-  The primary loyalty of individuals within any social or professional group is to themselves (the individual) first and foremost.

Plant foremen and plant managers often are caught in the middle of not knowing who to trust in a he said, she said  scenario.  It's not easy and it's not fair to them or the supervisor they are dealing with.  Who is more often believed?  Is it the hard working supervisor who focuses on getting the job done or is it the the employee who is not doing his job and has spent time developing confidence and trust with management?   Belief goes where the confidence is most prevalent.  If the bulk of confidence resides with a conman, then that is the direction where decisions are swayed.  At the end of the day it will be characterized as just another personal conflict between a supervisor and a subordinate.

My supervisory position saddled me with the responsibility to report violators over and over and over and over again and again and again.  The result was with numerous plant foremen / plant managers / plant superintendents was to be labeled as a troublemaker or for my complaints to be considered as an inability for me to "get along" with others.  After almost getting terminated over doing my job I decided to keep my mouth shut like everybody else did for the last five years of my career.  Seem to work well in so far as me getting a full pension at the end of it.  My employer suffered the consequences of my silence. They also suffered the consequences of a "denial culture".  This denial culture exists everywhere in life.

Very few people possess the industrial experience in combination with the rare aptitude for understanding the relationship between High Risk Operator's actions and future possible events, as well as speaking up, the ability of identifying and taking appropriate action on High Risk Employees.  In as much as it is part of our human nature and how we are socialized, it floors me.

It's because of these three hierarchical priorities and an absence of a specific acuity, as well as typical corporate structure that local management can be compromised to the point of repeated failure, as social conditioning typically dictates our behavior.  When a High Risk Operator continues to get away with counterproductive behavior, it is demoralizing to your employees and will continue to shape the future success and failure of your organization if left unchecked.

When you screen for and hire, those who are less likely to speak out against what your organization expects of them and to be compliant rather than be disruptive, a profile of standardized behavior emerges.  That behavior includes not speaking up and not allowing themselves to be perceived as being antisocial.  Secrets stay hidden.  Its biting industry where it hurts the most.  Of course you encourage your employees to speak up and to speak freely.  They soon learn that only applies to what you want to hear and deal with.

There are always efforts on the part of the corporation to modify the work culture in favor of safety and reporting incidents as well as inappropriate behavior.  However, the design of corporate policies/procedures to promote appropriate behavior and threats of punitive actions for failing to follow through, have proven themselves as good but, limiting motivators.  Social modifiers of human behavior dominate and were here long before procedures and policies arrived.

There is a simple way to fix this.  Let's examine parts of the issue and a possible solution.

Management's (First line and middle management) ongoing contact and exposure to employees and community members assures this hierarchy of social priority is met on a fairly consistent basis. When the police investigate the police, corruption is often assured.  Bringing in experienced, neutral third party, significantly enhances the likelihood accurate data collection and reporting will be the result.  Utilizing an external authority to bring about resolution along with accurate data, will ultimately bring about superior results.

Having an Internal Affairs division or a separate group of professionals from a distant head offices is another way to perform investigations to get to the bottom of incidents.  But for as long as local people don't come forward with all the background information chances are the LTHRO will persist and other incidents will continue to occur.

Your local management as well as rank and file have the safety of their parents, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, friends and others to consider when it comes to potential fallout from taking appropriate actions with "Long Term High Risk Operator" that live in their communities.  LTHROs will always malign them within their work group and their communities. 

Employees that take action can be subject to vengeful forms of retribution:

Personal property damage.
Having viscous roomers generated about them and those dear to them.
Being terrorized.
Being harassed.
Being exposed to acts of violence.
And, and, and...

These are the realities of life that no one needs to experience for doing the right thing for their employer.  When large corporations structure monitoring and punitive enforcement in ways that expose wage earners and local management to these risks it minimizes the process of effectively controlling the work force.


The only time local management can be more effective is when there is a dictatorial bully in control that everyone fears.  Problem with this is, when you have that dynamic you also start loosing good people you'd rather keep.  That can also be very costly.



The first part of the formula for superior results is to parachute in an undercover operator (qualified third party) who is truly impartial for accurate reporting results.  The undercover operator has limited socially connection with or live within a hundred miles of the plant site so as to limit bias in reporting integrity.  No one onsite is informed of the undercover operator's mission (This includes plant security, plant manager(s) and or plant superintendent(s) down to the janitorial staff). The undercover operator, operates under an innocuous pretense for their personal protection, to preserve the integrity of the observations and to insure no one is alerted to the fact there is an observation in progress.  The undercover operator monitors plant operator behavior.


One head office employee will be the external authority with geographic and social isolation from the work group in order to be effective.  They can view the accurate and unbiased information generated by the Undercover Operator.  With geographic separation, emotional and social drivers are far less likely to contaminate the purity of decision making.  Off site personnel sift through the information and render a high quality and final decisions.  Have corporate security personnel deliver the termination message and escort the High Risk Operator off the property.



Once observations are complete { towards the end of the contract period }:

-  The undercover operator generates a report(s) in the form of metadata stamped digital video(s), digital photo(s) and word document(s).

-  This revealing, laser targeted and infinitely definitive report is transported by the undercover operator observer to the appropriate person(s) at the head corporate offices.

-  The undercover operator will meet with those reviewing the information to answer all questions.

-  The information contained within the report will be impartially digested by select personnel with extremely limited influence from local contacts.  Might need to verify a few things locally.  Thus, high quality decisions are made by the right people in the right location with the right information NOT local management.

-  Local management will NOT determine disciplinary actions or decide on termination as it is local management that allowed this Long Term High Risk Operator to become malignant in the first place.


Polygraph verification is available for evidence validation purposes at the client's request.  Client may choose the polygraph administrator.  I do my best to eliminate the guess work and make the final decisions for your team to be fast, easy and with little or no guess work involved.

There are three categories of Operator observations available:

1. 1) Diligence to which an operator monitors their area of responsibility.  { My specialty. }
   
2. 2) Adherence to safety practices and procedures.  { More risky & time consuming. }
   
3. 3) Aggression and harassing behavior.  { Risky & more time consuming. }
   

Number one is the least expensive by virtue of how predictable people are under certain circumstances, the time it may take to build a case and how telling the videos and photos can be.
Different observation platforms may be available to suite the clients specific needs.

Whether it be one plant operator of one thousand plant operators, the undercover operator can weed out the the high risk employees to improve security, safety, public perception and profitability for your corporation.



Confidentiality on the part of both parties is an absolute necessity so the investigation may bear fruit.  Confidentiality assures the undercover operator's safety during and after the investigation.  It also preserves the opportunity for the undercover operator to provide future investigations for the same client.

Available for assignment in Canada, the USA, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and Japan.

Contact me using your LinkedIn account.  Corporate email address made available when under contract and upon request.  Thank you.

I am a certified Second Class Power Engineer with supervisory experience.  My certification and safety codes responsibilities allow me to offer this service without a PI license.  I am NOT a private investigator.