When the corrections officer arrived at the facility entrance at 9:15 AM on a Thursday morning in early March, he did so because his supervisor had telephoned him the previous afternoon with explicit instructions. The supervisor explained that certain operational records existed only in a format the officer understood, that colleagues required his assistance to interpret scheduling data from the previous fiscal year, and that his presence at the facility was necessary despite his administrative leave status. The officer had been on leave for approximately eleven weeks at that point, suspended with full pay while an investigation into unspecified allegations proceeded without any communication regarding its progress, scope, or timeline. He understood the call to represent an authorized exception to his leave conditions, a directive from management that he was expected to follow despite the unusual circumstances. What he encountered upon arrival, however, transformed a routine compliance with workplace instructions into something far more troubling from a governance perspective. Mounted on the wall of the staff entrance area, positioned where arriving employees would inevitably see it, was a formal notice bearing his name and photograph, instructing all personnel to prevent his entry onto the premises and to contact security immediately if he attempted to access any area of the facility. The officer stood in the doorway holding the same identification badge he had used for years, having just been ordered to return by the same institution that had apparently instructed others to bar his entry. He had become, in that moment, both summoned and forbidden, authorized and prohibited, expected and unwelcome. The contradiction was not merely awkward or embarrassing. It represented a fundamental failure in organizational coordination that would carry significant implications for everything that followed in his employment relationship with the institution.
The phenomenon of contradictory instructions within an institutional investigation context reveals something essential about organizational governance that extends far beyond the immediate confusion such contradictions create for the affected individual. When an employer maintains two simultaneous and mutually exclusive positions regarding an employee's status, access rights, or expected conduct, the employer has demonstrated an absence of the coordinated management structure that sound governance requires. This is particularly significant in the corrections context, where security protocols, chain of command, and procedural consistency represent not merely administrative preferences but operational necessities that protect both staff and inmates. An institution that cannot determine whether a particular officer should be present or absent, welcomed or excluded, has failed at a level of basic organizational competence that calls into question the reliability of other institutional decisions, including the investigation process itself and any disciplinary outcomes it might produce. Alberta arbitrators and courts examining workplace disputes have consistently recognized that employers bear responsibility for maintaining coherent and consistent communications with employees, especially during periods of heightened scrutiny such as administrative investigations. When contradictions emerge, they become evidence not simply of administrative error but of potential governance failures that may infect the fairness and reliability of the entire process.
Understanding why contradictory instructions constitute such serious governance failures requires examining the foundation of the employment relationship itself and the special obligations that arise when an employer exercises its authority to investigate employee conduct. The employment relationship in Alberta, whether in the public or private sector, involves an exchange of duties and entitlements that must be exercised in good faith. The employer gains the right to direct work, establish expectations, and impose discipline where warranted, but these rights come with corresponding obligations to treat employees fairly, to communicate clearly, and to exercise disciplinary authority in a manner that can withstand scrutiny as reasonable and procedurally sound. When an employee is placed on administrative leave pending investigation, the employer has taken a significant step that affects the employee's daily life, professional identity, and psychological wellbeing. The employee's corresponding obligation is to comply with the terms of that leave, to cooperate with the investigation as reasonably required, and to refrain from conduct that might interfere with the process. What the employee cannot reasonably be expected to do is comply with two mutually exclusive instructions simultaneously. The corrections officer in this scenario could not both attend the facility as ordered and stay away from the facility as instructed by the posted notice. The impossibility of compliance was created entirely by the employer's failure to coordinate its own communications, yet the consequences of that failure would be borne entirely by the employee who had done nothing more than attempt to follow management direction.
The governance principle at stake here is one that organizational theorists and legal practitioners alike recognize as fundamental to legitimate institutional authority. For an organization to exercise power over individuals in a manner that those individuals and outside observers can accept as legitimate, the organization must demonstrate internal coherence and consistency in how that power is exercised. An organization that speaks with multiple contradictory voices undermines the basis for expecting compliance with any of those voices. If the supervisor's instruction to return was authoritative, then the posted exclusion notice was unauthorized or outdated or simply wrong. If the exclusion notice reflected current institutional policy, then the supervisor's instruction was unauthorized or mistaken or perhaps deliberately designed to create a scenario in which the officer would violate his leave conditions by appearing at a facility from which he was banned. Neither possibility reflects well on the institution's governance structures. Either the right hand genuinely did not know what the left hand was doing, suggesting failures in communication protocols and decision-making coordination, or some institutional actor was aware of the contradiction and allowed it to proceed anyway, suggesting something more troubling about the motivations underlying the investigation process. In either case, the officer was placed in an impossible position through no fault of his own, left to navigate contradictions that should never have existed in a properly governed institution.
The implications of this contradiction extend directly to the investigation itself and to any arbitration or legal proceeding that might follow the officer's eventual termination. When an arbitrator examines whether an employer had just cause for dismissal, the arbitrator considers not only the underlying conduct that formed the basis for discipline but also the fairness and reasonableness of the process through which the employer reached its decision. Evidence of contradictory instructions during an investigation is relevant to this procedural fairness analysis in several important respects. First, it suggests that the employer may not have maintained adequate control over the investigation process, which calls into question whether the information gathered during the investigation was reliable and whether the conclusions drawn from that information were sound. If the institution could not coordinate basic communications about whether an employee should be present on the premises, what confidence can an arbitrator have that the institution coordinated the gathering of evidence, the assessment of witness credibility, or the application of policy provisions to the facts as determined? Second, contradictory instructions may constitute evidence of bad faith or ulterior motive on the employer's part. An employer that creates impossible situations for an employee during an investigation may be attempting to manufacture additional grounds for discipline or may be revealing an institutional bias against the employee that predates or extends beyond the specific allegations under investigation. Third, the experience of receiving contradictory instructions from one's employer during a period of administrative leave causes real harm to the employee, including stress, confusion, and erosion of trust in the employment relationship. This harm is relevant when arbitrators consider remedies, because an employer that has caused unnecessary harm through its own disorganization may face different consequences than an employer that conducted a straightforward investigation and reached a defensible conclusion.
The investigation in this scenario ultimately extended over fourteen months, a duration that itself raises governance concerns independent of the contradictory instructions issue. While complex investigations sometimes require extended timeframes, an employer has an obligation to conduct investigations with reasonable promptness and to keep the affected employee reasonably informed about the process. The officer received no updates during those fourteen months beyond the two formal interview sessions conducted by third-party lawyers retained by the employer. At those interviews, management advised the officer that union representation and legal counsel were not recommended, advice that itself raises serious questions about whether the employer was conducting a genuinely impartial investigation or was instead seeking to maximize its advantage over an employee whose rights during the process were not clearly explained. Alberta labour relations jurisprudence has consistently affirmed that employees facing potentially career-ending disciplinary investigations have the right to representation at investigative interviews, particularly when the employer has engaged professional advocates in the form of external legal counsel to conduct those interviews. An employer that discourages representation while simultaneously employing lawyers to conduct interviews has created an imbalance that suggests the process was designed to serve employer interests rather than to determine truth and appropriate action. Combined with the contradictory instructions issue, this pattern of conduct paints a picture of an investigation that may have been procedurally compromised from multiple directions simultaneously.
The termination itself, delivered at the fourteen-month mark with union representation finally present, provided no reasons and disclosed no outcome of the investigation. The officer learned that his employment was ending for cause but was not told what cause the employer had determined. He was not informed whether the investigation had substantiated the original complaint, whether additional concerns had emerged, or what specific policy violations formed the basis for the termination decision. This absence of reasons is significant from a governance perspective because it makes meaningful review of the employer's decision essentially impossible. How can an employee assess whether to grieve a termination, or an arbitrator assess whether just cause existed, when the employer declines to specify what conduct warranted termination? The employer's promise to continue health benefits through the end of the month, subsequently broken when the benefits provider immediately terminated coverage upon notice of the employment ending, adds another layer of institutional incoherence to the overall picture. The officer was told one thing about his benefits continuation and then experienced something different when he attempted to access those benefits. Like the contradictory instructions regarding facility access, this discrepancy between promise and performance reveals an institution that either cannot coordinate its communications and commitments or chooses not to.
The principle of coherent, coordinated institutional communications that emerges from this analysis is not merely an aspirational best practice but a governance requirement that carries legal weight in employment disputes. Employers who fail to maintain such coherence expose themselves to multiple forms of legal risk. Arbitrators may find that procedural unfairness in the investigation process taints any resulting discipline, reducing or eliminating the employer's ability to sustain termination even where underlying misconduct may have occurred. Courts reviewing wrongful dismissal claims may find that contradictory communications and broken promises regarding benefits constitute evidence of bad faith that supports enhanced damages awards. Labour relations boards may find that employer conduct during investigations constitutes unfair labour practices where it interferes with employees' exercise of their representational rights. Human rights tribunals may find that chaotic and contradictory treatment of particular employees during investigations reveals patterns of differential treatment that suggest discriminatory motive. The employer's failure to achieve basic coordination in how it communicates with and about employees under investigation thus creates vulnerabilities across multiple legal frameworks simultaneously.
From a practical governance perspective, the lesson this scenario teaches is that institutions must establish and maintain clear protocols for managing investigations and for coordinating all communications with and about employees who are subject to those investigations. A single point of authority should be designated to make decisions about an employee's status during leave, including any exceptions that allow facility access for specific purposes. That authority should ensure that all relevant personnel are informed of any changes to the employee's status before those changes take effect, so that an employee arriving pursuant to authorized instructions does not encounter contradictory notices or confused colleagues who believe they are obligated to exclude someone who has been authorized to enter. All written communications to the employee should be reviewed for consistency with previous communications and with posted notices or standing instructions before being issued. Benefits commitments should be confirmed with providers before being communicated to employees, so that employees do not receive promises that cannot or will not be kept. Interview processes should be conducted in a manner that respects employee rights to representation, with clear communication of those rights at the outset rather than advice that discourages their exercise. Investigation timelines should be monitored and employees should receive periodic updates, even if those updates convey nothing more than confirmation that the investigation is ongoing and an estimated date for completion. Termination decisions should be accompanied by sufficient information about the reasons for termination to allow the employee to understand and respond to the employer's position. These protocols are not burdensome to implement, and their absence in this scenario suggests either a governance vacuum in which no one took responsibility for coordination or a culture of indifference to employee treatment that permeated the entire investigation process.
The scenario also illuminates the particular challenges that arise when third-party investigators are engaged to conduct employment investigations. While external investigators may bring independence and professional expertise that internal investigators lack, their engagement also creates additional coordination challenges that institutions must address. The external investigators may not know about posted exclusion notices or about supervisory decisions to bring employees back to the workplace for specific tasks. They may not coordinate their interview scheduling with union representatives or with the employee's own scheduling constraints. They may not understand the nuances of the institution's policies or the context in which particular conduct occurred. The retaining institution remains responsible for everything the third-party investigator does or fails to do, and remains responsible for coordinating the third-party investigator's work with internal operations and communications. Delegating investigation functions does not delegate governance responsibility. If anything, the use of third parties increases the coordination burden on the institution, because now there is one more actor whose conduct must be aligned with institutional communications and commitments. The sophistication of engaging professional legal counsel to conduct interviews is undermined entirely if the institution cannot manage basic coordination regarding whether the employee subject to investigation should be present on or absent from the premises.
The governance failure revealed in this scenario ultimately reflects something important about how institutions sometimes lose sight of their obligations to individuals when institutional self-protection becomes the dominant concern. The corrections institution in this scenario was presumably attempting to protect itself against whatever liability or reputational harm the alleged off-duty conduct might create. That protective impulse is understandable and often appropriate. But protective measures taken without regard for coherence, consistency, and fairness toward the affected employee can themselves create liability and reputational harm that exceeds whatever the original allegations might have produced. An institution that bungles an investigation through contradictory instructions, discouraged representation, fourteen-month delays, terminated benefits, and unexplained termination may find that its procedural failures overshadow whatever substantive concerns prompted the investigation in the first place. The arbitrator or court considering the matter will see an institution that could not keep its communications consistent, could not tell the truth about benefits, could not explain its termination decision, and could not determine whether the affected employee should be present or absent. That institutional portrait does not inspire confidence in the employer's version of events or in the soundness of the employer's judgment. The governance failure becomes the story, and whatever the employee may or may not have done recedes into the background of a narrative about institutional dysfunction and unfair treatment.
This analysis does not suggest that employees under investigation are always treated unfairly or that institutional investigations are inherently problematic. Most employers understand their obligations and conduct investigations in good faith, with reasonable attention to procedural fairness and employee rights. But the scenario under consideration here illustrates what happens when governance structures fail, when coordination breaks down, when institutional actors pursue their separate functions without attention to consistency and coherence. The simultaneous order to return and the notice to exclude represent, in miniature, a comprehensive failure to govern the investigation process in a manner that respects both institutional interests and employee dignity. That failure will carry consequences when the matter proceeds to arbitration, and those consequences may be far more significant than whatever the original allegations might have warranted. Institutions that wish to avoid such consequences must commit to the hard work of coordination, communication, and coherent governance throughout investigation processes, understanding that procedural failures create vulnerabilities that substantive strengths cannot overcome. The corrections officer who stood in that doorway, summoned and forbidden, authorized and prohibited, was witnessing something that the institution may not have intended to reveal but that will be difficult to explain away when the time for accountability arrives.