When the Accused Outranks the Investigator
Sexual harassment complaints against senior leaders put HR in an uncomfortable position: investigating someone who holds more power than you do.
Support for HR directors and business owners in Hertfordshire, London and across the UK handling sensitive workplace investigations.
The dynamics are different
Normal reporting lines don't work when the person under investigation sits above you in the org chart:
Timelines often stretch out, and momentum stalls.
Colleagues may downplay what happened, calling it a "misunderstanding".
The investigator's own role can start to feel precarious.
The law doesn't make an exception for seniority
None of that changes the legal position. From October, the duty to prevent sexual harassment tightens to require "all reasonable steps", and employers become directly liable for harassment carried out by third parties for the first time. Seniority isn't a carve-out anywhere in that framework.
Building resilience before a case lands
A few things worth putting in place now, before you need them:
Pre-agreed protocols. Decide in advance who leads an investigation into a senior leader or owner - a named non-executive director, an external investigator, or a retained HR consultant. Make that call before politics and emotion are in the room.
Escalation routes that don't run through the accused. If the only way to escalate a concern passes through the person being investigated (or their direct reports), it isn't a real escalation route. Map an alternative, document it, and make sure the people who might need it know where to find it.
External independence. Bringing in an independent investigator removes the conflict of interest outright - it protects the HR director from an impossible position, and it gives the complainant confidence that the outcome will be fair.
If your organisation doesn't yet have a clear plan for handling a complaint against someone senior, that's worth fixing now rather than mid-investigation. Progressive HR Solutions can act as an independent investigator for sensitive cases, or help you build the protocol in advance - get in touch to talk it through.
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