What is an upstander?
An upstander is an individual who actively intervenes to address harmful or inappropriate behaviour. It is an expectation of Australian businesses that all staff should feel confident to speak up safely if they witness something inappropriate.
How can you encourage your staff to become upstanders?
Organisations expect and rely on staff to assist them in upholding standards of behaviour by reporting any inappropriate conduct. The impact of bullying and harassment in the workplace is serious but before you can expect your staff to speak up, a culture of transparency and encouragement to come forward must be established by an organisation before you can seriously expect staff to report.
The impact of a staff member intervening to stop bad behaviour or to support a colleague can be profound and positive. But in reality, people are more often bystanders than ‘upstanders’ when bad things happen.
Why don’t people speak up?
This isn’t a question that should be posed to employees – this is the responsibility of the organisation. If your staff are witnessing inappropriate behaviour but are not coming forward, it’s likely that they don’t feel safe or secure enough to do so.
For an individual who has experienced misconduct, they could potentially be dealing with a wide range of impacts. These include: reduced self-esteem, anxiety, nervousness, withdrawal, insecurity, PTSD and depression. Vicarious trauma can also occur for witnesses exposed to this conduct against colleagues.
For the organisation, the impacts are broad ranging too; disengagement, lost time, lost productivity, poor performance, high turn-over and lack of creativity are some of the unwelcome impacts.
But before you can have an expectation of your staff to report bad behaviour, management must develop an understanding of the types of fears and concerns that staff many have that could prevent them coming forward.
Risky business
Most staff want to go to work and feel secure. No one wants to go out on a limb only to have it blow up in their face. If a person reports wrong doing, they want to feel:
- that their complaint will be heard and taken seriously
- that some form of action will occur as result of the complaint
- that there will be no ramifications in reporting, especially if it’s regarding a superior
So how do you encourage staff to be upstanders?
Setting the standard
Set clear workplace standards, embed them in work processes and communicate them regularly.
Setting behavioural standards at a policy level is the first step to creating an upstander culture for your team. At Worklogic, we often provide HR policy advice and work with organisations to create clear rules and procedures around expected behaviour at work.
Ensure standards are enforced at all levels of the organisation at all times, especially by people with positional power.
It’s one thing to say, it’s another to do. But the onus can’t be entirely on the staff to report back to management.
Noticing what is occurring amongst your team is essential. Being completely in the dark is not acceptable, irrespective of your industry.
- If you don’t have line of sight over all your staff, make an extra effort to ask about what is occurring and create effective feedback loops.
- Create open forum for staff to table any concerns, once that is transparent and encouraging
Where senior people ignore rule transgressions, act inconsistently or themselves act in breach of rules, the entire rule system falls into disrepute.
Make it easy and breezy
Create a simple system to report inappropriate conduct. A quick, clear, safe and accessible system that offers an option for anonymity is ideal. In many situations, a standard formal complaint process, will be more than sufficient for an initial complaint.
For complaints of a more serious nature, or to do with a senior staff member, staff may wish to remain completely anonymous. At Worklogic, we provide an independent whist blower reporting line called Integrity Line, which clients subscribe to on behalf of their organisation.
And remember, it’s brave to speak up…treat whistle-blowers like heroes.
Understanding how and when to act
Once policies have been established and an easy system to report has been instilled, knowing how and when to act is important.
The best way to assist staff in navigating difficult situations is through training. It will teach staff how to intervene effectively in tense situations and help them to become active upstanders. Help them act together to improve behaviour standards.
At Worklogic, we deliver our Upstander training in-house to organisations. Participants gain skills and insights into:
- How upstander behaviour improves workplace culture
- The factors that influence upstander behaviour
- The principles of the upstander framework
- Upstander behaviour skills
Implementing these actions in your workplace will help create a culture that doesn’t tolerate bad behaviour and where everyone works together to stamp out inappropriate conduct.
If you would like to chat to one of our experienced consultants about your organisations behaviour standards, get in touch.
