Here’s the entire thing if you don’t want to go to that link:
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:
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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.
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.
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.
One big question I’m wondering is if that company they hired to investigate themselves ever finds a company they’ve been hired to investigate (by that company) is in the wrong or if they are basically a PR company disguised as an investigation company.
It sucks that LTT is in this position because I acknowledge that it looks the same whether or not they are innocent, but it’s so hard to trust that these things are done in good faith when it’s likely more profitable to do it in bad faith.
LTT sold someone else’s property (prototype even, after failing to review it correctly). I doubt they are innocent.
Yeah, the way they handled that was IMO criminally negligent, assuming it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to sabotage that company. But it doesn’t imply anything about the sexual harassment issue.
Though their initial handling of that situation going viral is exactly why I’m skeptical about the integrity of this investigation. Each step Linus took just screamed: “we’ll just say what we think we need to say to make this problem go away” plus a dose of “I’ll apologize but also I still think I was right”. But he also saw just how badly all of that went. So it would be in character for the investigation to be just another version of this, but it would also make sense for him to have realized that a fake investigation would make things worse and that his only real way out was to let go of his fate and leave it to a legitimate investigation.
But both of those cases look the same from here so idk.
I know a lawyer at Roper-Greyell. The firm specializes in defending/protecting companies around employment law. They probably also consult on best practices for companies to avoid suits.
They are a law firm, but they are LMG’s law firm. Note that we’re reading what LMG wants to share about the report, not the report itself.
It’s a legal strategy to say, “Investigators didn’t find anything seriously wrong, and we’re considering suing you for defamation”
A lot of the other replies to your comment read between the lines in some insightful ways. I would just like to also add that “claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated” means that the investigation didn’t find evidence. Not that the bullying/ harassment didn’t occur. It is kind of meaningless without knowing what information was looked at. What sorts of substantiation could reasonably be expected from the investigation?
It’s possible that the person making allegations has evidence that the investigators didn’t.
Yeah, the language used and things said don’t inspire much confidence. Especially the defamation part. Are they being kind by dropping the matter? Are they pretending to be strong when they know they don’t have a defamation case? Or did they include that to silence her?
Though if it’s either of the two last cases, all she has to do is double down on her position and she wins because the only move to beat that is to actually file the defamation case (and win it or settle to turn it into an expensive draw). And a suit would come with discovery.
You know who else is bullying the competition? Our sponsor!
(shamelessly stolen)
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
The only way to read this, assuming the lawyers wrote the statement, is that sexual harassment did happen but was “addressed”. Otherwise they’d just say the claims of sexual harassment were unsubstantiated.
I’d like to know more about how those claims were addressed before making final judgement.
I’m astounded the investigator they hired found them innocent.
Assuming you aren’t trolling; LMG:
- Hired a professional HR firm
- Gave them access to their internal records and communications
- Gave them free reign to talk to whoever they need
- Tasked them to work out what happened, and provide them with instructions to improve their processes
If that isn’t the right thing to do, then what is?
They said at the time “We are committed to publishing the findings”. This has not happened yet as far as I know, and it’s critical. Accusations were specific, the investigation findings can’t be vague.
Those are the findings of the report - what kind of specifics were you expecting?
Cool. Release the report.