Dive Brief:
- In 2025, 55% of employees experienced or witnessed misconduct, a stark increase from 41% in 2024 — and a near seven-year high — signaling that processes put in place in response to #MeToo are no longer enough, according to a May 7 report from HR Acuity, an employee relations case management and software firm.
- Reporting, investigation and resolution rates also rose to record levels: 78% of employees who experienced or witnessed misconduct reported it; 75% who reported it saw their cases investigated and resolved (up 16 points from 2024); and 90% agreed their issue was resolved fairly, HR Acuity said.
- Yet, case count alone doesn’t tell the whole story, the study cautioned. Almost 4 in 10 employees (38%) were exposed to multiple incidents of misconduct, either within a single case or across separate incidents, the study showed. The most common types of misconduct involved favoritism or nepotism (37%); bullying/intimidation (36%) and conduct code/policy violations (27%). Twenty-two percent of reports cited corruption, age discrimination, gender discrimination or sexual harassment; 21% cited retaliation.
Dive Insight:
As workers become more confident about speaking up and increasingly use AI to report their concerns, cases are getting more complex, Deb Muller, HR Acuity’s founder and CEO, noted in a media release. With HR workloads already stretched thin, this means investigations may take longer and employers face a growing risk of liability, the report stressed.
For employee relations teams, the findings present a two-fold challenge, Muller explained: To create lasting change, they must “effectively handle greater volume and more complex investigations at scale,” and they must “dig into their data to understand and reach the 22% of employees who still don’t speak up,” she said.
Also, amid ongoing return-to-office mandates, one particular concern emerged from HR Acuity’s and Isurus Market Research and Consulting’s January survey of 2,043 U.S. employees: 67% of in-office workers experience or witness misconduct, yet they report it less often than workers in any other setting — at a rate of 76% compared with 86% of remote employees.
Additionally, the survey found that 46% of employees don’t report misconduct because they fear retaliation, and only 46% of reported allegations that were investigated and resolved were then monitored for retaliation.
Survey responses pointed to a third issue: Nearly all organizations offer anonymous reporting, but only 56% of employees are aware of the option. “When employees know they can report anonymously, they do so at nearly double the rate,” HR Acuity said.
That finding is especially critical for addressing harassment, according to a February report from online compliance training company Traliant. It showed that one-third of employees would only report harassment if they could do so anonymously.
Organizations play a huge role in how people behave at work, the author of a 2025 study by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign emphasized. The study found that women consistently report higher empathy toward harassment targets compared to men and are more likely to intervene when they see harassment.
But the researchers also found that by strengthening intolerance policies, organizations can close gender gaps and create a safe environment for all employees.
