The corona virus public health crisis had wide-ranging and lasting impacts on California’s workplaces. This session will address what we learned about responding to and investigating employee complaints in the midst of the crisis, and under the requirements of social distancing, how investigator-conducted investigations had to change. This session will consider topics such as using technology to conduct witness interviews and assessing credibility when in-person interviews are not possible.

Eli Makus is a founding partner with the law firm Ellis & Makus LLP. Eli maintains a California-wide workplace investigations practice. He conducts investigations for private and public employers alike at all levels of the organization, including claims of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, fraud and employee misconduct. A board member with the Association of Workplace Investigators, Eli regularly trains on best practices for conducting workplace investigations. Prior to starting an investigations firm, Eli was an in-house employment attorney at a large California healthcare system where he provided employment law advice, supervised and conducted workplace investigations and helped implement an internal investigations program.