Blog
August 13, 2026

Workplace investigation template: the People’s Approach as the line-items behind the form

A workplace investigation template that holds HR review as the standard step — intake through documentation in order, severance through counsel, second reviewer on protected-class framing.

The phrase workplace investigation template tends to land in buyer conversations as a search for the working set of line-items behind an HR-grade case — the named sequence HR can hand to the team running the matter and to employment counsel reviewing it, without anyone having to translate it first. The People’s Approach is the platform’s spine for that sequence — intake, fact-finding, decision, coaching, and documentation in order — and the workplace investigation template is the line-items of each step as it produces its own record. A buyer shopping for a workplace investigation template is asking for the version of the spine they can present back to leadership without re-inventing it; what they get is the People’s Approach, copied against the workspace, with HR review holding the framing at the step where HR review belongs.

What makes a workplace investigation template durable is that HR review is the standard step inside the flow, not the review that gets scheduled once the draft lands. The fact-finding output is the input to HR review — never a substitute for it — and any draft that touches protected-class framing or lands adjacent to FMLA gets a second reviewer before any employment action. Severance and release language still routes through employment counsel before sending; the platform does not send severance on the HR team’s behalf, and that posture is by design. The step-by-step walk-through for how the line-items behind the workplace investigation template map to a single case URL is captured in how the People’s Approach runs an end-to-end case — intake through documentation — with the HR-review log living in the same case file as the draft itself.

The same workplace investigation template lands differently depending on which tier a buyer sits on. The Solo HR Pro tier covers the HR director running point alone, with HR review running inline and counsel-route-severance handled as a one-off step before sending. The HR Team tier adds the second-reviewer signoff that larger ER teams require before any deliverable lands. The Enterprise tier covers multi-jurisdiction posture with org-wide visibility and audit-trail exports. The split between the three bands — seats, retention, and audit-trail exports — is described in detail on the pricing page; the case-file integrity posture — every tier inherits the same ordered record — is unchanged across bands.

A workplace investigation template only earns its keep when the legal line is plain on the page. The platform is not legal advice — drafts are starting points for HR review, severance language routes through employment counsel, protected-class framing and FMLA-adjacent context get a second reviewer before any employment action. Data isolation, retention, the HR-review log, and the audit-trail export that produces from one case URL are part of the record, not a side thread. Jurisdictions, isolation, retention, and org-wide visibility are spelled out on the buyer FAQ so HR can verify the posture in one place before opening a single intake.

Treating the workplace investigation template as the line-items of the People’s Approach means the sequence holds whether or not the buyer paces fact-finding with AI. HR review stays the step inside the flow; the regulator-flag callouts are written into the draft at the moment the draft is written; severance and release language routes through employment counsel; the protected-class and FMLA-adjacent context gets a second reviewer before any employment action. The audit trail produces from one case URL, and the HR-review log lives in the same file as the draft. That is the template, end-to-end, exactly the same way whether the case is one intake or fifteen.

Drafts are starting points for HR review. Severance and release language routes through employment counsel; protected-class framing and FMLA-adjacent context get a second reviewer before any employment action. The People’s Approach lives in the workspace — see the methodology page for the end-to-end method.

More from the blog

One note to start. More working notes on AI HR investigation, the People’s Approach, and HR review land here as we publish.