Templates
Findings and credibility templates
Structured credibility assessment templates and findings-of-fact worksheets using objective factors — plausibility, corroboration, consistency, motive and demeanor — with the reasoning documented.
Credibility is where investigations are won and lost, and it is the section most likely to be attacked. "I found the complainant more credible" is not a finding; it is a conclusion with the reasoning removed.
These templates apply objective factors — inherent plausibility, corroboration, internal and external consistency, motive to fabricate, and demeanor handled with appropriate caution — and require the investigator to write down which factor drove which conclusion. That written reasoning is what makes a credibility determination defensible rather than merely asserted.
3 templates in this section
Credibility Assessment Template & Example (Workplace Investigation)
A structured credibility assessment template using objective factors — plausibility, corroboration, consistency and motive — with a filled-in worked example showing the reasoning written out.
Template + worked example + .docx
Findings of Fact Template: Substantiated, Not Substantiated, Inconclusive
A findings-of-fact worksheet that ties each allegation to the evidence relied on, the standard applied, and a clear substantiated / not substantiated / inconclusive outcome.
Template + worked example + .docx
Inconclusive Investigation Outcome: Honesty Test, Next Steps, Monitoring
Inconclusive means the evidence did not permit a determination. The checks to run before you write it, what the employer can do next, and how to monitor.
Template + worked example + .docx
Not every investigation needs a credibility assessment
This is the error that runs in the opposite direction to the familiar one. A credibility assessment is for a material fact that is genuinely in dispute and that the outcome turns on. Where the parties agree on what happened and disagree only about how to characterize it, there is nothing to assess — and producing an assessment anyway means writing an adverse judgment about a person's honesty that the investigation did not need.
So identify the disputed facts first, and confine the assessment to them. One conflict may need a full analysis; another in the same matter may need none. Assessing credibility "in general", as a property of a person rather than of a specific account, is the shape most criticized determinations take.
Which factors carry weight, and which do not
Corroboration and contemporaneous records do the most work, because they exist independently of anyone's account. A message sent before any complaint was made, a calendar entry, a door log — these are the things that decide conflicts, and they are the reason it is worth asking every interviewee what they wrote down at the time and who they told.
Demeanor does the least, and should be handled with real caution. Composure under questioning varies with culture, neurotype, seniority, first language and how frightened someone is of the process; none of that tracks truthfulness. If demeanor appears in your reasoning at all, it should be as a note that you placed no weight on it.
Internal consistency is useful but easily overread. A witness whose account is identical across three tellings may be careful or may be rehearsed; a witness who corrects themselves may be unreliable or may be candid. What matters is whether the inconsistency touches something material. A detail volunteered against the speaker's own interest is usually worth more than perfect consistency on the periphery.
A finding is not a conclusion, and "inconclusive" is a real outcome
A finding of fact states what happened, on a stated standard, in terms specific enough to be acted on. "The complainant was treated unfairly" is a conclusion with the facts removed. "On 14 April the respondent said X in the presence of Y" is a finding, and it is the sort of statement a decision-maker can actually do something with.
Where the evidence does not support a finding either way, say so. An inconclusive outcome is a statement about the evidence, not a finding that nothing happened, and the two must not be written as though they were the same thing. Reporting the honest result and explaining exactly which evidence was absent is stronger than reaching for a finding the record will not carry — and far easier to defend than a finding that later has to be walked back.