The day of the incident, John saw one of the employees crying (we'll call them Employee A) and asked them what was wrong. Another supervisor saw from the window that the employee was crying and when they left, asked John what had occurred.

Now to present:
I spoke to John. John did speak to another supervisor about Jane, but just to state that she had a confrontation with another employee (Employee A) and was a upset by it. He stated that he didn't say one way or the other who he thought was right because he wasn't there.

He stated that he was upset with Jane because she actually went to others before she came to him. Jane's side of it is that she went to John first.

He stated that he wanted to put a stop to Jane gossipping as well as other employees and he figured the way to do that was to tell her he would go to HR. He thought this would make her think twice about saying things behind his back instead of checking with him first. When he got in the meeting with me and I let him know that I would not investigate and find out WHO Jane was talking to (and was talking to her), he was ok with it.

I did let John know that especially since he is in a position of authority that others will speak about him. I let him know that I am always open to hear what he has to say and also it is important that he has open communication with his team members. I let him know that he is valued and that I know it is upsetting when someone finds out that others are talking about them.

John was worried that when his team members talk about him, that it would ruin his reputation to management. He stated that he had seen this happen in the past with a previous company. I let him know that if management was ever in a position that they felt they needed to question him about a particular incident, they would. This, however, was not an incident where that was the case and he was actually the one that brought it to our attention.

What great feedback! I am fairly new to HR and couldn't believe it when he DEMANDED an investigation about something so petty, so I wasn't sure how to proceed. My initial thought was "Darn, I'm not skilled in interrogation, although I have watched some law shows. I don't even have an interrogation room."

I would never bring something like this to HR (it reminds me of when I was a child and told my mom "he's touching me!" of my brother in the car) and just couldn't fathom what he wanted with the information. So, I'll let everyone know how it goes.

I've found in the health organisation that I work in that this scenario is quite common.

It's good advice you've given to question the Manager over what he wants out of the situation. Sometimes these are good opportunities to reinforce what the organisation's expectation is of Managers, as sadly some people seem to be unclear on this.

I often tell people that sometimes they need to model the behaviour they seek in their employees and talk about the organisation's values and how the Manager can look at embedding them in the team in a general sense.

As for The Lab Rat's comments, I agree, but how many managers actually get disciplined? Even if they do discipline the manager, the turmoil of what led up to it can rip apart the workplace and waste time and money.

The only reason I wonder is because of how direct Jane was in the approach of "ask directly, limit drama upon a negative answer," and how this contrasts with John's, "wah, teacher he's poking me." If John was crossing a line with his alleged remark — say something that could be ruled as harassment or griping about a problem in Jane's work to Jane's co-workers instead of addressing it appropriately — he could find that his little witchhunt gets him disciplined instead of the person who spread the secret.

Or maybe I spent too long writing training guides today and I've rotted my brain.