The Challenge of Speaking Up
Organizations want employees to speak up when something is wrong. Yet employees who are constantly looking for problems may not always be viewed positively by their colleagues.
In her FT50 article: Chronic monitoring for wrongdoing as a signal of immoral character, published in the Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes journal, Jane O'Reilly, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management, and her coauthors explore how employees are perceived when they regularly search for and call out wrongdoing in the workplace. The study reveals that while addressing misconduct is generally viewed positively, employees who are known for constantly looking for problems may find their own character and motivations called into question.
When Accountability Starts to Feel like Policing
Organizations encourage employees to speak up when they witness or experience inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Doing so can help identify risks, address misconduct, and maintain organizational effectiveness.
Yet each time an employee raises a concern, colleagues are often paying attention to more than the issue itself. They may also be evaluating the intentions of the person behind the report.
As a result, employees who regularly call attention to misconduct may be perceived differently than those who raise concerns only occasionally. Over time, efforts to promote accountability can begin to feel less like protecting workplace standards and more like policing colleagues.
This raises an important question: What happens when employees become known for constantly looking for something wrong?
More Than Just Reporting Misconduct
To answer this question, O'Reilly and her coauthors examined how people respond to employees who regularly monitor others for signs of wrongdoing. Their findings suggest that people distinguish between addressing misconduct and actively searching for it.
They found that employees who chronically monitor others for wrongdoing may be perceived as being motivated by punishment, competition, or a tendency to assume the worst about the intentions of others.
The findings suggest that how people are perceived depends not only on the concerns they raise, but also on the motivation others believe are driving their actions.
The Social Costs of Being the Workplace Watchdog
The findings suggest that being seen as a workplace watchdog can come with substantive social costs.
O'Reilly and her coauthors found that employees who are known for regularly monitoring others for wrongdoing may be viewed less favorably by their colleagues. In some cases, colleagues may perceive chronic monitors as seeking to punish others or gain a competitive advantage. As a result, the person raising concerns can become the focal point rather than the issue itself.
These perceptions matter because organizations depend on employees to identify risks, address misconduct, and raise concerns when problems arise. If individuals fear being judged negatively for speaking up, they may become reluctant to report concerns all together. At the same time, workplace cultures built around constant monitoring can create tension, undermine trust, and strain relationships among colleagues.
This poses a hard balancing act between trust and accountability for organizations. Employees need to feel comfortable speaking up when something is wrong, yet workplaces also depend on positive relationships, mutual trust, and the assumption that colleagues are acting in good faith. Encouraging accountability without undermining trust may be one of the most difficult challenges facing organizations today.
“In one of our earlier studies we collected narrative accounts from people who work with coworkers who constantly monitor their behavior to catch missteps and bad behaviors. Often times these coworkers were catching fairly minor things – like coworkers coming in a few minutes late, or accidentally making small errors in their daily tasks. Yet, you could just feel the disdain and contempt directed toward these so-called workplace vigilantes. They have a remarkably powerful effect on the people around them. – Jane O’Reilly”
Balancing Accountability and Trust
Organizations need employees who are willing to raise concerns when they witness inappropriate behavior. At the same time, employees need to trust that they are working in an environment where colleagues are not constantly looking for mistakes or reasons to report one another.
This means creating workplace cultures where concerns can be raised constructively, where intentions are not automatically questioned, and where accountability is balanced with trust.
The lesson is not that employees should remain silent when they encounter wrongdoing. Rather, organizations should strive to create conditions where employees feel comfortable speaking up without fearing that they will be viewed negatively for doing so.
Ultimately, the study suggests that addressing misconduct is only part of the equation. How concerns are raised, and how colleagues interpret the motivations behind them, can be just as important.
As O'Reilly explains, “The important takeaway from our research is that people react negatively toward coworkers who seem to constantly watch for missteps or misconduct they can call out. We don’t find the same negative reactions when coworkers report misconduct without this element of chronic monitoring. So, if organizations want to implement bystander programs or other channels for reporting workplace misconduct, they need to design them in ways that encourage employees to speak up when they observe wrongdoing without encouraging them to constantly monitor one another’s behavior.”
Creating workplaces where employees feel comfortable speaking up, without fostering an atmosphere of policing or suspicion, may be one of the most important challenges facing leaders today.
