Workplace Harassment Complaint Naming Multiple Executives, A Case of Blocking Dispute Risk Through a Fair Investigation

The client operates a business in the construction industry. The dispute escalated when an employee who had worked at the head office, after resigning, filed a report with the Ministry of Employment and Labor alleging workplace harassment.

The complainant identified multiple executives, including a director, a department head, and the CEO, as perpetrators, and claimed that repeated suggestions to resign, the withholding of work-related information, public reprimands and verbal abuse, improper work instructions via messenger, and coercion to resign through disciplinary procedures all constituted workplace harassment. The report was not a single incident but a combination of multiple acts, and for each act, the statements of the parties diverged regarding the timing and circumstances of its occurrence.

In particular, because executives within the company's core decision-making structure were simultaneously named as perpetrators, it was structurally difficult to secure trust in the fairness or objectivity of the investigation results through an internal investigation alone.

For the client, it was impossible to ignore the risk that, depending on the investigation results, the matter could expand into additional investigations by administrative agencies, corrective orders, and civil or criminal disputes. There was therefore a strong need to organize the matter through an outsourced workplace harassment investigation conducted by an external expert.

The central issue in this case was whether each of the reported acts satisfied the requirements for establishing workplace harassment under the Labor Standards Act.

Specifically, the key criteria for judgment were whether the act made use of superiority in position or relationship within the workplace, whether it exceeded the necessity and scope of work, and whether it caused the employee physical or mental suffering or a substantial deterioration of the working environment.

In carrying out the outsourced workplace harassment investigation, Law Firm Insight did not merely list statements or settle for a formalistic judgment, but reflected throughout the entire investigation the analytical framework presented in the Ministry of Employment and Labor's "Manual for the Prevention of and Response to Workplace Harassment" and in related precedents. We conducted both in-person and remote interviews with the complainant, the accused, and all witnesses, and meticulously reviewed the facts, focusing on the consistency and specificity of each statement and its conformity with objective materials.

In particular, because this was a matter where the boundary between work-related reprimands or the exercise of personnel authority and workplace harassment was at issue, we did not rely solely on the level of expression of remarks or an individual's subjective emotions. Instead, we made our judgment by comprehensively considering the context in which the act occurred, the importance of the work, the size and organizational structure of the company, and the scope of responsibility of the relevant duties. We also analyzed objective evidence such as messenger conversations, bidding and accounting materials, and internal documents, thereby striving to secure both procedural fairness and substantive validity so that the investigation results would not be biased toward the assertions of any particular party.

The investigation concluded that, while it was true that several of the reported acts had the potential to cause some employees discomfort or a sense of pressure, they did not reach the level of satisfying the requirements for establishing workplace harassment under the Labor Standards Act. Each act was assessed as a reprimand or managerial act arising in the course of performing work, or as a measure within the scope of the exercise of personnel authority, and the conclusion was reached that, when considering continuity, repetitiveness, and work-related necessity together, it was difficult to conclude that workplace harassment had occurred.

As a result, the client was able to control the risk that could have expanded into disciplinary action against individual executives or legal liability at the organizational level, and secured a state in which it could provide a reasonable explanation to administrative agencies based on the investigation results.

Furthermore, this case demonstrates how important it is for corporate risk management to secure the fairness and objectivity of the investigation procedure through an outsourced workplace harassment investigation conducted by an external expert, rather than merely focusing on the result of "whether harassment was established," in a workplace harassment dispute.

Law Firm Insight's "Your Legal Team" provides practical solutions that, from the company's perspective, prevent the unnecessary spread of disputes and take into account post-investigation administrative response and organizational stability. Depending on how the investigation method and response strategy are set from the moment a workplace harassment report is received, the burden on the company can vary greatly.

This case clearly shows that responding systematically through a professional outsourced workplace harassment investigation from the early stages is the most realistic solution.