Incident triage is key to effective, efficient investigations. Learn the steps to triaging and why you shouldn’t skip it in this guide.
Amy’s Kitchen, a vegetarian food brand known for their frozen burritos and pizzas, has recently been in hot water for alleged mistreatment of their employees. One widespread issue, according to ex-employees, was the mishandling of harassment complaints. According to Eater, the former “workers outline[d] a pattern of sexually inappropriate behavior and allege that HR did not sufficiently act on complaints of harassment.”
While the cause of the mishandling is unknown, failure to triage could be the culprit. While the word “triage” might summon images of a hospital emergency room in your mind, incident triage is an essential step to handling internal issues in organizations from all industries.
Failure to triage complaints and reports gives them time to escalate. As a result, your company could face non-compliance penalties, lawsuits, and bad press. Depending on the type of issue, it endangers your employees and your organization, too.
Follow this guide to learn more about how to triage your internal incidents and why it’s important.
What is Incident Triage?
Incident triage is the step where you evaluate an incident and decide how to tackle it. You might start this stage when you receive a complaint or report, or immediately after an incident (such as a security breach or workplace injury).
Triaging is a key aspect of incident response. Without it, you could add legal trouble to an already stressful situation. For instance, if you don’t notify customers of a data breach within the timeframe set out in your local regulations, you could be hit with a fine.
Not sure how to triage effectively?
In this free white paper, compliance expert Tom Fox explains the steps you need to take for thorough, compliant investigations, including the incredibly important triage stage.
What’s the Difference Between Incident Triage and Incident Response?
While often used interchangeably, incident triage and incident response refer to two distinct—but complementary—phases in managing workplace incidents. Understanding the difference helps teams act with clarity, speed, and consistency.
Incident triage is the initial step: assessing, categorizing, and prioritizing an incident to determine its urgency and the most appropriate course of action. Think of it as asking: “What happened, how serious is it, and what do we do next?”
Incident response, on the other hand, encompasses the entire lifecycle—from detection and triage to investigation, containment, remediation, and recovery. It’s the full journey from intake to resolution and learning.
Incident Triage vs. Incident Response
Here’s a side-by-side comparison for clarity:
| Aspect | Incident Triage | Incident Response |
| Definition | A prioritization process used to assess incident severity, urgency, and next steps | The entire process of detecting, triaging, investigating, and resolving incidents |
| Timing | Occurs early in the response cycle, right after detection | Starts with preparation and continues through post-incident activities |
| Goal | Determine how and when to handle the issue | Minimize harm and ensure full resolution of the issue |
| Key Activities | Assess seriousness, assign investigators, set timeline, define audience | Includes triage + containment, investigation, resolution, and prevention planning |
| Output | A decision-making framework for how the case should proceed | A completed investigation and follow-up actions |
| Team Involved | Usually compliance, HR, legal, or internal audit teams | Can involve cross-functional teams including IT, security, PR, leadership |
Effective triage sets the tone for the entire response process—ensuring the right issues are addressed by the right people at the right time.
The 5 Key Steps in the Incident Triage Process
Step 1: Collect and Review Reports
Step one of incident triage is collecting the complaints or reports. To do this effectively, your organization needs an easy-to-use reporting system that’s checked often. Even better, use case management software that integrates with your hotline to create instant case files when reports are received so you can start triaging right away.
To streamline your triaging process, design your reporting system to be as thorough as possible. The form should include spots for the involved parties, date(s) of the incident(s), the nature of the incident, and a free-text box for details.
Step 2: Assess Severity and Impact
Next, you must analyze the incident and decide how serious it is. The higher the level of seriousness, the faster and more sensitively it should be dealt with.
Step 3: Evaluate Legal and Compliance Risks
While it’s a separate step from determining seriousness, gauging the report’s potential legal consequences helps you identify what stage the incident is in and how quickly you need to address it.
For example, say Harold reported that he is being harassed by Kim. If you don’t investigate the allegations quickly and seriously, Harold could sue your organization.
You can also include compliance considerations in this step of incident triage. For instance, say your company processes data, you must notify affected parties within 72 hours of becoming aware of a data breach. So, even if you have other investigations on the go, you’d need to move that incident to the head of the line in order to avoid regulatory fines or other repercussions.
Step 4: Assign the Right Investigator
Next, choose an investigator or team to tackle the allegations. Fox says that the seriousness of the incident, as well as its potential consequences for the involved parties and your organization, should determine whether you handle the case internally or with external help.
As an example, he explains:
“If you have something around an expense report violation, it certainly could be important, but it’s not an illegal act or even about the company situation. And so, you can deal with it quickly, efficiently, in-house, by reviewing expense reports and talking to a few people. But, if it turns out there may be . . . accounting fraud or illegal or unethical behavior, which could lead to illegal behavior, that’s something that’s very serious. You need to elevate that. It may go as high as the board of directors and you need to bring in serious investigative council.”
Step 5: Create a Clear Investigation Timeline
Finally, create a timeline for addressing the incident. This doesn’t have to be a full investigation timeline, but should include the order of next steps and rough deadlines for each one.
It might sound like the simplest step, but shifting your schedule around during incident triage takes a lot of thoughtful work. That’s why it’s essential that not just any team member completes the task.
Fox asks, “Do your employees have training to do the job?” He stresses that “whoever you appoint or handles the triage needs to have the ability to actually perform that,” as it’s a delicate part of the incident response process.
The 5 Phases of an Effective Incident Response Process
Incident triage is just one step you have to take when responding to a workplace incident. In fact, a lot of the work should occur before an issue even arises.
So, what are the phases of incident response?
Phase 1 – Preparation
Start with preparation. In this first phase, you’re getting your team ready for when incidents occur. This stage includes writing (and updating) an incident response plan, training your employees on the plan, and making sure you have the necessary resources to handle incidents of all types.
Phase 2 – Detection
Step two is detection. Detecting problems can be tough, especially if employees are afraid to come forward. Having a speak up culture and multiple robust reporting mechanisms in place will help you catch issues before they escalate.
Phase 3 – Triage and Analysis
Next up is triage and analysis. As described above, this is the stage where you study the details of the report and decide who will handle the issue, how, and when.
Phase 4 – Containment and Eradication
After that is the containment and eradication stage. The goal of this step is to minimize the impact as much as possible, which looks different for each incident type. For example, you might allow a harassment victim to work remotely so they can avoid their alleged harasser. Or, you change passwords used in your payroll system if you suspect an employee defrauded it.
Phase 5 – Post-Incident Activity
Lastly comes the post-incident activity phase. Use this time to plan preventive actions that will reduce the risk of the issue happening again. This will likely be the longest phase but also the most important.
Don't succumb to the chaos of an incident.
Having a clear plan in place helps you respond to and resolve incidents faster, without having to worry that you missed a step. Download our incident response plan template to start writing yours.
Incident Response Checklist: Key Steps for Managing Workplace Issues
Responding to an internal incident is always stressful and often chaotic. However, knowing the actions you’ll need to take ahead of time ensures the process goes smoothly.
Next time you’re faced with an issue, use this incident response checklist so you don’t miss any important steps:
- Incident triage
- Contain the risk
- Make a timeline
- Assign roles and responsibilities (can be laid out ahead of time in an incident response plan)
- Notify necessary parties
- Investigate or otherwise work toward resolution
- Complete documentation (e.g. incident log, incident report, investigation report, root cause analysis)
- Write corrective and preventive action plans
- Analyze the affects these plans have had and rework if necessary
“Triage is critical to make an initial determination of how important an issue is, how significant it is, and how quickly you need to get to your investigation, because the clock is ticking.”
-Tom Fox
Best Practices for Effective Incident Triage
Triage is where incident management begins—and small missteps here can lead to delayed responses, misallocated resources, or even legal exposure. By following best practices, your team can make confident, consistent decisions from the start.
1. Standardize Your Triage Framework
Use consistent criteria to assess severity, urgency, and potential harm. Establish clear definitions for terms like “high risk,” “code of conduct violation,” or “legal escalation” so every intake is evaluated on the same scale.
2. Define Roles in Advance
Who reviews intake reports? Who makes the call on escalation? Triage should never be slowed down by role confusion. Pre-assign responsibilities so decisions can be made quickly and accountably.
3. Create a Legal Risk Checklist
Some reports require immediate legal attention—harassment, fraud, discrimination, or safety violations, for example. A triage checklist that flags legal and regulatory risks helps ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
4. Train on Bias-Free Assessments
Unconscious bias can affect whose complaints are taken seriously and how quickly they’re acted on. Triage training should include bias-awareness modules to help reviewers stay objective and equitable.
5. Use Software to Streamline Documentation
Manual intake tracking leaves room for inconsistency and lost context. A digital platform—like Case IQ—lets teams document triage decisions, route cases, and apply standardized criteria in real time, while maintaining a defensible audit trail.
Why Incident Triage Is Critical to a Successful Investigation
Any incident could be the one that takes down your organization. That’s why incident triage is such an important step of the response process. It also ensures that every investigation is timely, compliant, and handled sensitively and correctly.
1. Triage Leads to More Efficient, Compliant Investigations
Thoughtful incident triage helps you make decisions that then lead to more efficient, effective investigations and resolutions.
A major decision in this process is choosing an investigative team. Based on the seriousness level, scope, and nature of the issue, your team could include employees from HR or legal, a forensic auditor, and/or an internal controls specialist, says Fox.
Fox also emphasizes the importance of knowing when you should bring in outside counsel, such as when you need an expert with a specific skill set or need an unbiased investigator.
Triage also helps you set a reasonable, compliant timeline. This ensures you complete the investigation as soon as possible, but not to the detriment of other issues you’re dealing with.
Finally, who needs to know about the incident besides the involved parties? While triaging, you need to determine what Fox calls the “ultimate audience,” or “the final person or persons who would review your report.” This could include:
- A regulatory body
- Senior management
- Board of directors
- Internal committee (e.g. compliance)
- Judge and/or jury
- Other employees
- Affected customers/clients (i.e. after a data breach)
Knowing your audience will help you determine how and when to deal with the incident, as well as what information to include in your triage documentation.
2. Triage Helps You Act Before Problems Escalate
If you don’t triage your internal incidents, you risk giving an issue time to escalate into an even bigger problem. That means bad news not just for the involved parties, but for your organization, too.
First, you could become the victim of an illegal act, such as fraud or theft. These schemes can go undetected for months or even years, so the minute you receive a report of suspected fraud, you need to take action.
Failing to act quickly against unethical behavior could also lead to legal trouble or reputation damage for your company.
For instance, restaurant chain Applebee’s agreed to pay $100k to settle an EEOC complaint. Why? An employee reported coworkers calling him racial and homophobic slurs but “he was told the co-workers were ‘just joking around’ and was told to ‘ignore it’. The store manager claimed to have investigated, but Applebee’s has no record of any investigation,” explains employment lawyer Janette Levey.
“Sure you can ‘just ignore it’—for now,” says Levey. But putting off dealing with problems won’t solve them. “If your company is sued, I can assure you the lawsuit will NOT go away if you ignore it,” she warns.
3. Encouraging a Speak Up Culture Enables Better Reporting
While many of the reports you have to handle during incident triage will come from your formal reporting mechanisms (e.g. hotline, webform, email), be sure to include informal reporting avenues as well.
Encourage a speak up culture where employees feel safe sharing concerns without fear of retaliation. Managers should report issues their employees raise to them (with permission) with HR or your compliance department before big incidents happen.
“The most important thing before setting up a helpline . . . is to ensure you deal with corporate historical malfeasance or issues so that you set a new foundation,” explains Shannon Walker, President of WhistleBlower Security. “Once you set a new foundation, you can start to put training, and tools, and open door policies [into effect and] then you can start to really discourage retaliation.”
An open culture with strong formal and informal reporting will help you catch issues faster and more often.
4. Document Everything to Protect Your Investigation Process
When triaging, make sure to document the decisions you make, as well as the reasons behind them. Take note of:
- Incident type and details
- Seriousness level/stage (as described above) and why
- Date you received the report
- Deadlines for next steps
- Assigned investigator(s) and why
- Compliance considerations (if applicable)
- Explanation for placement in your investigation lineup (if not placed at the back of the line)
By documenting these details, you can protect your organization if an employee challenges your process.
For instance, say you receive a report that one employee called a coworker a homophobic slur on the same day you uncovered major accounting fraud. The fraud would affect your company more, so you investigated that first. If the harassed employee feels you didn’t respond quickly enough to their complaint, you can show that you determined more people would have experienced negative consequences from the fraud, so you handled that first.
Want to learn more about incident triage?
Watch Tom Fox's entire webinar (for free!) to ensure your internal investigations go right from start to finish.
How Case IQ Streamlines the Incident Triage Process
If you’re still capturing and managing incidents and complaints with spreadsheets or an outdated system, you’re putting your organization, your employees, and your reputation at risk.
Case IQ’s powerful case management software offers multiple intake options to ensure no reports slip through the cracks.
Integrate your intake system to save time and eliminate both mistakes and duplicated effort. Upon case creation, Case IQ flags related cases and involved parties, giving you the full picture as your start your investigation.
Learn more about how Case IQ can reduce resolution time and improve your organization’s investigations here.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the meaning of triage?
The term "triage" refers to the process of evaluating an incident or complaint to determine its severity and prioritize response actions.
2. What is an example of a triage?
An example of triage is studying the details of the report (a harassment complaint, for instance) and decide who on your team will handle the issue, how, and when, and whether or not the report warrants a full investigation or can be resolved in another way.
3. What are the 5 levels of triage?
The five levels of triage typically include:
- Insignificant: incident causes near-negligible amount of damage to victim and organization
- Marginal: incident causes minor amount of damage to victim and organization
- Moderate: incident causes sizeable amount of damage to victim and organization
- Critical: incident causes a great deal of damage to victim and organization
- Catastrophic: incident causes unbearable amount of damage to victim and organization
4. How is incident triage different from incident response?
Incident triage is one step within the broader incident response process. Triage involves quickly assessing and organizing cases for investigation, while incident response includes everything from preparation and detection to resolution and follow-up.
5. During which step of the incident-handling process does triage take place?
Triage takes place during the early stages of the incident-handling process, immediately after an issue is detected or reported. It typically follows the detection phase and comes before full investigation or containment. This step involves evaluating the incident’s severity, determining urgency, assigning responsibility, and setting a timeline for resolution—ensuring that the response is both timely and effective.
6. What are some best practices for effective incident triage?
Key best practices include:
- Establishing a standardized triage process
- Documenting all decisions made
- Assigning roles ahead of time
- Setting clear response timelines
- Encouraging a speak-up culture to improve reporting
7. What is the primary reason for conducting triage?
The primary reason for conducting triage is to quickly assess the severity, urgency, and potential impact of an incident so that appropriate action can be taken without delay. Triage ensures that the most critical issues are prioritized, assigned to the right people, and handled efficiently—minimizing risk, ensuring compliance, and protecting the organization from further harm.