Resume Now Survey Reveals Widespread Workplace Culture of Blame-Shifting

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Table of contents

Key Findings
The Most Prevalent Dirty Workplace Moves
Why People Throw Colleagues Under the Bus
Generational Insights

A new survey from Resume Now reveals a surprising workplace contradiction: While 61% of employees report being thrown under the bus by coworkers, 73% claim they've never engaged in this behavior themselves. So, where is all the blame coming from?

The survey, conducted with over 1,000 U.S. workers, exposes a workplace culture of blame-shifting that undermines trust and collaboration. Alarmingly, 63% of employees have witnessed this behavior firsthand, with 29% seeing it happen at least once a week.

Blame culture isn't just an occasional workplace annoyance — it can damage professional relationships, lower morale, and create a toxic environment where employees feel they must watch their backs instead of working together.

Key Findings

61% of employees have been thrown under the bus at work, with 32% experiencing it multiple times.
Despite this, 73% claim they have never engaged in this behavior themselves.
63% report seeing this in action in their workplace, with 29% witnessing it at least weekly.
64% cite peers as the main culprits, followed by teammates (37%) and direct managers (26%).

The Most Prevalent Dirty Workplace Moves

The survey highlights the most prevalent tactics of workplace sabotage:

Blaming others for their mistakes (26%).
Sharing negative information about a coworker to leadership (21%).
Withholding critical information that could help a colleague succeed (10%).
Deliberately setting up a person to fail (6%).

What This Means: While the survey highlights widespread blame culture, employees may benefit from taking proactive steps to protect themselves and build a healthier workplace culture. Strategies such as maintaining clear communication, documenting contributions, and fostering strong professional relationships can help mitigate workplace blame-shifting.

Why People Throw Colleagues Under the Bus

The survey reveals that career ambitions and self-preservation are the primary drivers behind this toxic behavior:

47% to protect their own reputation.
45% to avoid personal consequences.
40% to advance their career.
40% to gain favor with leadership.

Here's a visualization of this data:

Resume Now Dirty Moves Report Infographic

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What this means: Office politics can be unavoidable, but employees can navigate them effectively by building positive relationships with colleagues and supervisors, being transparent about their work, and building strong conflict-resolution skills to address problems directly rather than letting them escalate.

Generational Insights

Although some generations are perceived as engaging in blame-shifting more than others, nearly half of workers believe this issue exists across all age groups.

Gen Z (17%) and millennials (18%) are more likely to be perceived as engaging in this behavior compared to Gen X (8%) and baby boomers (9%).
However, nearly 49% believe that this behavior is consistent across all generations, suggesting it's a workplace issue that transcends age groups.

What this means: Rather than focusing on generational differences, employees should prioritize fostering a culture of accountability and support. Open discussions about workplace expectations, values, professional ethics, and conflict resolution can help reduce these toxic dynamics.

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Methodology:

The findings provided were gathered through a Pollfish survey conducted of 1,010 U.S. respondents on Feb. 3, 2025. Participants were asked about their experiences with workplace blame-shifting, perceptions of coworker behavior, and the frequency of being blamed for mistakes at work. Participants responded to various question types, including yes/no questions, open-ended questions, scale-based questions gauging agreement levels, and questions that permitted the selection of multiple options from a list of answers.

For press inquiries, contact Joseph Santaella at joseph.santaella@bold.com.

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Keith is a Career Expert and content contributor for Resume Now. He is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) with over a decade of experience in the career development field. Keith also holds a Master's of Education from Cabrini University.