Active Bystander Scenarios
SET #1
What impact will this scenario have on your colleague/team/community?
What potential impact would not disrupting the behaviour have?
How do you feel in the moment? What emotions does the scenario trigger?
How might you be an active bystander in that moment, other than speaking with your manager to handle the situation?
Member-Facing Scenarios
Please assume that a Code of Conduct is visible in the entrance of the branches.
Scenario 1: A member comes up to the counter, looks around, and asks you why you have Pride flags in the branch. “I’m not homophobic or anything but I think this is just some political agenda.”
Scenario 2: As your colleague is helping a member, you overhear the member beginning to make comments about your colleague’s physical appearance and attempt to make advances. The member asks personal questions, tries to ask when you colleague is finished their shift and if he can text them later. You sense some awkwardness, and that your colleague might be struggling to handle the situation.
Scenario 3: You overhear a white member approaches your Asian colleague and says “Ni hao.” At your colleague’s look of confusion, the member rolls their eyes and says “Oh, you’re a different kind of Chinese, aren’t you?” They speak in gibberish, on the assumption that it sounds like a dialect that your colleague speaks.
Scenario 4: A member, white male, visited the branch to process a transaction. Your colleague, a Black woman, assisted him with the transaction. He wants to make a withdrawal so she asks him for a piece of ID (a procedure that we ask every customer making a transaction), and his response is “did you ask me for ID because I’m white?”
Scenario 5: A new employee is sharing their story at a Coast community event about why they came to live in Canada. She talks about the anti-homosexuality legislation in her country. Someone interrupts and says, “You don’t look gay.”
SET #2
How do you feel in the moment? What emotions does the scenario trigger?
How might you be an active bystander in that moment?
Peer-to-Peer Scenarios
Scenario 1: A meeting is winding up and as people are leaving, you overhear a conversation between two colleagues. Colleague A makes a discriminatory comment. Colleague B, who is a person of colour, gives Colleague A feedback on their comment, but A tells B that they are being overly sensitive and “Everything is political these days!” This is not the first time that Colleague A has received feedback on their offensive comment.
Scenario 2: A colleague of yours who is a woman of colour is speaking in a meeting where a manager constantly cuts them off. They don’t seem to realize they’re doing it and nobody is saying anything. When your colleague raises her voice so she can be heard, your supervisor stops her and asks for her to wait until everyone else has finished speaking.
Scenario 3: A colleague comes out as trans and your manager says in a surprised tone that they “didn’t look trans.” Another one of your colleagues, who is a woman of colour, pulls your manager aside to give them some feedback. You overhear your manager say, “You don’t need to get so mad. Let’s be respectful when we have these conversations.” Your colleague goes back to their desk looking visibly frustrated.
Scenario 4: You’re speaking to a colleague and the topic about adding pronouns to email signatures is brought up. You talk about how important adding pronouns is to being more inclusive but he interrupts and says “That’s stupid. People are so sensitive nowadays. Obviously, I’m a ‘him’ since I look like a man. I don’t need to do any of that.”
Scenario 5: You notice one of your managers avoids talking to an Asian colleague, preferring to communicate through text or e-mail. If they have to talk, they stand a few feet away from them to talk. They sanitize their hands immediately afterwards. They don’t do this to any of your other non-Asian colleagues.