There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.
The investigation found that:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
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There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.
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Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.
Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.
I did not do any research but to me the comment you replied to made me pause and think for a bit.
If someone immediately assumes that a third party investigator is just being paid off by the firm they're investigating, how is that firm supposed to prove their "innocence" to someone like that? A second investigator could just get a paycheck aswell, so that doesn't change anything. They obviously can't just publish the relevant information for privacy reasons.
What else are they supposed to do? I think that a certain amount of mistrust is good, especially when it comes to things where money and/or reputation is on the line, but the closer you get to personal relationships the more harmful unwarranted mistrust can be. Idk why I'm writing this reply to you, its more directed at the original comment poster, but ig I'm continuing on a tangent
Obviously, it would still be stacked against the employee, but the biggest thing would be that the person under investigation could sue the law firm and hurt the law firm and their client through social media or by encouraging unionization if there was any proof of misconduct during the investigation.
Honestly, the best evidence they could provide to someone like that is suing Madison for defamation and winning. But they don't want that, I don't want that, and I'm sure you don't want that either. It would also look mega bad for LTT. Which is why I think they mentioned that they could sue in the post, but chose not to.
And it's not like some rando is going to be invested enough to pay a 3rd party to investigate LTT without a conflict of interest being there.
Everything else kinda needs to stay locked up due to employee privacy and data protection laws. So, I honestly can't see how they can "win".
I will say, LTT is a big corporation, and there is a massive power deferential between them and a single person. And given how difficult it is to stand up that, especially when you're afraid of rocking the boat and losing your job, plus how fucking annoyed I am about the Billet Labs debacle and how they responded to that. I still believe that most of what Madison said was true, or at the very least, she believes what she's saying is true
Unions, arbitrate with the employee the selection of the investigative firm, have the government labor office choose the firm, there are options. They went and unilaterally chose the guys who plaster on their webpage that their goal is to help businesses. Not a single mention of employees rights or ethics.
Their work is to make problems go away for the companies. I'm sure they are awsome at their job. But certainly I agree there's no win scenario for LTT here, and they are beyond fucked as a company anyways. Like all tech bro media companies, they have no clue what they are doing while they grow exponentially and end up hurting people, intentionally or not, but have too much power and money to ever face any consequences.
Ooh no that's a fair point. Some mistrust is definitely justified until proven differently due to the high potential in conflict of interest.
It's hard to trust a firm that is explicitly being paid by the company they're investigating. I could be convinced that they are actually a neutral third party and that their investigation was unbiased if they had a track record of finding fault with their clients a significant portion of the time. (I haven't done the research to see if that's the case.)
However, you have to ask yourself - how many companies would choose to hire a firm which has that track record? Wouldn't you pick one more likely to side with you?
The way to restore credibility is to have an actually independent third party investigation. Firm chosen by the accuser, perhaps. Or maybe something like binding arbitration. Even better, a union that can fight for the employees on somewhat even footing with the company.