Human-resource departments are taking matters of incivility and ethics in the workplace increasingly seriously. Indeed, inappropriate behaviour is a major threat to wellbeing at work – and yet, according to a recent international survey, employees are not systematically reporting misconduct.

The Institute of Business Ethics and the Compliance Institute surveyed over 12,000 employees from 16 countries on ethical matters in the workplace. While the overwhelming majority of those surveyed believe their employer takes such issues seriously (71%), they claim to still see ethics breaches in their company.

A quarter of those polled said they were aware of misconduct or illegal activity at work, up from 18% in 2021. In detail, 20% of employees who had reported misconduct said they were aware of sexual harassment, and 13% of bribery or corruption.

Encouragingly, 84% of employees claim to work for a company where they can express themselves freely: a climate that enables them to denounce any breaches of ethics or misconduct.

But not all employees feel comfortable reporting such incidents – 34% don’t do so because they feel it would serve no useful purpose, while others remain silent for fear of damaging their career (34%).

Nevertheless, this is not a wise choice, as ethics help create a healthy and respectful working environment. Remaining silent when witnessing an unethical situation contributes to the persistence of unacceptable behaviour, which can be detrimental to wellbeing and motivation.

In fact, it has been demonstrated that employees can be more inclined to leave a company where they perceive ethical issues or value conflicts, even if these do not affect them personally.

As such, it’s important for companies to establish a framework for reporting this kind of misconduct, and to take formal steps to curb unwanted behaviour. This could involve company-wide written standards in business conduct, while training courses could also be organised to help employees identify ethically unacceptable situations.