Ensuring procedural
fairness
WISE Workplace
investigators, educators
and grievance handlers
Principle one
• The right to be heard
Principle two
• The right to an unbiased
decision maker
Principle three
• The right to have the
decision based on
evidence
Bias can be...
• Actual
• Potential
• Perceived
Bias continued
• One biased all biased
rule
If one member of a panel
of decision makers is
biased the whole decision
is biased
Bias continued
• ‘Reasonable person test’
applies to
perceived/potential bias
Actions to take:
• Provide details of wrong doing as soon as possible to the accused in writing
• Give the accused a chance to present their side of events
Actions to take
• Collect ALL evidence as
is reasonably practical
• Remove those with bias
from the case
About the author
• Harriet
Stacey, MScPsych, BSocSc and
2013 IPPY award winning
author, has been an academic, a
police officer and an
investigator of workplace
misconduct since 1989.
www.wiseworkplace.com.au