Investigations

Simply stated, embezzlement involves a breach of trust. The nature of embezzlement can be either minor in nature (for example, a dishonest employee pocketing a few dollars from the cash register), or involve immense sums of money and sophisticated schemes.

Prior to walking in and having the conversation, many people, especially those who have certifications, can define the differences between a fact-finding question and a behavioral question–yet still sometimes during the interview, misplace these.

One of the most commonly held principles of shrinkage reduction, especially for shoplifting deterrence, is achieved by giving good customer service. This idea is...

If you're working a multi-party investigation, I would highly recommend that you use the same pool of questions for each person. You do not want multiple people to be separated during an investigation and find out that different questions were used.

Does technology-based employee monitoring reduce misconduct? Does it dampen or enhance worker productivity? What do you think?

I want to challenge you to broaden your scope when it comes to rationalizations. Think through different topics and rationalizations that you would be willing to wear in public: things like "exhaustion," or "lack of control."

It's amazing how witty we are when it's twenty seconds too late. But when we're in that room and people are uncomfortable, we need to anticipate both emphatic and explanatory denials, handle them properly, and return to rationalization.

In this week’s Wicklander-Zulawski / International Association of Interviewers interview and interrogation training tip, Brett Ward, CFI, divisional vice president for client relations and business development for WZ, kicks off a four-part series on the investigatory interview process.

Using rapport-building techniques with the subject can aid in gleaning information that can help identify and build rationalizations to be used later in the interview process. Establishing a rapport is a critical part of the interview, helping to build trust and injecting a certain level of serenity into the process.

In the last few years, it seems that more and more organizations are conducting interviews remotely, whether that means over the phone or with the use of some type of videoconferencing tool.