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.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    66
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    6 months ago

    They hired an outside firm to audit them. That’s industry best practice

    As far as the payment for the outside fund, I think they would have come under even more criticism if they crowdfunded the third party investigation. And then they would still be accused of having undue influence, because they would have chosen the third party.

    In one sense they did crowdfund it, they just paid for the whole thing themselves.

      • jet@hackertalks.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        42
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        The independent outside organization to do this, is the labor board. The original complainant did not want to involve the labor board for whatever reason. And chose to air their grievances on social media.

        I don’t believe a business can invite the labor board to prove they didn’t do something they haven’t officially been accused of doing. And that’s the only organization that would be a credible third party, not paid for by the business

        So in the realm of standard business practices, they did the best they could do

        • fatalicus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          6 months ago

          for whatever reason

          The reason is probably because LTT hasn’t done anything wrong in this case, as this report shows.

        • puppy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          21
          ·
          6 months ago

          I’d like to receive criticism to what I presented instead of you resorting to ad-hominem, please.

            • jet@hackertalks.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              6 months ago

              Agreed. Plus the video only says, when companies hire third parties to audit them, there is a conflict of interest. That’s true. In the sector of financial auditing, there’s a discussion to be had about the reputation of audit firms, versus their desire to get more clients. And that’s very interesting and deep discussion.

              But the video does not present a better option. Especially when no third party is doing an investigation, or really cares about the outcome at all.

            • puppy@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              6 months ago

              Nobody wants to watch a video to participate in a text-based debate

              Why not? What’s wrong with using the most presentable, easy to digest content? If I needed to present a graph to support my claim would you rather have me describe that information in text rather than link to a picture or a video that shows that graph?

              Also, there’s no need to watch the videos in length either to get what I’m presenting either. They describe and support proof to my 2 claims,

              1. Investigator should be independent
              2. There should be no conflict of interest in where money is coming from to pay the investigator

              I presented 3 videos in a few comments but didn’t want to spam it to every reply. But here they are for your convenience.

              1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qwbq9OsHvp4
              2. https://youtu.be/CTxt96DwaFk?si=0KHoVdFElOoH0-Za
              3. https://youtu.be/C_0XEIFGK5o?si=Yc_hONVBDGcEV_t6

              If you were thinking that we were having a debate, why don’t you stick to debate rules and present a rebuttal to my claims?

              • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                6 months ago

                I had a longer comment here but it failed to post and I don’t care enough to retype it. TL;DR: Not everyone can watch videos in their current situation or at all, and videos are often long and you have to fish the person’s point out of it instead of them making their own point (making the other person put in way more effort than you did). Your summary alleviates the second point, which is appreciated. I don’t care about the underlying debate that much, but to reply, I don’t see an alternative for who would pay for the investigation, since the alleged victim did not wish to pursue it themself.