Why Co-Workers Stay Silent About Suspected Alcohol Problems at Work

When employees suspect that a co-worker has an alcohol problem, most eventually say something. But a striking minority never do — and a new study from Sweden offers the most detailed picture yet of why that silence happens, revealing how workplace alcohol culture, organizational structures, and classic psychological mechanisms conspire to keep sensitive concerns unspoken.

The research, published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, drew on survey data collected in December 2019 from a Swedish citizen panel coordinated by the SOM Institute at the University of Gothenburg. Of 3,302 people who completed the questionnaire, 2,644 were employed, and 1,743 reported having suspected at some point that a co-worker had an alcohol problem. These employees were asked what happened the last time they had such a suspicion: did they raise it with anyone in the workplace? The answer, for 403 of them — 23.1 percent — was no. Nearly one in four employees who noticed signs of a possible alcohol problem kept it entirely to themselves, never mentioning it to the suspected co-worker, to colleagues, to a manager, or to Human Resources.

That silence matters because alcohol-related problems are among the most persistently under-identified health conditions in society. Research shows that alcohol problems often remain unrecognized and untreated for many years, with individuals frequently waiting a decade or more before seeking help. Stigma plays a central role: feelings of guilt and shame, and fear of negative reactions from others, repeatedly emerge as barriers to disclosure. The workplace, where most adults spend a large share of their waking hours, is theoretically an ideal setting for early identification — co-workers and managers are often the first to notice changes in behavior, appearance, or performance. In Sweden, employers are legally required to prevent ill health and provide rehabilitation support, including for alcohol-related problems. Yet the new findings show that even when employees do notice, the path from suspicion to action is far from automatic.

To understand what shapes the decision to speak up or stay silent, the research team, led by Martina Martinez of the Department of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg together with Gunnel Hensing and Kristina Berglund, applied two complementary theoretical frameworks. The first was the Substance Use Climate Model, originally developed to explain employees’ own drinking behavior. It proposes that workplace environments influence alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors through three interrelated dimensions: availability, meaning how accessible alcohol is in work-related settings; descriptive norms, meaning employees’ perceptions of alcohol-related behaviors among colleagues; and injunctive norms, meaning how approved or disapproved such behaviors are within the workplace. The second framework drew on psychological research on employee voice, bystander intervention, and stigma — perspectives that explain why recognizing a problem does not necessarily lead to action.

The statistical analysis used binary logistic regression to identify factors associated with remaining silent, adjusting for demographic and situational covariates such as gender, age, education, managerial position, and how long ago the suspicion occurred. The results were technically revealing. Employees who reported that their employer had provided alcohol at work-related occasions six or more times in the past year had roughly double the odds of remaining silent compared with those who said alcohol was never provided (odds ratio 2.00, 95 percent confidence interval 1.16 to 3.45). This finding supports the idea that permissive workplace alcohol climates normalize alcohol-related behaviors and reduce the perceived need to intervene — in such contexts, behaviors that might otherwise trigger concern may be interpreted as socially acceptable rather than problematic.

In contrast, two factors were associated with a lower likelihood of silence. The presence of at least one workplace alcohol-preventive measure — an alcohol policy, rules about when alcohol could be consumed, alcohol education, or standard procedures for responding to an existing problem — reduced the odds of remaining silent (odds ratio 0.84, 95 percent confidence interval 0.75 to 0.95). And employees who interpreted ambiguous alcohol-related behaviors, described in a vignette about a co-worker who repeatedly showed up hungover and appeared intoxicated at work-related social events while maintaining adequate job performance, as very likely to indicate an alcohol problem were also less likely to stay silent (odds ratio 0.69, 95 percent confidence interval 0.48 to 0.98). Interestingly, having observed a co-worker intoxicated at a staff party within the past year was associated with speaking up rather than silence (odds ratio 0.75), suggesting that direct exposure to visible alcohol-related behavior may sharpen employees’ sense that a concern is legitimate.

The covariates added further nuance. Women were less likely than men to remain silent, as were older employees, particularly those above 60, and those in managerial roles. But when the suspected individual was a manager, employees were significantly more likely to stay silent (odds ratio 1.55) — a finding that highlights the role of power relations and perceived social risk in decisions about whether to raise sensitive concerns. Employees whose suspicion was more than five years old were also more likely to have remained silent, possibly reflecting weaker organizational responses at the time or the fading of concerns over time.

Perhaps the most psychologically illuminating part of the study was exploratory: the 403 employees who had remained silent were asked to rate 13 potential reasons for their silence, each grounded in a specific theory. The most frequently reported reason, cited by 71.4 percent, was the belief that the co-worker was performing their job duties adequately. The second most common, at 71.3 percent, was uncertainty about whether the co-worker actually had an alcohol problem. Insufficient concern for the co-worker followed at 69.5 percent, the absence of negative workplace consequences at 65.5 percent, and the assumption that other employees were already aware of the situation at 60.3 percent. These reasons map closely onto classic bystander mechanisms. Uncertainty about whether a problem exists reflects problem ambiguity, a well-documented inhibitor of intervention. The assumption that others are already aware reflects diffusion of responsibility, the phenomenon identified in the landmark 1968 bystander research of Darley and Latané, in which the presence of other potential interveners reduces each individual’s sense of personal obligation to act. Doubts about whether one’s own actions would make a difference echo research on voice futility, while the perception that a colleague’s drinking is a private matter reflects stigma-related construals of alcohol use as an individual responsibility outside the legitimate domain of workplace intervention.

The supplementary analyses added an important technical caveat: employee responses to suspected alcohol problems should not be conceptualized simply as a binary distinction between speaking up and remaining silent. When the researchers compared formal reporting — raising the concern with a manager or HR — against total silence, some associations held while others shifted. When they compared informal discussion with colleagues against more direct or formal responses, the association with alcohol availability actually reversed in direction. This suggests that workplace alcohol climate may influence not only whether employees respond to a suspected problem but also how they respond, with informal third-party discussion requiring relatively little perceived authority or organizational support, while approaching the suspected co-worker directly or reporting to a manager involves greater perceived social risk.

The practical implications are significant. The findings suggest that workplace alcohol prevention efforts should move beyond the mere existence of formal policies and address the factors that prevent employees from voicing concerns. Organizations may benefit from providing clearer guidance on early warning signs and emphasizing that concerns can be raised before work performance is noticeably affected. Clear procedures, designated points of contact, and visible organizational support may reduce uncertainty about how concerns should be handled. Training and communication efforts may also need to address bystander processes directly, emphasizing individual responsibility and encouraging employees to act on concerns rather than assuming that someone else will intervene. The study has limitations — the cross-sectional design precludes causal conclusions, all measures relied on self-report, and the statistical models accounted for only part of the variation in employee responses, suggesting that other psychological and interpersonal processes, such as psychological safety and felt responsibility, remain to be measured directly. But the core message is clear: employee silence about suspected alcohol problems is shaped not only by individual judgement but by the broader organizational context in which concerns arise. By reducing uncertainty and clarifying responsibility, workplaces may be better positioned to identify alcohol-related problems at an earlier stage and support employees before difficulties escalate.

Subject of Research: Psychology

Article Title: When employees remain silent: explaining responses to suspected alcohol problems among co-workers

Article References: Martinez, M., Hensing, G., & Berglund, K. (2026). When employees remain silent: explaining responses to suspected alcohol problems among co-workers. Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, 4, Article 1938613. https://doi.org/10.3389/forgp.2026.1938613

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/forgp.2026.1938613

Keywords: workplace alcohol use, employee silence, organizational psychology, bystander intervention, substance use climate, employees, remain, silent, explaining, responses, suspected, alcohol