Experience for the decisions that matter.
From HRFix through empathiHR, our practice has helped employers handle difficult employee matters. Management consulting, write-ups, termination reviews, thorough investigations, and EEOC responses give owners, HR teams, and managers experienced support and more capacity for the rest of their work.
Employee matters need attention. Your business needs it, too.
A difficult employee matter rarely stays in one meeting. It brings follow-up conversations, records to collect, decisions to document, and work that interrupts the rest of the day. Handling it carefully takes both experience and capacity.
We provide management consulting before a write-up or termination, investigate complaints thoroughly, organize the supporting documentation, and help prepare EEOC responses and position statements. Your team retains employment decisions; we bring experienced support to the work behind them.
The relationship starts with one-time onboarding and continues as your organization operates. Phone, email, and in-app reporting connect concerns to action. Proactive engagement each quarter helps surface issues and keep the program in use. We work alongside your HR team and employment counsel.
Twenty years, one methodology
The methodology takes shape
The Faragher/Ellerth Affirmative Defense, articulated by the Supreme Court in 1998, was still being interpreted by lower courts when the founding investigators of the practice empathiHR later acquired began documenting workplace harassment matters in Texas. The early engagements established the documentation discipline and neutral-investigator standard that would become the empathiHR methodology.
Multi-state expansion
California's SB 1343, New York's Labor Law §201-g, and Connecticut's Time's Up Act each transformed the compliance-training landscape. Our practice expanded to handle the multi-state complexity, mapping rosters to mandates, tracking certifications, and absorbing legislative changes as they shipped.
empathiHR launches
empathiHR launches and acquires the practice, adopting the program refined over the prior 17 years and unifying policies, training, reporting, investigations, and consulting into one documented system.
153 complaints handled for one client
In a reported 2023 engagement, empathiHR fielded 153 workplace complaints for a national technology client, with no EEOC charges reported during that year. The case study explains the work and distinguishes reported activity from modeled financial and time estimates.
Building Safer Ministries launches
The existing market for faith-based organizations was focused on child-safety prevention, leaving workplace investigations and the Affirmative Defense unaddressed for ministry contexts. We launched Building Safer Ministries as a specialized sub-brand to serve that gap: the full empathiHR Affirmative Defense Program, on the same platforms, with training built specifically for churches and ministries. Religion-based EEOC charges have more than doubled since FY2021.
An established EEOC response record
From HRFix through empathiHR, the company reports no adverse actions in the EEOC matters it has handled for clients. That experience informs our consulting, investigations, documentation, and position statements. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
Four principles, twenty years of practice
Defense is structural, not heroic
Sound decisions depend on consistent practices: clear expectations, accessible reporting, thorough investigations, and records of the response. We help maintain those practices through an ongoing working relationship.
Neutral above all
A credible investigation follows the facts. Our investigators gather relevant information, consider conflicting accounts, and document findings objectively, including findings that are uncomfortable for our clients.
Documentation is the asset
Documentation connects the concern, the facts reviewed, the findings, and the employer’s response. We organize records as the work unfolds so your team spends less time reconstructing what happened. Recording and confidentiality arrangements depend on the circumstances.
Honest about the limits
We support owners, managers, and HR teams with employee relations consulting, write-ups, termination reviews, investigations, documentation, and EEOC responses. Your organization retains employment decisions. Employment counsel provides legal advice, privileged work, and litigation representation.
Headquartered in McKinney. Working nationwide.
Our team is based in McKinney, TX, with investigators and program managers covering every state with a mandatory training mandate plus the substantial number of states without one. Most of our work is delivered remotely with on-site engagements when an investigation requires them.
Put our experience to work for your team.
Tell us where employee matters are taking your time. We will explain the consulting, investigation, and response support your team can use.