be ‘triggering’, and choosing not to match that energy, but taking a more measured approach.

To record interviews or not?

Recently I have had an on-going discussion with one of the team at Senatus about whether we should be audio-recording our interviews. This could be either by making an audio-recording on our mobiles phones,using the ‘dictate’ button on Word, or recording the MS Teams meeting (where we woudl have visuals as well as the audio).

I’ll admit, I’m old school. I’ve been taking notes at interviews and hearings since my very first job in employee relations over 25 years ago. I’d like to think that I’ve got quite good at it. I also think it’s not an easy skill to acquire – having to balance taking the notes, whilst actively listening to the interviewee.

The driver for this discussion is the persuit for an accurate, complete, set of interview notes. If we record the interview, we won’t have to worry about whether we missed an important point that the interviewee shared with us. Unless you undertake investigatory interviews frequently, you may not realise the extent that individuals do not speak in the same way as written text. People start sentences but quickly change their minds about how they want to express themselves; they might start a setence three or four times before they settle on the direction of their narrative. Individuals don’t use full stops; we carry on talking, using conjunctives such as ‘and’ and ‘but’. And in the moment, we understand a person because we also interpreting their non-verbal cues, but when you read the transcript it makes no sense at all because of the way that they presented their point. With transcripted interviews, technically, you do not need interviewees to sign-off the interview notes.

The expectation is that if you have recorded an interview, the participant is given a copy of the transcript. However, these transcripts will be full of the extraneous speech, the half-sentences, the unintelligible sentences. So, when you download the interview transcript, you have to edit it to remove any extraneous speech in order for the transcript to be meaningful. Even after you’ve undertaken this edit, these transcipts are often hard to read due to the interactions between the interviewer and interviewee. Each party might interrupt the other, finish each others’ sentence, talk over each other. As such, the transcripts do not support easy analsyis of the evidence. I’ve also learnt that some people don’t recognise their speech when you provide them with the transcript of what they have said – which throws up (unwarranted) issues of credibility on the part of the inteviewer.

With handwritten inteview notes, you will not be able to capture every word the interviewee has said, but you will automatically filter out the half sentences, or any comments that appear repetitive. We inform interviewees that it won’t be a verbatim document, so participants don’t expect us to capture every single detail. They are also informed that they can add to the interview notes when they review them. The format of the drafted notes will also be presented in a way that enables easy analysis.

From personal experience there is no ‘easy’ way to manage interview notes. Note taking can be a laborious and time consuming task. However, I subscribe to the belief that spending time drafting the interview notes after the interview enables you to get closer to the evidence, which both influences your interview prep for future interviews and helps you pull the investigation report together into a coherent and logical presentation.

Maybe this is just confirmation bias, but I recently came across an article by Rutakumwa et al. (2021) on this very subject that supports my personal view based on interviewing thousands of people over the last twenty or so years. I thought I’d share their findings. This won’t be a ‘spoiler alert’: their conclusion was that handwritten interview notes is considered to be the better approach in certain circumstances.

• Audio-recordings are considered to provide more accruate transcripts and therefore ‘better’ interviews (Green and Thorogood, 2009; Lee, 2004; Paulus et al., 2017; Tuckett, 2005).
• However, having a recording device in an interview influences the interviewee’s level of contribution (Rapley, 2004; Nordstrom, 2015). Whilst as investigators, we know that we will manage the recording in terms of confidentiality and integrity (as described to the interviewee), the interviewee may not feel the same. The interviewee may self-edit if they know that they are being recorddd and this will limit the amount of evidence they provide the investigator. Clearly, not informing the interviewee that we are recording them is unethical and would demonstrate a lack of integrity on our part if we did that.
• Furthermore Nordstrom’s (2015) research found that even the existence of a recording device will lead to some interviewees to self-edit.
• Nordstrom’s (2015) research considered the extent to which recording inteviews are normalised across different cultures, race, age, class, and politics. Whilst one interviewee might be happy to be recorded, the next will not. Or if they reluctantly agree to be recorded, they may self-edit.
• Even if an interview is being recorded, the interviewee may ask to go ‘off the record’. In those instances, the interviewer will need to make hand-written notes. And it is not always clear (to me at least), when the interviewee is happy to be ‘on the record’ again. Sometimes an ‘off the record’ comment can evolve into a 10 minute explanation, which may contain important evidence that you do want to capture as an interviewer.
• That an effective inteview arrives from an interviewee feeling comfortable talking to the interviewer about a particular topic (Oakley, 2016).
• Rutakumwa et al’s. (2021) research found that when interviewers were trained in hand-writing notes, the accuracy and quality of the notes was found to be similar to audio-recordings.

In essence, the issue of recording interviews is about trust, which in turn impacts on the overall quality of the interview. Whilst the transcript from an audio-recorded interview might be more accurate, it might lack depth in terms of evidence collated. If the inteviewee trusts the interviewer, then audio-recording might be beneficial and easier for the interviewer. But to what extent does the interviewee and the interviewer understand the level of trust between them when they meet for the first time to undertake the interview? Perhaps the safest approach is to keep to hand-written notes. This will generate a better outcome in terms of the quality and depth of evidence, which is crucial in any investigatory interview.

References

Green J and Thorogood N (2009) Qualitative Methods for Health Research. London: Sage.

Lee RM (2004) Recording technologies and the interview in sociology, 1920–2000. Sociology
38(5): 869–889.

Nordstrom SN (2015) Not so innocent anymore: making recording devices matter in qualitative
interviews. Qualitative Inquiry 21(4): 388–401.

Oakley A (2016) Interviewing women again: power, time and the gift. Sociology 50(1): 195–213.

Paulus TM, Jackson K and Davidson J (2017) Digital tools for qualitative research: disruptions and
entanglements. Qualitative Inquiry 23(10): 751–756.

Rapley T (2004) Interviews. In: Seale C, Gobo G, Gubrium JF, et al. (eds) Qualitative Research
Practice. London: Sage, 15–32.

Rutakumwa, R., Mugisha, J.O., Bernays, S., Kabunga, E., Tumwekwase, G., Mbonye, M. and Seeley, J., 2020. Conducting in-depth interviews with and without voice recorders: a comparative analysis. Qualitative Research, 20(5), pp.565-581.

Tuckett AG (2005) Part II: rigour in qualitative research: complexities and solutions. Nurse
Researcher 13(1): 29–42.

Silence

The majority of us gain our first experience as an interviewer when we’re recruiting for a position. We may or may not have interviewng training beforehand. But one of the ‘tips’ that you’ll be given is to use silence. You ask a question, allow the interviewee to answer. Instead of ploughing on to the next question you pause. You allow the silence. And yes, nobody likes silence; but you’ll find that the interviewee will most likely will break that silence by providing additional information in relation to the answer they’ve just given. That silence allows the interviewee the space to further consider their thoughts, and the opportunity to share something that will help the interviewer in determing whether they are the right person for the role.

However, how often do we use this ‘tip’, of allowing silence, in our investigatory interviews? The situation is similar. As an interviewer, you’re wanting to maximise your interviewee’s potential answers. The more evidence an interviewee provides, the closer we can get, as investigators, to understand what has occured and what has led to the workplace conflict that we’re investigating. So why do we not consciously use it as part of our methodology?

There are lots of opportunities for silence in investigatory interviews. When you’re taking notes, you will often find yourself trying to catch up when an interviewee comes to the end of their response to your most recent question. You might be worried about stopping the flow of the interview (something that was a concern of Collins, 2004). However, instead of putting pressure on yourself to keep the flow of the interview, stop. Allow the silence whilst you catch up with your notes. Name it: tell the interviewee that you’re still capturing what they just shared. This will allow the interviewee time to think further about the topic you’ve been discussing and may yield further insights.

Bengtsson and Fynbo (2018) wrote an interesting article about the power of silience in qualitative interviews and how it impacts on power dynamics. Fynbo’s (2014) previous work on power dynamics described the interviewer as ‘powerful’ and the interviewee as ‘disempowerd’. But when you introduce silence, Bengtsson and Fynbo (2018) found that that power dyanmic circulates as opposed to being fixed – akin to Foucault’s (1972) insights on power dynamics between two individuals. In this way, the silence gives power to the interviewee: at this point they are controlling the interview by deciding whether or not they wish answer the previous question more fully. But more importantly, the silence is an important part of an interview in that it allows content to be created – or in the case of investigatory interviews, more evidence to be shared (Rapley, 2001). This additional content mitigates for any potential disruption in the flow of the interview (Bengtsson and Fynbo, 2018).

References:

Bengtsson, T.T. and Fynbo, L., (2018). Analysing the significance of silence in qualitative interviewing: Questioning and shifting power relations. Qualitative Research, 18(1), pp.19-35.

Collins, R. (2004) Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Foucault, M, (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language. New York:
Pantheon Books.

Fynbo, L. (2014). Immoral, deviant, or just normal: drunk drivers’ narratives of drinking and drunk
driving. Contemporary Drug Policy, 41(Summer), pp.233–260.

Rapley, T. J. (2001). The art(fulness) of open-ended interviewing: some considerations on analysing
interviews. Qualitative Research 1(3), pp.303–323.

Investigatory interviews as therapy?

At Senatus, we take great care in how we plan and manage our investigatory interviews. There are muliple reasons for this: for example we want the interviewee to trust both the intervestigator and the investigation process becuase if an employee believes that there has been procedural fairness, they are more likely to accept the outcome, even if they don’t agree with it (Ball et al., 1994; Podsakof et al., 2006). We want interviewees to feel relaxed, as this increases their ability to recall memories (Dando et al.,  2016, Milne & Bull, 2016; Nahouil et al., 2021; Webster et al., 2021). It is not uncommon at the end of an investigatory interview for the interviewee to give us feedback on how they felt during the interview. This feedback is always welcome as we are always keen to learn what we are doing well, and what we can improve upon.

It is not uncommon for interviewees to inform us that they found the session ‘cathartic’; that they have wanted to tell their version of the story for some time and felt heard; and on some occasions, have described how they felt that they were in therapy.

I recently came across an interesting article by Pascoe Leahy (2022). The article talks about the ethics associated with undertaking interviews which might trigger trauma in the interviewees – and talks about interviews as being a therapeutic experience. This is a situation which is not uncommon in our work. We have sat in many interviews where interviewees have cried as they recounted their experiences of bullying and harassment, or when they are describing a sexual assault in the workplace. We have also witnessed those who are the alleged ‘perpetrators’ become upset as they recount their own personal trauma of the events under investigation.

In Pascoe Leahy’s (2022) article, she highlights:

• that interviews can have a positive emotional impact for the interviewee (Yow, 2018)
• that interviews can help the interviewee begin healing (Mitchell, 2019).
• that interviewees may experience a revelation (Birch and Miller, 2000) or epiphany (Abrams, 2014) after recounting their stories.

To be clear, apart from one of our investigators, we are not trained therapists. And the investigator who is a therapist is not acting as a therapist when they undertake investigatory interviews. All we do is actively listen, ask neutral but probing questions and demonstrate empathy. These are skills that therapists, (and other professionals, such as coaches) use. In this way, there are similarities between what we do and what occurs in a therapy session. However, as Pascoe Leahy (2022) points out, interviews are usually a stand alone event; therapy occurs as part of an on-going process. Investigatory interviews are therefore not therapy, but even when talking about upsetting events, investigatory inteviews can be a positive experience for the interviewee.

References

Abrams, L. (2014). Liberating the female self: epiphanies, conflict and coherence in the life stories
of post-war British women. Social History 39 pp.14–35.

Ball, G. A., Treviño, L. K., Sims, H. P. (1994). ‘Just and unjust punishment: Influences on subordinate performance’. Academy of Management Journal. Vol 37, pp299–323.

Birch, M., Miller, T. (2000). Inviting intimacy: the interview as therapeutic opportunity.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology (3) pp.189–202.

Dando, C. J., Oxburgh, G. E. (2016). ‘Empathy in the field: towards a taxonomy of empathic communication in information gathering interviews with suspected sex offenders’. European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context  8(1), pp.27-33.

Milne, R., Bull, R. (2016). Witness interviews and crime investigation. In An introduction to applied cognitive psychology (pp.187–208). Psychology Press.

Milne, R., Bull, R. (2016). Witness interviews and crime investigation. In An introduction to applied cognitive psychology (pp.187–208). Psychology Press.

Mitchell, D. (2019). Oral histories and enlightened witnessing. In: Moruzi K, Musgrove N and
Pascoe Leahy C (eds) Children’s Voices from the Past: New Historical and Interdisciplinary
Perspectives. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.211–231.

Pascoe Leahy, C., 2022. The afterlife of interviews: explicit ethics and subtle ethics in sensitive or distressing qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 22(5), pp.777-794.

Podsakoff, P. M., Bommer, W. H., Podsakoff, N.P., MacKenzie, S.B. (2006) ‘Relationships between leader reward and punishment behavior and subordinate attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors: A meta-analytic review of existing and new research’. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Vol 99, pp113-142.

Webster, W. S., Oxburgh, G. E., Dando, C. J. (2021). ‘The use and efficacy of question type and an attentive interviewing style in adult rape interviews’. Psychology, Crime & Law, 27(7), pp. 656–677.

Yow, V. R. (2015.) Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences. 3rd
edn. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Yow, V. R. (2018). What can oral historians learn from psychotherapists? Oral History 46: pp. 33–41.

Why information transparency is important

I have always believed in the improtance of clear and transparent communication. As a practitioner, I have personally found that individuals are more receptive if they feel that you are trying to be honest (and respectful) by providing them with the information that you have. I’ve seen people become less anxious when issues are explained in detail, but in a way that they can understand.

Then I came across some research from Orchard, Carnide & Smith, 2019. They have undertaken an intersesting piece of research into how the perceptions of fairness were impacted during injury-at-work claims. The outcome was that they found that poor information was provided to staff about their claim, the staff were more likely to have a perception of unfairness. Unfortunately, this also led to their mental health being impacted.       

So to ensure that your staff feel that you are being fair, do consider how you communicate with them when dealing with tricky issues. It might not be easy talking about some matters, but it’s best to be transparent.