Illegal Recordings, Valid Complaint: How HR Investigates Without Missing the Real Issue

(with guest Jeremy Edmonds, EVP of People & Culture at Snooze) An employee under a performance investigation has been secretly recording every one-on-one with his manager for eight months, in a two-party consent state where that's illegal without disclosure. Now, he wants HR to treat the recordings as proof that his manager set him up to fail. The evidence may be both illegally obtained and true, and choosing to use it or ignore it each carries risk. Jeremy, who has spent 25 years in HR, explains why the urge to act fast is the real trap. What you'll hear in this episode: Why Jeremy splits this into two "swim lanes," the employee's complaint and the recording itself, and why you can't sweep either one under the rug How to get what's in the recordings without listening to them, by asking the employee to walk you through the moments they think prove their case Why the risk of using the recordings depends on the likely outcome: coaching a manager is a very different decision from terminating one The two intake questions that reframe the whole case: "What changed eight months ago?" and "Have you raised this with anyone before now?" Why, in 25 years, Jeremy has never seen a manager deliberately set someone up to fail, and what's usually going on instead How consistent investigation practices have won him court cases, and why "if it's not documented, it didn't happen" About Jeremy Edmonds: Jeremy Edmonds is EVP of People & Culture at Snooze, an A.M. Eatery. In 25 years in HR, he's built his approach to employee relations around separating the issues, bringing in legal early, and documenting everything as if it will end up in court. HR Voices is a podcast by AllVoices. If you're juggling investigations like this one, see how AllVoices helps HR teams keep case documentation consistent and defensible at allvoices.co.