The Interview

The interview is where the organisation finds out what the person says happened. It is not where a conclusion is reached, and treating it as such produces both unfairness and bad evidence.

The human consequences described in “The Interview” make transparency and proportionality operational requirements, not optional wording. If an organisation uses more information for workforce analytics software, employees should know what is recorded, who may review it and how they can correct a misleading entry before it affects a decision.

Before

Decide what you need to establish, specifically, and prepare questions about those things.

For a separate perspective relevant to “The Interview”, consult the OWASP privacy-risk project. Use it to test the proposed threshold, investigation scope and review process rather than to substitute a generic checklist for the facts of a case.

Give the subject enough notice to arrange a companion and to think.

Tell them in advance what the meeting is about, in enough detail that they can prepare. Ambush produces panic rather than truth and it is procedurally weak in most jurisdictions.

Provide the material you will put to them, where you can. Somebody seeing a log for the first time across a table cannot usefully respond to it.

During

Open questions first: what were you working on, how does this normally work, walk me through that day.

Specific questions after, putting the evidence plainly and asking them to explain it.

Listen to the answer, including when it is inconvenient.

And allow silence. People fill it, and what they say is more useful than what they say when pressed.

What not to do

Present a conclusion and invite agreement.

Imply that cooperation affects the outcome.

Ask the same question repeatedly hoping for a different answer.

Continue when somebody is distressed, which the welfare note covers and which is both wrong and evidentially useless.

Or conduct it alone. Two people, one taking notes, always.

The companion

In most jurisdictions and most policies the subject may be accompanied. Where it is not strictly required it should be offered anyway.

A companion makes the meeting slower and the outcome considerably more defensible, and a person who feels alone in that room will say things they do not mean.

What the account is worth

An explanation offered at interview should be checked, not weighed. If they say the transfer was authorised by somebody, go and ask that person.

Treating an account as a story to be assessed rather than a claim to be verified is the commonest failure here, and it is what turns an enquiry into a judgement.

Afterwards

Notes to the subject, promptly, with an opportunity to correct them.

A pause before concluding anything. Checking what they said takes time and the conclusion should wait for it.

And a record of what was checked as a result, which is the evidence that the interview mattered.

The second interview

Frequently necessary once their account has been checked, and it should be framed as that: we looked into what you told us, here is what we found, we want to understand this part.

A single interview at the end of a process the subject knew nothing about is not an enquiry into what happened. It is a hearing dressed as one.

Putting the evidence in front of them

Somebody seeing a log for the first time across a table cannot usefully respond to it, and an answer given under that condition is worth little evidentially. Providing the material in advance slows the meeting and improves everything that comes out of it.

The second interview that should happen

Once their account has been checked. We looked into what you told us, here is what we found, help us understand this part. A single interview at the end of a process the subject knew nothing about is a hearing rather than an enquiry, whatever it is called in the policy.

Checking rather than weighing

An explanation offered at interview is a claim to be verified, not a story to be assessed. Treating it as the second is the commonest failure here and it is what turns an enquiry into a judgement.

For the file: Record every claim the subject made and, next to it, what was done to check it. A finding that contradicts an unchecked explanation will not survive.