In a nutshell: how to handle anonymous workplace complaints

When employees with a workplace complaint are uncomfortable associating their name with the problem, filing an anonymous complaint is sometimes the chosen route. In days of yore, many employers resisted investigating anonymous complaints for a variety of reasons, including potential workplace disruption and concerns about the consequences of a potentially defamatory and faceless witch hunt. Those days are now past.

Recommended answers to challenging problems

Anonymous complaints present challenges. Their anonymous nature can undermine the employer’s ability to comply with its duty to investigate potential wrongdoing. They can also give rise to unfocused and unnecessarily broad investigations, increase investigative costs and time, hamper morale, target innocent persons, facilitate rumoring, and cause other workplace disruptions. Indeed, there are times when an anonymous complaint’s generality can entirely impede an investigation.

Nevertheless, employers act at their peril if they lightly discard anonymous complaints. Indeed, most modern employers provide vehicles for anonymous complaints about ethical issues and whistleblowing, and they don’t discourage them in the personnel realm.

When an employer is confronted with an anonymous complaint, two key questions arise.