Addressing the Bystander Effect in Your Workplace

You may have heard of the bystander effect as a phenomenon that occurs when people fail to intervene in an emergency or help someone in need. Instead, the “bystander” assumes that others will take responsibility for the situation and does nothing to assist the person in need.

a phenomenon that occurs when people fail to intervene in an emergency situation or help someone in need

Although the bystander effect is prevalent in many areas of life and has been studied at length by sociologists, it’s not often thought of as a phenomenon that also takes place in the workplace—where it can have significant negative impacts on employees, the work culture, and the organization as a whole.

Many employers know the importance of training their staff on workplace harassment, diversity, and inclusion.  Still, in my experience, more focus needs to be provided on training to address the bystander effect and the different ways to intervene.

This week – How to minimize the Bystander Effect in your workplace.

How to Minimize the Bystander Effect In Your Workplace

Last week we began discussing the bystander effect in the workplace – and the serious consequences to your work environment. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize the bystander effect in the workplace. 

Companies can have a maximum impact on creating a healthy culture and decreasing harmful incidents by providing staff with the knowledge and skills to intervene in inappropriate behavior and interactions with co-workers.

Properly trained staff can identify unpleasant actions or statements that call for some intervention. They know how and when to act with confidence. Well-developed training protocols can inform and instruct the entire workplace on strategies to intervene and diffuse an unpleasant situation before it becomes a problem.

How to Intervene Safely and Confidently

There are several tactics employees can use to intervene when witnessing inappropriate or toxic behavior. 

  1. Seeking assistance from other bystanders or a manager is one way to address the situation without becoming directly involved—especially if the situation feels like it could become aggressive.
  2. Look for ways to distract from the unpleasant situation to diffuse the matter. (A practical bystander intervention training course should provide employees with potential real-life workplace scenarios where this strategy can be used.)
  3.  Directly address the situation by responding to the person responsible for the aggressive or inappropriate behavior. In this scenario, the bystander insists that the aggressor cease their behavior and offers help to the victim.

The key element to intervention is to approach the situation and address it without increasing tension (making a bad situation even worse!)

People Need to Be Trained

At the risk of sounding self-promoting, I must stress how necessary training is for successful intervention for employees and all management staff.

The last thing an employer wants is for their staff to involve themselves in the wrong situations or in a way that escalates a scenario.