What’s your take on this post: Employee Relations thanked me for what they believed was exonerating my N+1.
Pause on what that says about the process.
Credible investigations are run by people at least as senior as the person being investigated, for a reason: they need the standing to challenge a self-serving account. The ER investigator here sat two levels below my N+1.
Seniority alone isn’t enough, though. In a parallel case, two senior members of Legal were assigned to look into allegations that the same N+1 abused his authority to place favored candidates into director and MD roles. They seemed more focused on finding out who raised the concern than on whether the allegations were true. The result is an investigation that opened more than two years ago and still hasn’t produced any accountability.
But misleading investigators doesn’t make a problem go away. It adds to the record, and that record will matter at the hour of reckoning.
Step back and the pattern is clear: HR used as a weapon, Employee Relations and Ethics working to disprove claims, and a Legal function that falls short of independence.
An institution like that can’t stand credibly when challenged on employee safety and wellbeing, let alone culture change.
Elsewhere, leaders are demanding independent investigations when internal processes fail. Who will demand answers from Citi’s leadership? Waiting for the noise to die down isn’t the winning strategy.