An employee under investigation for performance issues has secretly recorded every one-on-one with his manager for eight months. He works in a two-party consent state, where recording without disclosure is illegal. Now he wants HR to accept the recordings as proof that his manager has been setting him up to fail. Jeremy Edmonds, EVP of People and Culture at Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, chose this scenario for HR Voices because he sees versions of it more often than he did ten years ago.

Phones have made recording effortless, and that leaves HR holding evidence that may be both illegally obtained and substantively true. Using it carries risk. So does refusing it. Jeremy’s answer, after 25 years in HR, is to stop treating the situation as one problem. There are two, and the urge to move fast on either one is the real trap.

Why One Complaint Becomes Two Investigations

Jeremy’s first move is to “hit the pause button” and call his lawyer. He counts three risks before anyone opens a file: whether the recording broke the law, whether HR can use it at all, and whether storing work conversations on a personal device breaks a compliance rule. In a regulated organization, he noted, that last one could reach HIPAA.

The legal answer depends on the state. Federal law allows a recording when one party to the conversation consents. California requires the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, and a recording made in violation of that rule is not admissible in any judicial or administrative proceeding.

From there Jeremy divides the work into two “swim lanes.” Lane one is the complaint: the employee raised a valid concern, and HR is obligated to look into it, “recording or no recording.” Lane two is the employee’s own conduct, which may violate company policy, and Jeremy would bring in outside counsel so it is coached and documented in a way that protects the business. Neither lane cancels the other.

He also wants HR teams to know their resources before the call comes. An HR manager loops in a senior HR leader; a team of one needs outside counsel or a membership association that offers legal advice. Counsel, in his experience, usually names two questions to answer up front so HR is ahead of the problem instead of chasing it.

What the Recordings Cannot Tell HR

The employee says his manager is setting him up to fail. In 25 years, Jeremy has never found a manager who set out to do that on purpose. What he finds is miscommunication: unclear expectations from managers who believe they communicated clearly and lack the skills or tools to do it.

His test is one question to the manager about how they show this employee that they care about his development. A manager who cannot answer has a different problem, and Jeremy would address that one directly.

Employees often reach for words like workplace harassment or retaliation in the legal sense because that is how the experience feels. Those words have specific definitions. The EEOC, for example, treats harassment as unlawful when the conduct is severe or pervasive enough that a reasonable person would consider the workplace intimidating, hostile, or abusive. HR’s job is to translate, not to dismiss.

Jeremy calls the recordings tempting, an “easy button” that might settle the case quickly. Eight months of one-on-ones could mean 8 to 16 hours of listening. The risk also changes with the outcome, because coaching a manager is a different decision from terminating one. In a state with tight recording laws, he would tell the employee plainly that he is not comfortable using them.

What Actually Works

Ask What Changed Eight Months Ago

Something made this employee start pressing record. Jeremy asks what it was, expects a high-level answer, and keeps digging until he reaches the event underneath. His second intake question is whether the employee raised the concern with anyone before now, with whom, and if not, why.

Host Rebecca Taylor added what those answers can surface. A performance problem sometimes starts as a workplace accommodation nobody knew to ask for, or as a complaint that sat in the inbox of someone who left the HR team.

Ask What Is on the Recordings Before Listening

Jeremy would have the employee walk him through the moments he believes prove his case. That account becomes interview evidence, gathered with consent, and it may get HR to the root without touching the files.

Before that conversation he reads what already exists: the employee performance reviews and any notes from regular one-on-ones. Glowing reviews beside a performance case are a finding in themselves. Had the recording been lawful, he would weigh the hours against the claim, and an allegation tied to a legally protected class such as race, gender, or age would probably send him to the recordings.

Keep Every Investigation on One Documented Process

Jeremy tells every manager the same thing: if it is not documented, it did not happen. He wants dated, timestamped notes that record facts and leave opinion out, written as though each case will reach a courtroom. The elements of an investigation report matter most when someone outside the company reads them.

Consistency is what has held up for him. Jeremy said he has won court cases because the organization could show its tracker, its process, and its forms for every claim that came in. A general counsel also taught him to keep questions inside the scope of the case, since one loose question can open seven more investigations.

Where Employee Relations Fits

Rebecca made the point that both people are probably right inside their own narrative. The manager believes the expectations were clear; the employee believes he was targeted. That is where the employee relations function earns its place, by helping two people communicate so the dispute does not repeat.

The pattern echoes an earlier HR Voices case about a PIP that followed a complaint, where missing documentation mattered more than timing. Teams that follow the same investigation steps on every case, and keep them in one defensible case record, can show their work when it is questioned.

Frequently Asked Questions About Secret Recordings in HR Investigations

The Bottom Line for HR Leaders

Jeremy Edmonds’s framing fits in one line of advice: never let urgency create certainty. A secret recording makes a case feel enormous, and the core of it may still be a simple fix between two people who communicate badly.

HR’s job, he said, is not to decide what is right in the first 15 minutes. It is to slow down, preserve every document, and follow the process already in place, because at the center of the case are two humans doing the best they can.

See how AllVoices helps HR teams run every investigation on the same documented, defensible process.