A confidential investigation into financial misconduct by a division VP is under way when the VP starts behaving like someone who has been warned. Emails are disappearing, direct reports are being coached on what to say, and the tip appears to have come from inside HR or legal. That same day, the VP’s attorney sends a preservation letter. On HR Voices, Rebecca Taylor walked through the scenario with Paul D. Brubaker, VP of HR for North America at KARL STORZ.
HR now owes the company two inquiries at once, and the first cannot pause for the second. Rebecca called it “the calls coming from inside the house.” Paul, who said he has never faced this exact case, answered with a sequence: secure the evidence, decide who is clean enough to ask the questions, and conclude nothing until the process has run.
Why the First Assumption Is the One to Fight
Asked which assumptions he was fighting, Paul named the first at once: the executive is “guilty as heck.” Every signal points that way. He called it the one an investigator has to guard against.
The facts are stranger than they look. Paul found it “odd and interesting” that the VP already had an attorney, and that the attorney’s letter demands preservation while the VP is said to be purging. A witness who was told the matter was confidential could also have called friends about it.
Rebecca added two checks: who in HR had access to the file at all, and whether the VP has a personal relationship outside work with someone in HR or legal. A personal tie is a conflict of interest to examine, not proof of a leak.
Sometimes nothing can be proven, Paul admitted, and the investigation team “does have to come to a conclusion” anyway, whether that means an employee write-up, coaching, or something else.
What Zero Gray Means When the Facts Are In
Open-mindedness ends where proof begins. If the investigation establishes that the VP did it, Paul’s answer is termination, with no compromise. “Trust is critical,” he said, and financial malfeasance by a leader belongs with the gross misconduct cases that end employment.
The same rule covers whoever leaked. If an HR investigator or a lawyer warned the executive and it can be proven, that person is gone as well. When Paul built his HR team, he called it “a special post in our company,” with one condition: “if I cannot trust you, you cannot be on my team.”
Rebecca explained why the bar sits higher for HR: one leaker is “making the rest of us look bad.” Paul’s version is that HR succeeds by being “the first to hear rather than the last to hear” of an issue.
The VP may also be “the anointed one” in the CEO’s eyes, so HR has to bring the facts and “be ready to sell that.” Paul’s line on it is short: “it does take courage to just speak up, but you have to.”
What Actually Works
Start With the Legal Hold
Before anyone is interviewed, Paul wants a notice out, issued with legal’s help, placing a legal hold on anything relevant. The VP’s attorney, he noted, is asking for nothing in-house counsel would not demand.
The stakes are procedural. Rule 37(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure covers electronically stored information that should have been preserved in anticipation of litigation. A court that finds a party intended to deprive the other side of it may presume the lost information was unfavorable to that party.
Pair Investigators Nobody Has Reason to Doubt
For Paul, “the who is the biggest question on the front end.” He would have other in-house expertise run the investigation separately, to “remove anyone who might have tainted the situation.”
On his team, one employee relations person takes the big investigations, and HR business partners handle the rest. If that person is in doubt, Paul might pair two HRBPs “so they can share their own knowledge.” An outside attorney is the fallback he dislikes: “I hate to do that. It costs money, it takes time.”
Prosecutors ask about the same choice. The Department of Justice’s guidance for evaluating corporate compliance programs asks how a company determines who should conduct an investigation, and how it keeps investigations independent, objective, and properly documented.
Ask Every Witness the Same Questions
Paul’s instruction is to approach the case methodically, with questions decided for witnesses, the complainant, and the executive. His team’s tools supply “a template set of questions,” and investigators add their own.
The point is the record. HR can show that each person was asked the same set, and the notes let investigators “start to piece things together.” Teams without a template can begin from HR investigation questions grouped by party.
His closing advice was to make sure the process can be audited, which is the practical case for consistent, defensible workplace investigations.
Where Employee Relations Fits
A leak from inside HR damages the employee relations function long after the case. Once people learn an HR person leaked, Rebecca said, the whole team’s trustworthiness is in question, and broken trust is “what still exists after this case closes.”
Paul wants the function to prove its worth with evidence. “There is nothing better than having data,” he said, and his team reviews dashboard data and service level agreements, the HR metrics and KPIs that show how HR is performing.
Near the end, the conversation moved to Paul’s medical device company, where one engineer calmed colleagues upset by change with two questions: whether they believe in the purpose, and whether they like the people they work with. Both answers were yes.
Gallup reports that employees’ connection to company mission fell from 38 percent in March 2021 to a record low of 30 percent in February 2024, a slide it ties to constant change and uncertainty. By Paul’s account, his company held on to it through years of organizational change.
Frequently Asked Questions About an Investigation Leak Inside HR
Put a legal hold in place. Paul’s first move is a notice, issued with legal’s help, telling people not to delete anything relevant. Only then would he decide who runs each investigation.
Someone who has not touched the original case. Paul would look in-house first, pairing two HR business partners if needed, and keep an outside attorney as the fallback.
Not in this scenario. The misconduct inquiry cannot stop, and Paul argues that financial malfeasance on a leadership team has to be addressed quickly. Both inquiries run at once, handled separately.
No. Paul found the early attorney odd, but he treats the assumption of guilt as the first thing to guard against. More than one person could be behind the leak.
For Paul, termination, provided the leak can be proven. He sees no gray in it, because HR runs on trust, and lawyers and senior leaders meet the same standard.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Paul D. Brubaker’s framing for a dual investigation is deliberately plain: “step back and take a deep breath,” assume nothing about who is guilty, and “go through the process with both in mind.” The process is the same, he said, whether the subject is “the top person or bottom person.”
His line about change fits this case too: “you can get through a lot of things when you have a clear purpose.”
See how AllVoices helps HR teams keep every investigation consistent and defensible, including one into their own function.
