Workplace Investigation Report Template
Five documents and three sheets, including a timeline where every step carries the date it was required by rather than the date it happened.
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Why the Clock Starts at Notice
The same file, on time and 63 working days late
Marloe Logistics, case ER-2026-014. Complaint form filed Thursday 6 August 2026. Ten steps, each with a working-day window set by Marloe's own policy.
| Step | Days allowed | Required by, from the form | Slip | Required by, from notice | Slip | Done |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interim measures decided | 2 | 10 Aug | -1 | 13 May | +62 | 7 Aug |
| Investigator appointed | 3 | 11 Aug | 0 | 14 May | +63 | 11 Aug |
| Preservation hold issued | 3 | 11 Aug | 0 | 14 May | +63 | 11 Aug |
| Complainant interviewed | 5 | 13 Aug | 0 | 18 May | +63 | 13 Aug |
| Respondent notified in writing | 5 | 13 Aug | -1 | 18 May | +62 | 12 Aug |
| Respondent interviewed | 10 | 20 Aug | 0 | 25 May | +63 | 20 Aug |
| Witness interviews complete | 15 | 27 Aug | -1 | 1 Jun | +62 | 26 Aug |
| Findings report delivered | 25 | 10 Sep | -4 | 15 Jun | +59 | 4 Sep |
| Outcome communicated | 30 | 17 Sep | -7 | 22 Jun | +56 | 8 Sep |
| Retention lock, file closed | 35 | 24 Sep | -10 | 29 Jun | +53 | 10 Sep |
| Against the complaint form: 0 of 10 steps late, closed in 25 working days inside a 35-day window. Against the notice date: 10 of 10 late, closed in 88. | ||||||
The notice date is Monday 11 May 2026, because the complainant raised the conduct with her shift supervisor in a 1:1 and the supervisor's own notebook records it. That is 87 calendar days and 63 working days before the form was filed. Nothing else about the file changed. One column did.
The three steps the standard is actually about
An employer is responsible for conduct between fellow employees where it knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it can show it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. That is a question about what happened first, not about how neatly the file was assembled afterwards. Interim measures +62. Investigator appointed +63. Preservation hold +63.
An investigation gets measured from the day somebody filled in a complaint form. Every deadline in the policy counts forward from that date, and the closing summary says the file took 25 working days. It is the wrong anchor. An employer is responsible for conduct between fellow employees where it knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it can show it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. The clock the standard runs on starts at knowledge rather than paperwork.
Marloe Logistics, a fictional 240-person warehouse software company, met all ten of its policy deadlines on case ER-2026-014 and passed internal review. Then the prior related records turned up a 1:1 note: the complainant had raised the conduct with her shift supervisor 63 working days before the form existed. Re-derive the same ten dates from that day and every one of them is late, by between 53 and 63 working days. Same file, same work, one column changed.
The delay did not only breach a deadline. The preservation hold went out 92 calendar days after notice, and four system records covering the alleged incidents had already auto-purged, the badge log for one date by six days. All four would have existed on the required-by date. That is why the hold is the second step here rather than a housekeeping item, and why the reporting route in the handbook is usually the corrective action that matters most.
What is in the pack
Timeline
Ten steps, each with the working days allowed, the obligation that sets them, and a required-by date on both anchors with the slip against each. Both columns stay, because a step late on one and on time on the other is a different finding from a step late on both.
Evidence Log
Numbered items, each with its source, the source's relationship to both parties, whether it is independent, the date and manner obtained, and every allegation it bears on. Ends with the records that purged before the hold and the days by which each missed.
Interview Register
One row per interview with the guide chosen by relationship, both required-by dates, and the allegations covered. Read before the findings are written, it shows an allegation covered by no independent interviewee while there is still time to find one.
Why the Clock Starts at Notice
The mechanism, in three pages. Why knowledge rather than paperwork is the trigger, what re-deriving ten dates from an earlier anchor does to a clean file, and why a retention rule cannot reach a record a system already deleted.
Investigation Plan
Written before the first interview and amended with dated lines rather than silently. Includes the section most plans skip: for each allegation, which independent corroborating sources actually exist, stated while the gap is still cheap to close.
Interview Guides
Four guides, one per relationship to the parties, because the relationship decides what a person is owed beforehand and what their evidence can carry afterwards. Includes the question that produces the notice date and the one that catches contamination.
Findings Report
Each allegation with its evidence position on the same page as its finding, and the reasoning written out in full wherever a finding moved after scoring. Separates process recommendations from conduct recommendations, which belong to the decision-maker.
Outcome Communication
Three letters and a memorandum. Each party hears only the allegations that concern them, a not-substantiated finding is explained without hedging, and the memorandum tells the decision-maker to record the delay rather than leave it to be found. Where a substantiated finding leads to a termination decision, that decision runs its own documentation and timing check before it is communicated.
How it works
- 1
Send the complaint and the prior related records
The second half is the request usually waved away and the one that matters. Earlier reports about the same person or team, exit interviews, survey free-text comments, and manager 1:1 notes from the period.
- 2
The notice date comes back first, with the gap
Whose knowledge establishes it and which document evidences it, then the gap to the complaint date in working days. That single number is the most consequential output of the first run, and it is better known now than at a hearing.
- 3
Then the hold, before anything else
Each system's retention period against the dates in question, split into already gone, at risk within weeks, and safe. The system inventory is what the hold has to reach, and an unconfirmed hold is not a hold.
- 4
Dates, plan, interviews, then scoring before findings
Every allegation gets four counts computed from the log before a single finding is written. Expect at least one finding to move, and expect one of them to be an allegation that was dismissed rather than one that was upheld. One case here is also a single data point for the manager-level pattern this respondent's team shows across every case on file.
Frequently asked questions
Why not measure the investigation from the complaint form?
Because responsibility attaches earlier. An employer is responsible for conduct between fellow employees where it knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it took immediate and appropriate corrective action. Marloe's file was 0 of 10 steps late on the form and 10 of 10 on notice.
What actually counts as notice?
A report reaching a supervisor, manager, or anyone the organisation speaks through, whether or not it was written down, escalated or believed. At Marloe it was a 1:1 note in the shift supervisor's own notebook, which is also the item that later evidenced the allegation about the escalation route.
Does establishing an earlier date not just make us look worse?
The date already exists, usually in somebody else's notebook, so the only question is who produces it. A file that records the delay and what is being done about it is defensible. One that is silent is not, and the silence is what gets examined afterwards.
Why is the preservation hold the second step rather than routine?
Because it is the only step where a day's delay is unrecoverable. Four Marloe records had auto-purged before the hold, one badge log by six days, and all four would have existed on the required-by date. Retention rules only reach records that still exist.
How long do we have to keep the file?
A personnel record must be preserved for a year from the date it was made, and once a charge of discrimination is filed, all records relevant to it until final disposition. Final disposition is not a date you can compute in advance, so the file goes on hold rather than on a schedule.
What does scoring an allegation change about the finding?
Two of Marloe's four findings moved. A1 and A3 were both written as substantiated: A1 on six independent corroborating sources, A3 on none, being four items from the complainant and one person who reports to her. Counting items instead of sources hides that completely.
What format are the downloaded files, and is it free?
Five Word documents and three CSV sheets in one zip, free and with no account. The documents open in Word, Pages and Google Docs, the sheets in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. Edit with AI installs the same pack as a private Space and derives the dates against your own policy.
Find out which date your investigation is actually measured from
Send the complaint, the prior related records, your own policy deadlines in working days, and the systems that might hold something. What comes back first is the notice date with the document behind it, the gap to the complaint date, and the list of records about to expire.
Edit with AI