State of Workplace Wrongdoing 2021
AllVoices surveyed 1,000 US workers on workplace wrongdoing in 2021. Key findings: 26.5% witness misconduct without reporting, and 70% would report more if they could do so anonymously.
In 2021, AllVoices surveyed 1,000 full-time US employees to understand how workplace wrongdoing is actually experienced and reported. The pattern is consistent: employees witness misconduct, stay silent, and often have good reason to.
26.5% of employees who witnessed wrongdoing never reported it. 19% of those who did report saw no action taken. And 70% said they would be more likely to report if they could do so anonymously. The data points to a structural problem, not a personal one.
Methodology
On March 8, 2021, we surveyed 1,000 US workers employed full-time to learn more about their experiences with witnessing and reporting workplace wrongdoing.
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Key findings from the 2021 workplace wrongdoing survey
Workplace wrongdoing is still going unreported. 26.5% of all employees say they have never reported wrongdoing when they've seen it. That number climbs to 35.5% among entry-level employees.
One in five reports are being ignored. 19% of wrongdoing was not addressed after it was reported, and 33% of reports were only partially resolved.
Employees don't report because they don't think it will lead anywhere. The top reasons for staying silent: believing nothing will be done, fear of not being believed, and fear of retaliation.
60% of Black women who don't report say they won't be believed. 44% of Black employees overall and 37% of women overall share the same concern.
Anonymity would significantly increase reporting. 70% say they would be more likely to report if there was a truly anonymous method available.
But only 63% believe their workplace wants them to report. 21% believe their company actively discourages reporting. Another 16% aren't sure.
Only half of employees know what resources are available. 56% are clear on what resources exist and how to access them. The rest are not.
What would increase reporting? Employees point to three things: anonymous reporting options, user-friendly reporting platforms, and visible encouragement from leadership.
Who responded to this survey
On March 8, 2021, we surveyed 1,000 US workers employed full-time to learn about their experience with seeing and reporting workplace wrongdoing.
57% of those we surveyed were female, and 43% were male. The majority fell between the ages of 35 and 44 (40.6%), with the next largest segment between ages 25 and 34 (27.7%). 6.4% were between 18 and 24, 13.4% between 45 and 54, and 11.9% were over 54.
Most respondents work at medium to large businesses
40.4% of respondents work at medium-sized businesses with between 100 and 999 employees, and 36.7% work at large businesses with over 1,000 employees. The remaining 22.9% work at small businesses with 100 or fewer employees.
Respondents represent a wide range of industries
Our respondents come from a variety of industries, with strong representation from IT, educational services, professional and business services, and state and local government. Healthcare and health-related fields made up a large share of the "Other" category.
Half are mid-level and a quarter are senior-level
50.1% of respondents are mid-level employees. 26.8% are senior-level, and 12.4% are entry-level. This distribution gives us visibility into how seniority shapes reporting behavior.
63% manage other people
63% of respondents are managers with direct reports. Managers who witness misconduct face different pressures than individual contributors, and that dynamic shapes what gets reported and what doesn't.
Just over half identify as introverts
52.9% of respondents described themselves as introverts, and 34.9% as extroverts. Introversion correlated with stronger interest in anonymous reporting options, a pattern that runs throughout the data.
Most have been at their company between one and five years
41.2% had been at their current company between one and five years. 39.8% had been there five years or longer. 11.4% had been there less than a year, and 7.6% were new hires.
This range of tenure, seniority, company size, and industry creates a sample that mirrors the typical US workforce. That diversity of experience is exactly what this research needed to be credible.
How many employees witness wrongdoing but never report it
Employees are witnessing misconduct. The question is whether they say anything. The data shows too many don't.
26.5% who witnessed wrongdoing stayed silent
45.2% of respondents said they had reported workplace wrongdoing at least once when they witnessed it. 28.3% said they hadn't seen any wrongdoing to report.
But 26.5% witnessed wrongdoing and said nothing. That means employers are unaware of more than a quarter of the misconduct happening in their organization.
The gap widens by seniority. 35.5% of entry-level employees who witnessed wrongdoing did not report it, compared to just 20.5% of senior-level employees. Workers under 34 were also more likely to stay silent, at 28.5%.
19% of reports are ignored entirely, and 33% are only partially resolved
Of employees who did report, 39.4% saw the matter fully resolved. But 33.4% said the issue was only partially addressed, and 18.8% said nothing was done after they came forward.
For women, the inaction rate climbs. 23.1% of women who reported said their concern wasn't addressed and no action was taken, compared to 18.8% in the general population. 6.7% of women said reporting made things worse.
Entry-level employees who reported saw better full-resolution rates (50%), but 20.5% still said their report was ignored. And 13.6% said the situation got worse after they spoke up.
Why employees don't report: fear of retaliation and disbelief
For those who witnessed wrongdoing and stayed silent, 30.5% said they didn't believe anything would be done, or that they wouldn't be believed. This is consistent with the resolution data above. Employees aren't wrong to be skeptical. Understanding the role of fear of retaliation in silencing employees is central to fixing the reporting gap.
27.8% feared retaliation in the form of demotion, job loss, gossip, or shaming. 25.9% weren't sure if what they saw was serious enough to report. 15% had seen how others were treated after reporting and decided the risk wasn't worth it.
The numbers shift further for specific groups. For women, 36.8% didn't report because they didn't think anything would change, or didn't think they'd be believed. For Black employees, that figure rises to 43.8%, and to 60% among Black women. Entry-level employees most often cited fear of retaliation (29.6%), followed by feeling it wasn't their place to say anything (25%).
Fraud is most likely to be reported, but bias is most commonly witnessed
When asked which types of wrongdoing they'd be most likely to report, employees ranked fraud highest (57.4%), followed by unsafe working conditions (52.6%). Harassment (50.6%), discrimination (48%), and bullying (47%) were also high. Only 29.6% said they were highly likely to report bias.
But the list of what employees actually witness reverses that order. Bias is the most commonly seen issue (34.3%), followed by bullying (26.5%), discrimination (24%), and harassment (21%). Fraud, the thing employees say they'd most readily report, is witnessed by only 13.6%.
Employees are more likely to report the misconduct they rarely see, and less likely to report the misconduct they encounter every day. That inversion is one of the most significant findings in this research.
70% would be more likely to report if they could do so anonymously
70.1% of respondents said they would be more likely to report wrongdoing if a truly anonymous reporting method were available. 17% weren't sure, and 12.9% said no. AllVoices pilot study data on message anonymity and reporting confirms that employees are significantly more likely to come forward when they trust their identity is protected.
Anonymity matters most to the groups least likely to report. Black employees would be 72.1% more likely to report anonymously. Entry-level employees would be 72.6% more likely. Introverts would be 74.9% more likely.
Less than half of employees know their company has a reporting hotline
43.9% of respondents said their workplace has a reporting hotline. 35.8% said it doesn't. And 20.3% weren't sure, which suggests that a significant share of companies aren't communicating their legally required reporting resources clearly to employees.
Only 32% have used the hotline, and many don't trust it
Despite hotline availability, 67.8% have never used one to report wrongdoing. Women were far less likely to have used the hotline (21%) compared to men (45.9%).
Among those who didn't use the hotline, the most common reason was doubting it was truly anonymous (23.4%). 15.8% didn't want to speak with someone on the phone. 5% said they wouldn't report regardless of what channel was available.
How organizations reinforce or undermine the reporting culture
Individual reporting behavior doesn't happen in a vacuum. It reflects what employees see the organization actually do when concerns come in.
Only 63% believe their workplace wants wrongdoing reported
63% of respondents believe their workplace wants wrongdoing reported. But 21.2% believe their company actively discourages it. Another 15.8% aren't sure what their company wants, which signals that these organizations aren't communicating their stance clearly enough.
What employees say would actually increase reporting
When asked what their company could do to increase reporting, employees ranked anonymity highest (58.1%). Next was a more user-friendly reporting platform (40.7%), followed by more visible encouragement from leadership (40.1%).
Other responses included normalizing conversations about reporting at work (38.1%), explicit commitments against retaliation (36.5%), and more awareness about what qualifies as wrongdoing (35.7%). A genuinely psychologically safe environment is one where all three of these things are present at the same time, not traded off against each other.
Only 56% of employees know what reporting resources are available
55.9% of employees know what resources exist and how to access them. But 24.5% said their company doesn't make those resources available at all. 19.6% weren't sure.
Most workplaces are legally required to provide these resources. The fact that nearly half of employees are unclear on what's available isn't a legal problem. It's a communication failure.
In many workplaces, no one is leading the conversation
35% of respondents said HR leads the conversation around reporting at their company. 23.5% said it was senior leadership. When HR and leadership align, the message tends to reach employees more consistently.
But for many respondents, responsibility had fallen to their direct manager, a sign of fragmented, department-level implementation rather than company-wide culture. 9.9% didn't know who was leading the conversation. And 16.4% said no one was. Building a reporting culture that actually reaches employees requires coordinated ownership at the top, not piecemeal execution by individual managers.
What this data says about the state of workplace reporting
The picture that emerges from this research isn't simple. Some companies respond when employees come forward. Some don't. Some employees feel safe reporting. Many don't. Some workplaces offer the right resources. Others either don't provide them or don't communicate that they exist.
The problem isn't individual willingness to speak up. It's whether the organization makes speaking up worth it. Three things drive that: what happens after a report is filed, whether employees trust the channel they're using, and whether leadership actively signals that reporting is welcome. Each of those needs to be true at once. One without the others isn't enough.
Tracking an anonymous reporting channel that employees actually trust, alongside resolution rates and follow-through, is how organizations can tell whether their reporting culture is real or performative.
Workplace misconduct in 2025 and 2026: how the numbers have moved
This research was conducted in 2021, when the conversation around workplace misconduct was accelerating. Four years later, the structural gaps it identified have not closed. In several areas, the data has become harder to ignore.
Misconduct rates have reached a near seven-year high
According to SHRM and HR Acuity research published in 2025, 55% of employees reported personally experiencing or witnessing workplace misconduct in the prior year, near a seven-year high. 38% said they encountered four or more distinct types of misconduct in that period. The issues most commonly seen in our 2021 data (bias, bullying, discrimination) remain among the most underreported in current research as well.
Reporting rates have improved, but a significant gap remains
Reporting rates have risen since 2021. HR Acuity's 2025 Employee Relations Benchmark Study found that 78% of employees who experienced misconduct came forward, an improvement over earlier years. But that still leaves more than one in five incidents unreported. And the primary barriers our research identified in 2021 (disbelief that action will follow, fear of retaliation, and lack of anonymous options) remain the dominant reasons employees stay silent today.
Anonymous reporting continues to drive the biggest increases in disclosure
The demand for truly anonymous reporting hasn't changed. Organizations that have implemented dedicated, confidential reporting channels consistently see higher reporting rates and earlier intervention on issues that would otherwise escalate. See how AllVoices works for HR teams that need structured, accountable systems for handling employee concerns.
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