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:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Yeah, nor does the country crowd source the money for the investigation, so I'm starting to see a pattern in your answers.
Have a good weekend.
But they do. IMF pools its money from its member countries, hence crowd sourcing. The country being investigated doesn't pay them.
What pattern is that?
A good weekend for you too.
So you are saying the countries inviting the IMF can be among those countries that pay the IMF?
So that would be a conflict of interest?
There won't be a conflict of interest because everyone is paying. So it's not in the best interest of the other member countries if a corrupt country is getting a favourable report. Because their member fees are being wasted. So there's checks and balances inherently built into the system.
So in a hypothetical similar scenario this report requested by LMG is funded by GN, Hardware Unboxed, The Verge and all the other YouTubers including the LMG. So there's incentive to find faults in LMG within the group funding the report.
If the IMF was investigating Linus tech tips, this would be a good example
However if a country is not borrowing money from the IMF, and they want to prove or disprove they did something, and no third party is investigating, that country would have to hire somebody to do the investigation for them.
Right now, no third party organization, the labor board, or a criminal prosecutor, is investigating Linus tech tips. So there is no third party to invite in to do the investigation of the social media post.
That means if the company wants to disprove the accusations, it has to do an audit itself. It can conduct an internal audit, or an external audit. Linus text tips chose to do an external audit, using a reputable third party. Admittedly they did pay that third party, but that is how they incentivize them to actually do the audit. This third party is supposed to be above reproach, because this is the thing they do over and over again.
However, it is reasonable to say this is unsatisfactory, and you should encourage the Canadian labor board to do an investigation instead