For HR. The interview will be read back to you one day.
Grievance and disciplinary interviews, investigation meetings, exit conversations. Records about named employees, who have the right to ask what you hold, and which may end up in front of a tribunal with your notes attached.
Use it forGrievance and disciplinary interviews, investigation meetings, works council meetings, exit interviews.
The argumentOne copy, on one device, inside your own retention schedule. That is the only shape that lets you answer a subject access request honestly.
Not forCovert recording, ever. Nor anything that needs chain of custody or a case file two people can open.
All of these assume you have told everyone present that a recording is being made, because doing it any other way is both wrong and usually unlawful.
01Grievance and disciplinary interviews
The meeting whose notes will be quoted back at you. Taking accurate notes while also chairing the meeting is a two person job done by one person, and the notes suffer for it.
A transcript means you can chair properly and produce a better record than the one you would have written.
In the app: record with everyone's knowledge, transcribe on the device, then edit into the formal note. Advanced Privacy erases the audio once the text exists, if that is what your policy prefers.
02Investigation interviews with witnesses
Six witnesses, six accounts, and the differences between them are the investigation. Paraphrased notes flatten the details that matter.
Witnesses also tend to be more careful when they know a record is being made, which cuts both ways and is worth thinking about.
In the app: one recording per witness, kept in a folder for the case, with full-text search across all of them for the phrase that appears in three accounts and not the fourth.
03Works council and union meetings
Formal, minuted, and consequential. Both sides will later rely on what was agreed, and both will remember it differently.
Speaker labels matter here: a transcript that says who committed to what is the whole point.
In the app: save the regular attendees' voices once, transcribe with speaker separation, then summarise into agreed actions with a local model.
04Exit interviews
The most candid conversation an employee will ever have with HR, and the one most often reduced to a form nobody reads. Keeping what was actually said, rather than which boxes were ticked, is where the value is.
In the app: transcribe locally and use the summary for the themes. Then delete on the schedule you told the leaver about, on the one device it ever existed on.
05Your own notes after a difficult conversation
The contemporaneous note made in the ten minutes after a meeting carries real weight later, and it is the thing most often postponed until it is no longer contemporaneous.
Nobody else is on this one, which makes it the simplest case here.
In the app: dictate immediately, transcribe, and file it with the date. Search across a year of them when a pattern turns out to matter.
Two problems at once: accuracy and access
An investigation interview has an unusual property. It must be accurate, because the difference between what somebody said and what the note says is exactly what gets contested at a tribunal. And it must be defensible as a record, because the person it is about can generally ask to see what you hold about them.
Handwritten notes fail the first test. Uploading the audio to a transcription service complicates the second, because now there is a copy in a place your subject access response has to account for and your retention schedule does not reach.
What a cloud tool adds
A processor holding employee personal data, which needs a contract, an entry in the processing register, a retention answer and in many organisations a works council consultation. Employee monitoring and employee data are politically sensitive internally in a way that customer data rarely is.
It also adds a copy you will have to mention if the subject access request is answered honestly, and one you cannot delete on your own schedule.
What Just Transcribe keeps on the device
Everything. The model runs on the phone, so no processor is involved, the recording is in one place, and your retention schedule can actually reach it.
With Advanced Privacy the audio is erased as soon as the transcript exists, which for a grievance interview is often the right shape: an accurate written record, without a recording of somebody at their worst sitting in a folder for years.
None of which makes recording lawful or appropriate. In some jurisdictions and under some agreements, recording an employee meeting requires consent, notice, or is prohibited outright, and an offline app changes none of that.
Why Just Transcribe
The argument is about how few places the employee's words end up in.
✓No processor holding employee data. Nothing is transferred, so there is no contract, no register entry and no works council conversation about a new vendor.
✓A subject access request you can answer completely. One device, one folder, one honest answer about what exists.
✓Advanced Privacy. Audio erased as soon as the text exists. The session keeps nothing and clears when you leave the screen, so export the accurate transcript to your case file first.
✓Speaker labels. A four person investigation meeting comes back attributed rather than as one undifferentiated block.
✓Editing built in. Correct the transcript, rename speakers, find and replace. The formal note is an edit of an accurate draft rather than a reconstruction.
✓Local summaries. Key points and action items generated on the device, useful for the outcome letter.
✓One payment. EUR 9.99 once, so trying it does not require a procurement cycle for a department of three.
One copy, on one device, inside your own retention schedule, which is the only shape that lets you answer a subject access request completely and honestly.
Accuracy and accountability are the two things an investigation record needs. Fewer copies helps with the second and does not cost you the first.
Before you record an employee
This is the part people get wrong, and getting it wrong is worse than having bad notes.
Orientation only. Employment law, your works council agreement and your own policy decide.
Covert recording
Generally unlawful for an employer and almost always fatal to the fairness of a process. Tell everybody in the room, before you start, every time.
Consent and notice
Requirements vary widely. Some jurisdictions need explicit consent from every participant, some need only notice, some require works council agreement first. Check before, not after.
Employee information rights
Under the GDPR an employee can generally request what you hold about them, including recordings and transcripts, with some exemptions. Fewer copies means a more complete and accurate answer.
Works council consultation
In much of Europe, introducing a tool that records employees is a consultation matter regardless of where the data lives. An offline app may be an easier conversation, not an absent one.
Retention
An investigation record has a retention period. Local storage means you can actually enforce it, and also means nothing enforces it for you.
Fairness of process
A recording cuts both ways. It protects an employee from a misremembered note and it protects you from a disputed one, but only if everyone knew it was happening.
If your legal advice is that you may not record, do not record. Dictating your own note immediately afterwards is lawful nearly everywhere and captures most of the benefit.
How to open a recorded meeting
Before we start: I am recording this so that the note of the meeting is accurate. It stays on this phone and goes to no company. You will get a copy of the written note. The audio is deleted once the note is written. If you object to being recorded, say so now and I will write by hand instead.
Say it out loud every time, and leave it in the transcript. It is part of the record, and the fairness of everything that follows rests on it.
Setting it up for a case
Four steps, the first of which is a policy question rather than a technical one.
Get the policy answer first, in writing. Whether you may record, who must be told, whether the works council needs consulting, and what happens to the audio afterwards. Then write that into your invitation letters.
Download a model on the office network once. The larger ones handle a quiet, upset voice noticeably better, which in this work is the common case rather than the exception.
Say it out loud at the start of every meeting. That a recording is being made, why, what happens to it, and when it is deleted. Then leave it in the transcript, where it belongs as part of the record.
Move the transcript into the case file and delete the rest. Export as PDF or text with timestamps, file it in your HR system, delete the app copy on the schedule you announced.
Device security is not optional when the phone holds investigation material about named colleagues. Passcode, Face ID, automatic lock, encryption, and a genuine answer to what happens if it is left in a taxi.
Where Just Transcribe is the wrong tool
Six, and the second one matters for anyone running investigations properly.
×It does not make recording lawful. If your jurisdiction, contract or works council agreement says no, the answer is no, and offline processing is not a workaround.
×No chain of custody. No hashing, no tamper-evident log, no audit trail of who opened what. For material that may become evidence in a formal proceeding, that is a real gap.
×No case management. Nothing integrates with your HR system, your case management tool or your document store. Export and file, by hand.
×No shared access. A co-investigator cannot see your transcripts. On a two-person investigation that means exporting and sending files, carefully.
×No retention automation or legal hold. Deletion is a manual habit, and so is preservation when something is under hold.
×No recovery. No server, so a lost phone without a device backup is a lost interview, in a context where losing an interview is serious.
For a small HR function taking better notes, it fits. For a formal investigations team that needs custody, audit and shared case files, buy an investigations platform and put the agreement in place.
Straight answers
Can I record a disciplinary meeting?
It depends on where you are and what you have agreed, and it is a question for your employment lawyer rather than for a software company. What is nearly universal: never record covertly, tell everyone present before you start, say why, and say what happens to the recording afterwards. If the answer is that you may not record, dictate your own note the moment the meeting ends instead.
Does the employee have a right to the recording?
Generally they can request what you hold about them, and a recording or transcript of a meeting they attended is usually within that, subject to exemptions that vary. This is an argument for keeping fewer copies rather than more: a single file on one device is an answerable request, and a copy sitting on a vendor's servers with an unclear retention period is not.
Is a transcript better than a written note for a tribunal?
Often yes for accuracy and not automatically for weight. A contemporaneous transcript is hard to argue with about what words were used. It is also unflattering about interruptions, tone and the questions you asked, which cuts both ways. Ask your legal advisers what they want on the file before you change how you take notes.
Do we need to tell the works council?
In much of Europe, almost certainly, because introducing any tool that records employees is typically a consultation matter. That the data never leaves the device usually makes the conversation easier rather than unnecessary, and going ahead without it is a good way to lose a case you would otherwise have won.
What about an employee who records us?
Increasingly common, and a separate problem. Employees in many jurisdictions may lawfully record a meeting they are party to, whatever your policy says. The practical response is to run meetings you would be comfortable having recorded, and to make your own accurate record, which is most of the case for this page.
Next
The lowest risk starting point is your own contemporaneous note, dictated in the ten minutes after a difficult conversation. If that alone improves your files, the larger question of recording meetings is worth putting to your legal advisers and your works council properly.
Written by the developer, and not employment law advice. I make Just Transcribe. Whether you may record a grievance or disciplinary meeting, and on what terms, depends on your jurisdiction, your employment contracts, your works council agreement and your own policy. In several countries covert recording by an employer is unlawful.
Written 26 September 2026, updated 3 October 2026 for Just Transcribe 1.36. Numbers and sources on the fact sheet.
