Preparing interviews and questions

1. Regulatory Concept & Core Standards

This video's topic is preparing interviews and questions. By the end, you should be able to conduct an interview focused on facts and respectful of rights. We will connect the information available, the criterion guiding the decision and the action that must be recorded. Follow the case and compare your answer with the proposed response. An internal investigation seeks to establish facts methodically while respecting the rights involved. It does not replace the authorities or grant police powers to the team. These organisational techniques are good practice and must be adapted to applicable employment, disciplinary, criminal and data protection rules.

An interview establishes what someone knows and how they know it. Begin with an appropriate explanation of the purpose, participants and confidentiality limits. Open questions invite a free account. Specific questions clarify details. Respect rights to accompaniment and other applicable safeguards. Do not promise absolute confidentiality or record automatically without assessing legal conditions.

Apply the following rule: Anonymous reports should be handled in accordance with section 16, but the HinSchG does not generally require a technical facility for anonymous submission. Check sector-specific requirements and the service actually provided before advertising it.

2. Practical Implementation & Procedure

Prepare relevant topics and documents. Avoid unnecessarily showing information that suggests answers. Ask what happened before asking why. Distinguish direct recollection, assumptions and third-party information. Record faithfully and allow clarification or correction under the procedure. Close by identifying documents or people who may help verify the account. Before moving on, turn this procedure into a sequence you could explain to a colleague. Identify the first check, the action that depends on its outcome and the record that allows the decision to be reconstructed. Follow the sequence on screen and identify the point where an error would change the result.

3. Case Study & Compliance Action

A witness says everyone knew about the change. The interviewer asks what they saw, whom they spoke to and when. It emerges that the witness heard about it from just one person. The record now reflects that indirect source. Now read the case carefully. Separate established facts from information you would still need to confirm. Do not add motives or events that have not been described. This distinction matters when choosing a response proportionate to the information available.

The exercise is as follows: How should the statement ‘everyone knew’ be handled in an interview? Choose an answer and write one sentence explaining it. During the pause, compare your choice with the criteria we have just considered. Also think about the material you would retain to explain the decision later.

As an assertion needing clarification, rather than proof of widespread knowledge. Identify its concrete basis: observations, conversations and dates. Make information verifiable without pressuring the witness to confirm a hypothesis.

One mistake to avoid is: using leading questions or treating silence and hesitation as automatic proof of guilt.

Now apply the national rule to a second decision. The form always requires a name and identity document, but the page advertises anonymity. How should this be corrected?

First apply the national regime and define what the channel actually offers. Where identity is unnecessary, do not require it for technical convenience. Where it is a condition for a particular status, explain that before submission. Correct the fields and public information together while preserving material already received.