Join Sarah Noll Wilson and guest Susan Arduengo for an exploration of workplace investigations. Susan shares insights from her experience, including the importance of transparency, unbiased listening, and creating a safe and supportive environment for employees.
ABOUT
Susan Arduengo is a California licensed attorney and an Association of Workplace Investigators Certificate Holder who conducts impartial, thorough, high quality workplace investigations throughout California. Susan has investigated a broad range of allegations in private and public sector workplaces including for non-profits and higher education. Susan has also conducted investigations into allegations against elected officials and sworn personnel including Firefighters’ Procedural Bill of Rights Act (FBOR) and Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (POBR) matters.
Susan is also experienced in conducting investigations in unionized workplaces. Before focusing on investigations, Susan practiced as an employment litigator and she litigated matters involving wage disputes, allegations of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and class action litigation in both state and federal courts.
A native Floridian, Susan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Florida and a J.D. from Stetson University College of Law. While in law school, Susan clerked for the United States Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida and the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida. From there, Susan began her law career in Chicago, Illinois before relocating to California.
SHOW NOTES
- Email: susan@arduengoinvestigations.com
- Website: www.arduengoinvestigations.com
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-arduengo-81092412
- Harvard’s Implicit Association Tests (IAT): implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/index.jsp
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah Noll Wilson
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of conversations on conversations where each week, we explore topic or topics to help us have more powerful conversations with ourselves and others. I am your host, Sarah Noll Wilson, and joining me today is my new friend, Susan Arduengo. We met at a conference in HR, in California, and have just stayed connected, and I’m so excited to dig into her expertise today and to introduce you to her. So let me tell you a little bit about Susan and her background, and it’ll give you a sense of what we’ll be exploring. Susan Arduengo is a California licensed attorney and an association of workplace investigators, certificate holder who conducts impartial, thorough, high quality workplace investigations throughout California, Susan has investigated a broad range of allegations in private and public sector workplaces, including for nonprofits and Higher Education. She has also conducted investigations into allegations against elected officials and sworn personnel, including the firefighters procedural Bill of Rights Act and the public safety officers, procedural Bill of Rights Act matters. Susan is also experienced in conducting investigations in unionized workplaces before focusing on investigation. Susan practiced as an employment litigator, and she litigated matters revolving wage disputes, allegations of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, a class action litigation in both state and federal courts. She’s a native Floridian. She holds a Bachelor Arts degree from the University of Florida and a JD from Stetson University, College of Law. While in law school, she clerked for the United States Attorney’s Office Middle District of Florida in the sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida. From there, she began her law career in Chicago, Illinois, before relocating to California. Welcome to the show, Susan.
Susan Arduengo
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Finally made it. We made it.
Susan Arduengo
We made it.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Susan, in addition to what our listeners heard about you, what else do you want people to know about you?
Susan Arduengo
My goodness, I mean, that was a pretty that was a very thorough intro, I guess on the personal side, I live in Long Beach, and I have a wonderful, supportive husband named Chris, and I have twin, six year olds who keep me extremely busy when I’m not when I’m not working. Yeah, I’m always working, be it, you know, family life or or my professional life.
Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s I can’t when. So when do you sleep? When do you rest? How do you rest?
Susan Arduengo
I find 10 minutes when no one’s around, and I’ll take a little 10 minute cat nap.
Sarah Noll Wilson
We were talking about naps before, she was like, I do 10 minute naps. I’m like, my body’s just like you need two hours you’re staying down. But I also have the privelege of not having kiddos to keep alive and fed. Well, I’m so excited. And you know, for those of you who are hearing her background. Obviously, we want to dig into her background. And I just want to say this, regardless if you are in a situation where you might work with somebody in Susan’s position, or maybe you would be leading an investigation at work, the reality is, is that most of us work. Most of us will know somebody who works, and so just understanding some standard protocols, some procedures. But the other thing is, a lot of the skills that you have to develop to be really effective in this role are super applicable to other situations. So and yeah, and we were having such a fascinating conversation, and then I had the privilege of watching Susan present with two other colleagues to a standing room only of HR professionals, and just asking lots of really, really great questions. So I’m curious what, what inspired the change from moving from being somebody who is actively litigating to the investigation side.
Susan Arduengo
It’s a great question, and it’s a very common career path for a lot of attorney investigators, a lot of us are former litigators. And the difference, there’s a huge difference. Obviously, I use my legal skills that I developed as a litigator, that legal mind is still there, but, but my my role now is not as an advocate. I am a neutral through and through. So when I investigate a matter, I’m not trying to find one way or another. I am trying to determine what what actually happened, but it comes from a place of neutrality, which is very different than being a litigator. Litigation, it is so adversarial, it is so it can be so nasty, even for the attorneys, let alone the actual people that are the parties in the matter. And I just, I had a hard time separating myself from that, and I took it home with me. And that process, just the constant fighting, I just, I did not want to be a part of that anymore, and I’d always done workplace investigations, and I it’s something that I truly enjoyed. And one of the things that I love so much about workplace investigations is that, you know, I get just I dive into a workplace I don’t know the individuals involved. I may not have, I might not have an opportunity to meet these folks in everyday life, and I learn about them. I learn about what they do at work, I learn about who they are, what their motivations are, and it’s fascinating to learn about people that you know I don’t know, and I might not have an opportunity to know otherwise. And it’s all about listening to people and getting to know what their concerns are, and that’s really at the heart of conducting investigation, is listening,
Sarah Noll Wilson
yeah, yeah. It’s, uh, no, I can appreciate that, that transition, and that was something that was unique about how you approach it. And that could be a California law, state law thing, because I know when I’ve been in previous employers and we’ve worked with somebody in your position, they would often make recommendations for what steps would be legal for us to take right based off of the information. And I think that’s that was really that struck me as you know, your job is to be 100% as neutral as a human can be right, and to just present the facts, and then you let the company decide what they’re going to do with it or not. One of the things that is fascinating to me, and obviously, like the whole point of this show, is about, how do we have conversations with ourselves and other people, is you are brought in, typically in a either a high stress situation or a high stakes – like, no one’s hiring you like, we want to know why we’re doing such a good job here. Can you interview although, wouldn’t that be great to be like, let me do a positive investigation. That’s the way we get to do sometimes. But knowing that you are talking to people under incredibly stressful circumstances and risky circumstances for some people, what are some of the things that you have learned over the years to do, to try to create a space that feels safe? Because you know you and I think we were talking when we were together, you can’t just declare it’s a safe space. You can’t just say it, you know. So what are some of the things that you do, or how you set it up, or how you approach it to try to make it easier for people to feel safe with you.
Susan Arduengo
So one of the things that I think really contributes to the witnesses and the parties that I speak to feeling more at ease is the ability to conduct remote interviews, right? So used to be, you know, you have an external attorney investigator walking into an office, probably wearing a suit, having their briefcase, they go to a conference room, and then people are kind of, you know, brought into the conference room. Everyone knows something’s going down, right? I don’t, I don’t normally work there, and so I think that kind of scenario can lead to some fear and in office gossip, things like that, yeah. So, so I think having the ability to have these interviews conducted more on the down low, meaning, you know, the witness can be in a conference room still, or they can be at their home, but you’re not going to see a stranger walking in there, so it’s going to lessen, sort of the the eyes on the situation. Yeah. So I think that’s that’s helpful. You know, there’s some witnesses are going to be super nervous, super emotional, and there’s not a lot that I’m going to be able to do to put them at ease. In a lot of circumstances, the process is uncertain, right? I’m asking employees to talk about potential misconduct that’s going on in their workplaces. So, you know, a lot of employees are going to have a fear of retaliation and, and that’s a that’s a that’s a real fear that they have. But one of the things that I do is I give space for them to ask questions and and that’s, that’s great, but I also am as transparent as I possibly can be about the process, so I let them know straight up. You know, this is not, this is not a confidential process. I draft – in many, many cases I draft an investigation report, and I identify the witnesses that I’ve spoken with and what they’ve told me, and I give that report to my the employers that hire me, and then I don’t I don’t have control over what happens to that report, so I can’t tell the people I speak with no one’s ever going to see it because I don’t have control over it once I turn it over.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
And there’s certainly things that can be done to a report, like rejecting names, rejecting identifying information, but I’m not going to make promises to a witness of things that I don’t control.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
So I just, I feel like transparency is really important, letting the witness or the complainant or respondent know. I should do a little I’ll give a little definition here.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. I was just going to ask that.
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, so a complainant is the person who makes the complaint. We call them the complainant or the complaining party. A witness is what it sounds like, someone who may have been a witness to the alleged misconduct, and then the respondent is the person against whom the complaint has been made. And some people call the respondent the subject of the investigation. Yeah, so that’s that’s a little background on the terminology.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, I would, and I would imagine that, you know, because, because the process is uncertain, and for probably a lot of people, possibly the first time they’ve been pulled into a situation like this. I mean, I, I in, you know, my career, I think I was pulled in once as an employee, and then I’ve had, you know, one situation where they tried to pull us in as a company, and we, we actually chose not to, because of the liability to us, right, and the retaliation potential from the the the person who the complaint was was made against. So having that clarity of, okay, so, just so you know, this is what the process is. This is what it looks like. Here’s what I’m doing with the information, and that, you know, and I and I know that you don’t necessarily do the work with a company on the back end, but that is something that is just important to state, is there is a risk in speaking up, and there is a risk of being a witness and you know, and when we’ve worked with companies where maybe they haven’t taken enough what we would see as protection measures. It’s like you can’t you literally can’t control if that person gets retaliated against or not. One of the things that I am curious to hear are, when you are in conversation with people and when you are asking the questions, what are some of the tactics or techniques that you’ve learned along the way to be able to really get as much insight as you want? And let me explain the reasoning behind this question is that so much of the work we do is helping people have different conversations, because nobody’s born knowing how to do that and and it’s so helpful to hear. Here’s some like, specific phrases I use, like, Tell me more. Say more about this. When you say x, what did you mean about that? Right? So that we can get that clarity, make sure we’re on the same page. And so I can only imagine the amount of training and practice that you have and making sure that you’re clarifying and gathering accurate information and gathering enough so I’m curious like, are there some specific techniques, some specific phrases, mindsets, even, that you try to be really intentional about in order to get the most information you can.
Susan Arduengo
Yeah. So something you just said is actually a phrase I use. If someone is they make a comment, a telling comment, but they don’t elaborate. I’ll say, tell me more about that.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
So that’s one way, a really important thing in investigations is making sure that the investigator doesn’t assume they know what the witness is telling them. And one example that I always use this example when I give presentations, but the term hooking up, right? So that means different things to different people, and so if a witness said hooking up, I would say, what does that? What does that phrase mean to you? Right? Because I don’t want to assume that I know what they’re what they’re saying. So, yeah, so that’s, that’s something that always clarifying that you understand what, how the witness is, is meaning that word or that phrase that’s really important, yeah,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, it’s a that’s such a funny, I’m smiling a little bit because that may have been some situations I was brought into.
Susan Arduengo
Well, I mean, it means different things.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
I mean, it’s and I think it’s generational, too. It might mean something different. Yeah. So
Sarah Noll Wilson
One of the things that I thought was really interesting during your presentation was especially as in, you know, and we can look at this through both lenses, as an employer and as an employee. It’s something that I’ve really taken from from that session was the power and the importance of documenting and how common it is that when an individual may be experiencing something, maybe they’re experiencing harassment, maybe they feel like they’ve been discriminated against or in a what feels like a toxic situation to them. It’s not unless, you know, you don’t necessarily think to like write things down to be able to capture it and you know. And then the flip side is, we see this, gosh, we see this all the time with managers where, you know, they go to HR ready to fire somebody, and they’ve, like, done no documentation. They haven’t had the conversations. So let’s talk about why. First, what would effective documenting look like? Because that you you spelled that out so beautifully in the presentation of different ways to document. What does that actually mean? Where might you save it? And you know, and obviously, like we all would wish that this wouldn’t have to be a practice. And we know shit happens, and we you know. And so how do we protect ourselves? So what would be effective ways, and then explain why that matters, especially if somebody finds themselves in a legal situation.
Susan Arduengo
Sure. So, so I can, we can talk about documentation, both from the employee’s perspective and the employer’s perspective. And when we talk about documentation, we’re also talking about evidence. Yeah, so in an investigation, the job of the investigator, one of the jobs, is to gather evidence, and evidence can be from witness interviews. It can also be from from documents, emails, text messages. So from the the employees point of view, if an employee feels that something is wrong in the workplace, that that maybe they could specifically identify, you know, I feel like I’m being mistreated in this way, or there are specific instances that happen, then documentation is really important for them to say, Okay, well, they can, they can create a log or a diary and say, Okay, on this date this happened, these were the exact words that were used. I think these were the witnesses that overheard it. I’m not sure, but those kinds of details can be really helpful for the investigator to follow up on to be able to corroborate that that’s, in fact, what happened. A lot of times complainants will have emails or text messages that will be helpful for me to look into, to be able to investigate their claim. It’s, you know, it’s 2024 I think we all understand, we should all understand by now, that our emails and our text messages, it’s not just between the two people on the text chain or the email chain, but a lot of people don’t get that, and you would be amazed by the things that I can see through an email or a text message. So so keeping diaries for an employee who might have a complaint, retaining emails and text messages that can be that’s that’s definitely evidence that an investigator will want to, will want to review. On the flip side, for, for an employer, you know, it’s really important if, if they’re conducting an investigation, it will, will come from the perspective of an internal investigation. So I’m an external attorney investigator, meaning I have my own law firm. I’m hired by an employer to conduct an investigation, but I’m not an employee for for the employers that I that I serve. And so there are also internal investigators that are employees of the employer, and it’s typically folks in HR that will conduct investigations. So for the internal investigators, it’s really important to have good documentation of their investigations. And it’s things like, you know who was who was interviewed. Who are the witnesses that were interviewed, what were the allegations that we investigated, and then what were the findings that we made, and why? Even more important is, why did we make those findings, being able to articulate what those findings were, and there might not always be an investigation report, but in terms of, you know, successfully documenting an investigation, those types of things, witnesses, documents reviewed, what were the allegations? What were the findings, and how did we what were the reasons why we made those findings, that’s all really important documentation for internal investigators to retain.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, are there? Are there situations where you would recommend, like, internal versus external? Because one of the things that you know, again, I’ve observed from being in HR and working with HR folks, is sometimes there’s already an existing bias against somebody. Sometimes there’s maybe the person conducting the investigation internally, there’s a risk for them right sharing the results. And then, and then, then you get really messy when, what do you do when the complaint is actually against somebody in HR, who does, you know, who does the investigation? Like, are there some parameters where you go, when it gets into this area, you really probably should go external just to remove, create as much space as possible?
Susan Arduengo
Yeah. So there’s a number of reasons why employers will want to outsource the investigation to an external investigator. Sometimes it’s as simple as there’s no one internally that has the experience to conduct the investigation, right? And you really you have to have an investigator that has that experience. So that’s that’s one reason. Another reason would be if the respondent so the person against whom the complaint has been made, if they are maybe an elected official, maybe they’re a member of the legal team or HR, or maybe, you know, an executive or a higher level person within the organization, even if an internal investigator is, in fact, unbiased and impartial and conducts the investigation in that manner, there’s the perception that they will not be and so in those situations, you know, we want to avoid that perception that will just, it’ll, it’ll taint the entire investigation, even if it was done properly. In those situations, oftentimes, you know, the the employer will outsource the investigation to an investigator, an external investigator, and then I have, you know, I am referred investigations by employers who are very experienced internal investigators, and they just simply don’t have the time or the bandwidth. It might be a pretty large investigation, and they and they need help being able to complete it in a timely manner. Timeliness is really important when it comes to investigations. And so you don’t want to have a complaint and sit on it for months on end. So in those situations you want to, you want to refer it out,
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s no that makes, that makes a ton of sense. And, you know, and that whole point of there is a very specific skill set to be able to do that. And, you know, I’m reflecting on we weren’t doing an investigation, but we were just sort of like working with the team that was struggling, and, you know, the researcher in me, so when I was doing research, back in my grad studies, right? Any, any kind of formal research you have to list and identify, what are the biases that you might bring into the study, or what you may bring into the study by naming it, being aware of it, trying to adjust for it. And I remember talking to my boss at the time, and I was like, Okay, so here’s like, three really strong bias, like biases that are biases, or however you say, that I can tell that I have, what are some of yours? And she’s like, Oh, no, no. I pride myself on not having any bias. And I was like, Okay, well, you’re human, you know, and so like, and that’s really important. I i would imagine that as many as you’ve done, you probably have to catch that sometimes, especially when you’re seeing similar cases over and over or just, right, we know human bias exists around people and their identity and their age and their, you know, color of their skin and all of that and and so I’m curious like, what does it look like for you to try to get yourself into more of that observatory place to notice and catch any potential assumptions or bias that come in.
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, so there’s a lot of bias recognition training that many investigators go through, as have I and I always, I always think about the first online bias test that I took. This was years ago. I think it was offered by Harvard, or some kind of,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Oh yeah, they have a bunch.
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, and so I took it, and this was a while back, and I took it thinking, Oh, I got this. I’m not biased. And then you take it and you’re like, Oh, my, it’s shocking. It’s shocking to see the results. And this was a, this was a, what I would consider a pretty valid test from a you know, respected institution, right? And I think it’s really important for not just investigators, but honestly, everyone should take one of those tests because it humbles you.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
It really helps you understand you are human, just like everyone else. And you might think that you’re the most progressive, you know, person, but we all have those biases as part of being a human being. So I think it’s a it’s it’s a constant learning opportunity. It’s a constant journey to improve and make sure that you’re trying out different things, to make sure that you are not not biased in your investigation skills. You know, one of the things that I do is I try to take myself out of it as much as I can, and I listen. I try not to have any perceived notions about what this person is going to be like, or what they’re going to tell me, and a lot of it is just listening and hearing their point of view and asking asking questions like, you know, how did that make you feel? Or, you know, what were your motivations for doing this or that? And just trying to get as much as I can into their thought process, and kind of taking myself out, because, you know, people’s motivations for doing or not doing certain things are not going to be the same as my own. So trying to explore more what it’s like in that person’s head, I think is helpful in terms of trying to to understand things from a different perspective.
Sarah Noll Wilson
What are situations that challenge you, where you’re like, Okay, I gotta really work on being present here. I need to right, like I would imagine, there are situations that pop up, and obviously I’m not asking you to share exact situations, but you know, if there are or maybe things that you hear from your colleagues and in this line of work of like, I would imagine if there’s something that’s really obvious, egregious and awful, like, how do you then stay open to the person who is being accused of doing this?
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, um, so I’ll kind of, I’ll address that in two parts. So, so as an attorney, I am, I am very much like linear, right? I see things step by step. I probably have OCD, definitely have ADD. But so I see things in a very linear fashion, and so it can be really difficult when you’re you’re interviewing someone, especially if it’s a complainant, and they are, they might have trauma from the experience. They might be very emotional. And they’re not going to be linear. They’re going to be telling me things. This happened five years ago. This happened last week, and it’s not going to be easy to comprehend. And so those are really challenging situations for me to be able to make sure I’m listening and I’m not going one step ahead. I’m in the moment with them, so I can get all the information that I need. So those can be very challenging. And the second part of what you said, you know, in many investigations, so I guess I should preface it by saying, so I generally interview the complainant first, and then I’ll interview witnesses, and then I’ll interview the respondent last, and then if the respondent has any witnesses that they want me to speak with. I’ll interview those after the respondent, but, but it’s true. A lot of times I will, I’ll be hearing from complainant witnesses, and there’ll be a lot of voices before I get to the respondent, and a lot of times I’m hearing some pretty egregious allegations. And so you do have to check yourself as an investigator. You don’t want to go into that interview with the respondent automatically, you know, thinking this, this is a bad person, right? That person has the right to be investigated impartially, just like anyone else does.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
Um, and so it’s a lot of it’s a lot of making sure you give the respondent the same opportunities that you’ve given everyone else, right? You give them as much time as they need to tell you what they want to tell you. You give them the opportunity to respond to all the allegations that have been made against them that you’ll be making findings on. You give the respondent the opportunity to identify witnesses, provide documentation, same as you would the complainant or anyone else.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, sure, yeah. Well, and I appreciate you taking the time also to just talk about the sequencing, because even that’s valuable, you know, and again, and that that’s something, because I love making connections to situations that aren’t the same or not severe, but even just being thoughtful about, Well, who do you, who do you reach out to first, and what kind of information do you gather? And what does that what does that order look like? Because that can be really, really, really important and and just staying grounded in the fact that everyone deserves an impartial right that I think that is the thing that I see as the biggest challenge internally. Because, yeah, again, like depending on the the relationship people have with them, right? It’s the halo horn effect, right? Like I can view you through a great lens, because I respect you and I like you, and I can also view you through a lens of like, yeah, you’re awful. And I can’t wait to do this and put the nail in the coffin. One of the things that is a pattern sometimes, and I’m just curious to kind of get your thoughts on it, is when a complaint is brought forward, and oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes it is from somebody who maybe doesn’t have as much power and authority formally, and, you know, and then the leader will say, Well, I mean, they’ve never treated, they’ve never done that to me. They’ve never treated me like that. Without taking into account the role that they have, maybe over the person. And I’m just curious to get your thoughts on that, because that, we do see that come up a fair amount.
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, that’s certainly something that, as an investigator, I take into account when I’m assessing credibility, right, is that, let’s say that it’s, you know, a junior employee feels that they’re being harassed by their supervisor. And let’s say I interview the supervisor’s peer, right? So that peer is not going to have the same experience as that junior employee, because they’re they’re not reporting to the supervisor, right? And so if that peer says, and, well, I’ve never experienced that, that can still be relevant. But you also have to understand, though, that they haven’t been in the same position as the junior employee. So, so yeah, those things are really important to understand, and, and, and whether or not that peer has had the the ability to perceive or observe the alleged conduct right, because they might not be working as closely as as the complainant and the respondent in that situation. So, you know, we get a lot of a lot of evidence, a lot of point of views, and these kinds of investigations, and you really have to drill down on, you know, credibility and assessing, you know, what evidence is reliable and what might not be as reliable?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that a client of mine actually asked about who has, you know, had to navigate a number of of formal investigations, which I will say this something that I have seen. Okay, wait, I’m going to start with another question than where I was going. Something that I have observed in a handful of organizations is that when somebody does bring a complaint forward, and they do a formal investigation with an external party, and then the decision is, you know, for whatever reason, maybe it’s like they decide to terminate somebody because of the the nature of the issues that they the way they were behaving, that it seems like within a year or two, it’s likely that there’s going to be more stuff that will bubble up, because, and I don’t know if this is true, but the story I tell myself is because people who are experiencing something similar go, Oh, they’re actually going to listen to me, so maybe it’s worth the risk. And I don’t know, like, again, that’s an assumption, a hypothesis, but it is something that I’ve seen, whereas, like, if a company doesn’t take what maybe team members feel as an appropriate action, it, it can become a form of silencing the group, whether it’s intentional or not. And just like, I’m curious to get your reaction to that,
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, I think that’s a that’s a great point. And I have that, I have seen that happen when it when it rains, it pours. You know, you’ll have, you’ll have an employee bring forth a complaint, and then there’ll be additional complainants that come forward because they feel, they feel safer they can that they have the even if they already had the opportunity to make a complaint, they feel like someone else has done it, and that makes them feel more courageous to go forward themselves
Speaker 1
Well, and the reason I bring that up is because sometimes people are like, Oh, something wrong with our culture? And I was like, no, maybe something is right with your culture. Because you’re you’re showing that you’re listening, you’re showing that you’re – now, it could be like, Why do you have so many this is a problem, but when it’s a large organization, right? Things are going to come up. But I’m like, sometimes having multiple come up quickly. I mean, one, that is telling you there’s an issue, but two, it likely for some people, could mean that they’re feeling validated or valued enough to be able to bring it forth. So I’m like, I don’t know that it’s necessarily always a a bad thing, quote, unquote, right? Because it’s helping you be –
Susan Arduengo
Right.
Sarah Noll Wilson
remedy the situation instead of not knowing about it for until there’s like an issue or a lawsuit or something like that.
Susan Arduengo
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I always, I always say that we want to encourage employees to make complaints, right? I mean, no employer wants to have a workplace rife with misconduct, but we don’t want that misconduct to go unaddressed if it exists. Yeah, so as employers, they need to be making every possible effort to encourage employees to come forward if they have complaints, because it gives the employer the opportunity to correct it and make sure that it doesn’t lead to things like attrition, litigation, loss of productivity. I mean, having these kinds of situations involving harassment, retaliation, discrimination in the workplace, work isn’t getting done if that’s also happening, right?
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right, right, right.
Susan Arduengo
And so we, we really, we need to, we need to encourage employees to come forward. For sure.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So now, now the question that started this whole conversation, what would you say to someone who made a complaint, who was experienced maybe some, I don’t know if you would call it survivor guilt or right, but they they made a complaint, the complaint was found to be truthful, action was taken to, you know, remove the person that they were experiencing harm from and and then the the person who brought the complaint forward feels really bad, right? Like, somehow, and I’m just like, what would you what would you say to that? Because sometimes I think it’s like, well, they’re not going to listen to me anyway, and at least I’ll be heard. And that there are times when it’s like, oh shoot, they like, and then sometimes you can doubt yourself, like, did I I just got this person fired, and was that worthy of it? So what, like, what would you say to people who are in a situation where it was validated, action was taken, and they’re navigating some of that guilt?
Susan Arduengo
Yeah, so I’ll tell you what a number of complainants have told me about that, about that issue. So, so sometimes when I’m interviewing a complainant, I’ll ask them, you know, what would be the ideal resolution for you? And I let them know that I don’t, I don’t resolve it, so I don’t make a determination if anyone is fired or if there’s discipline, I just do the investigation and then I’m done. But sometimes out of curiosity, I’ll ask them, you know, what would be ideal for you at the end of this investigation? And a lot of them will tell me, I don’t want this person to get fired. I just want the conduct to stop, and I want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else. And so that seems to be something that a common, a common theme that I’ve heard is that complainants want to make sure that this conduct doesn’t happen to anyone else, and that that is one of the reasons that they bring a complaint forward,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. Sure, yeah, I can see that, yeah. Just, I was like, I and, you know, the one time that I was pulled into an investigation early into my career, I remember lawyer was, the attorney who was interviewing me as I was saying the behaviors out loud in my head, I’m going, this is really messed up, right? Like, this is really, really messed up, but, you know, like, it was something because I was, I was a new employee, you know, and I was like, I just want, I just want to make a good impression. And, oh, they’re just kind of crass and, right, you know? And then it’s like someone like, multiple people. People brought complaints against them, and they’re like, have you, I understand you’ve experienced some stuff. And then, as I’m saying it out loud, I’m like, this is terrible that I’ve tolerated this kind of, you know, but we sometimes you do because the survival, because of, you know, it’s the system and all of that. And to that point, because I know we have a lot of people who are listening, who are in the HR field or in formal leadership positions, you know, one invitation, when what – because we’re, we sometimes are working with the organization right post the decision and the the impact to it is the problem wasn’t just with the person. There’s something in the culture that tolerated it, and there’s something that protected it even. And we have to get really honest with this. This wasn’t a one time situation sometimes, and this was a pattern of behavior that we said was okay, and then that needs to be interrogated too, right? So that’s that’s just my loving addition from the backside of things, of, how do we do that? What’s the impact that you hope to make in this work?
Susan Arduengo
That’s a great question. Um, I think at the at the end of the day, if the people that I’ve interviewed feel heard, and I am able to fairly make my findings, and they’re well supported, I feel like I’ve done my job.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
And every investigation, no matter How small, how large, I want to do the best job I can, to be fair and and that’s really, that’s the most important thing at the end of the day,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Susan Arduengo
on a on a professional level.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that, Susan, since it’s the first time you’re on the show, also I’m just so glad that you needed a tabletop to put your little appetizers down, and we were able to meet that night. I know so much from you, and I’m so excited. Okay, I’m getting off topic. I mean, I’ll give you your flowers once we’re done, but since you’re the first time guest, the question we ask all of our first time guests is this, and I’d love to hear from you, what was a conversation you had with yourself or someone else, outside of this, right, that was that transformed you somehow or you found transformative.
Susan Arduengo
So I don’t, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this before, but so if we have I’m going to repeat myself,
Sarah Noll Wilson
No, no one who’s listening has heard it.
Susan Arduengo
Okay? So and I, this is I, I remember this conversation. It’s a conversation I had with myself. It was probably maybe a decade ago, maybe not even that long ago, and I came to kind of a fork in my career, and I realized if I wanted to take ownership of my career, if I wanted to retain my own clients and kind of build my own path, I had to, I had to get comfortable with public speaking.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Susan Arduengo
And the backstory on that is – we did talk about it, okay.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Keep going. Yeah, I love it, though.
Susan Arduengo
So the backstory is, in high school, I have vivid memories of I was terrified to speak in a classroom of like 25 other kids, which is terrifying. You know, kids are mean, right? So I was, I was terrified I had to do like, a book report or something, and I had to present it to the class, and I would just pretend to be sick and not come to school. And I did that every time I had to present, I just couldn’t do it. And then it got to a point where, in my career, where I saw like, you know, presenting to, you know, groups of people, that kind of thing. What kind of career did I want to have that was going to be a really important part public speaking, a really important part of my career for marketing myself, and did I want to go down that path, or did I want to go down a different path? And I just had a conversation with myself where I was like, Well, what do you want your career to look like? If you, if you want, you want to have more control over your success, then you got to get over this, Susan. And I just, I started volunteering to speak different places, and it was utterly terrifying the first few times, and I felt like I would, I was gonna barf. It was awful. And then eventually you get over it, you know, eventually you realize a lot of it’s in your head. And I actually love it now. I love speaking to groups of people. I love sharing my perspective. I love helping people answer their questions. And it’s just, it’s kind of amazing. Sometimes the things that we say to ourselves can either really help us or hurt us. It’s kind of like,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah.
Susan Arduengo
What are you what are you going to tell yourself? Really? That’s that’s important.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. I mean. And you know what I love about that is having not known that about you, and getting to watch you present I would never have guessed right like or, you know, I got to see the post practice, post comfort, Susan present. And, you know, one of the things that, and I think I shared this with you, but one of the, one of the signs for me, of a presenter, speaker, expert, right, who’s coming to the table to share ideas – that is an indication of credibility, resonance and impact is the specificity of the questions people are asking. And I think that, I think that entire room of however many people were in the standing room only would have been like, Can we have another hour where we can just ask really specific questions? And I mean, there was things you’ve helped me think through, even with our organization, of, ooh, what do we need to be doing from a documentation perspective, how do we protect ourselves or our clients? You know, whether the client’s an individual or the clients a company, and what does that look like? And so, so a shameless plug for you, if anyone is listening and is interested in learning more about this topic, I highly recommend it.
Susan Arduengo
Thank you.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Susan, for people who are listening, who maybe are in California and thinking about it, or maybe they’re in HR and they’re like, I just want to, like, connect with somebody who does this work, or whatever it may be, what is the best way for people to connect with you?
Susan Arduengo
Email. So the only social media I have is LinkedIn. So that’s one way to reach me. Or my email’s on my website, arduengo investigations dot com. I am a workplace investigations nerd. I love talking about it, so I’m licensed in California, so I only conduct California investigations. But if anyone wants to talk investigations, no matter where you are, give me a call.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, highly, highly, highly recommend. I have pages of notes from your presentation, and we’ll be sure to post a link to the to your website, in your email, in the show notes, Hey, Nick, I’m gonna put another note. I also want to put a link to the Harvard bias quizzes that they have, because they’re still out there. And we can just grab them and put them. Yeah, people can test them because it’s really insightful. But Susan, thank you so much for being on the show and bringing your expertise, and it was a chance for us to explore a topic we’ve never had a chance to explore, but it was really fascinating. So thank you.
Susan Arduengo
Thank you, Sarah. I feel so lucky to have randomly met you at that conference. We were both in the right place at the right time, and it was, I love it.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. No, it was, it was a gift. And I, I’m really glad that somebody with the intentionality and the thoughtfulness is doing the work that you’re doing. So we’re lucky to have you.
Susan Arduengo
Well, thank you. Thank you, Sarah,
Sarah Noll Wilson
Our guest this week has been Susan Arduengo, and I, I always learned something from my conversations with her, and one of the things that I really loved how she said is just, you know, everyone deserves the right to make sure that their story is heard. And I think that’s just that doesn’t even go for investigations. It’s just the people in our life. As always my friends, we want to hear from you, what resonated for you, what questions came up. You can always shoot us a message at podcast at Sarah Noll Wilson dot com, where I read and respond to every email that is sent. Also, if you like the show, be sure to support us. You can do that in one of two ways. First, consider becoming a patron on patreon dot com slash conversations on conversations, where your financial support completely goes to support the team that makes the show possible. And if you haven’t already, I beg of you, no, I’m just kidding. Please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show on your preferred podcast platform that helps us increase exposure and to continue to have great conversations like the one we did today. I’d like to give a big shout out to the team that makes this show possible to our producer, Nick Wilson, our sound editor, Drew Noll to our transcriptionist, Becky Reinert, our marketing consultant, Jessica Burdg and the rest of the snowco crew. And a huge thank you to Susan Arduengo for saying yes and bringing her expertise to the show today. Well, my friends, that wraps up another episode of conversations on conversations. Remember when we can change the conversations we have with ourselves and others, we can change the world. Please be sure to rest, rehydrate, and I’ll see you again soon.
Sarah Noll Wilson is on a mission to help leaders build and rebuild teams. She aims to empower leaders to understand and honor the beautiful complexity of the humans they serve. Through her work as an Executive Coach, an in-demand Keynote Speaker, Researcher, Contributor to Harvard Business Review, and Bestselling Author of “Don’t Feed the Elephants”, Sarah helps leaders close the gap between what they intend to do and the actual impact they make. She hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations”, is certified in Co-Active Coaching and Conversational Intelligence, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is a passionate advocate for mental health.