How to stop workplace bullying

Repetition means a pattern, not a number. There is no minimum count of incidents. What matters is that the behaviour has happened more than once and forms a course of conduct, which can include different behaviours by the same person or the same behaviour by several people. Ongoing exclusion, persistent belittling and a steady drip of unreasonable demands all qualify even where no single instance would.

Unreasonable means what a reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would see as unreasonable — victimising, humiliating, intimidating or threatening. The test is objective. The intention of the person behaving that way is largely irrelevant, which matters because respondents frequently defend themselves on the basis that they meant nothing by it.

The risk to health and safety does not require you to have become unwell. A risk is enough. In practice, medical evidence of anxiety, sleep disturbance or psychological injury makes the risk concrete and is worth obtaining, but the absence of a diagnosis does not defeat an application.

Behaviour that is commonly bullying includes repeated abusive or offensive language, unjustified criticism or complaints, deliberate exclusion from work activities, withholding information needed to do the job, setting unreasonable timeframes or impossible tasks, and constant changes to work arrangements designed to inconvenience.

Behaviour that is commonly not bullying, even when it feels awful, includes a single instance of rudeness, a fair performance improvement process, a legitimate direction you disagree with, a manager's decision not to promote you, or a workplace with high but reasonable performance expectations. Reasonable differences of opinion and normal workplace friction are not bullying.

Discrimination and sexual harassment are different legal categories with different pathways and, importantly, with compensation available. Behaviour based on a protected attribute — sex, race, disability, age, pregnancy, carer responsibilities and others — belongs in the discrimination system. Unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature belongs in the sexual harassment jurisdiction, which the Commission also handles but under separate provisions.

Where behaviour crosses into threats, stalking, physical violence or property damage, it is a criminal matter and the police are the right first call. Nothing about employment law displaces that.

Start a contemporaneous record today. Date, time, location, who was present, what was said or done in the person's own words, and the effect on you and your work. Write it the same day, keep it somewhere you will still have access to if your work account is cut off, and do not embellish. This record is the single most valuable thing you will produce, and its value comes from being made at the time.

Preserve documents while you still can. Emails, messages, rosters, performance documents, meeting invitations and file notes disappear the moment access is withdrawn. Forward what you are lawfully entitled to keep to a personal record and note where the rest sits.

See a doctor and say plainly what is happening at work. A GP consultation creates independent, dated evidence of the effect on your health, opens the door to a mental health treatment plan if you need one, and matters for any later workers compensation claim for psychological injury.

Use the internal process, unless it is unsafe to do so. Report the behaviour in writing to a manager, human resources or through the grievance procedure, and keep a copy. This matters for two reasons: employers have WHS duties that are triggered by knowledge, and the Commission will want to know what was done internally before an application was made.

Set out what you want to happen. A complaint that says 'this must stop' invites a defensive investigation; one that says 'I need the daily one-on-one meetings to end, work to be allocated in writing, and to report to a different supervisor' gives the employer something to implement. Practical, specific requests get resolved more often.

Check your union, your employee assistance program and your award or enterprise agreement. Unions run these matters constantly and represent members at no additional cost. EAP counselling is confidential and free. Enterprise agreements often contain dispute procedures with their own steps and timeframes.

Decide about applying while you are still employed. This is the decision point that cannot be recovered later. If the situation is deteriorating and the internal process is going nowhere, applying while employed preserves the only remedy that can change your day-to-day work. Resigning first closes it.

You apply on the Commission's form for an order to stop bullying at work, naming the individuals said to have engaged in the behaviour and the employer. The Commission publishes an eligibility quiz that is worth running first, because it filters out the most common reasons applications fail — most often that the applicant no longer works there.

The Commission must be satisfied both that bullying has occurred and that there is a risk it will continue. That second limb is why the jurisdiction cannot help after employment ends: with no ongoing work relationship there is no continuing risk to prevent.

Not every worker is covered. The jurisdiction applies to workers in constitutionally covered businesses, which captures most private sector employment but excludes some state and local government employment in certain states, and sole traders and partnerships in some circumstances. The eligibility quiz addresses this, and where the Commission cannot help, the state WHS regulator or an anti-discrimination body usually can.

The process moves quickly by tribunal standards. The Commission is required to deal with applications promptly, and cases commonly proceed to a conference within weeks. Most resolve at that stage, through agreed arrangements about reporting lines, communication protocols, mediation, training or supervision, rather than through a contested hearing and formal orders.

Conciliation and conferences are conducted by a Commission member or staff conciliator and are usually confidential. Preparation matters: bring your chronology, your key documents, and a written list of the outcomes you are seeking, ranked. Applicants who arrive with specific workable proposals do better than those who arrive with grievances.

If it proceeds to hearing and the Commission is satisfied, it can make orders to prevent the worker being bullied at work — for example requiring the employer to follow its own policy, requiring an individual to stop specified conduct, requiring changes to reporting arrangements, or requiring monitoring. Breaching an order can attract penalties.

What the Commission cannot do is award compensation, reinstate you, discipline anyone or make findings for you to use elsewhere as a judgement. If money is what you need, the pathway is a workers compensation claim for psychological injury, a general protections claim if adverse action was taken because you exercised a workplace right, or a discrimination complaint — not this one.

Work health and safety law imposes a positive duty on employers to eliminate or minimise psychosocial hazards, including bullying, harassment, unreasonable job demands and poor support. That duty exists regardless of whether anyone complains, and WHS regulators in each state and territory can inspect, issue notices and prosecute. A report to the regulator is not a personal claim and produces no remedy for you individually, but it can force systemic change and it creates a record.

Workers compensation is the pathway for psychological injury. If bullying has caused a diagnosed condition, a claim can cover medical treatment and lost wages. Psychological injury claims are more contested than physical ones and reasonable management action is a defence there too, so medical evidence and the contemporaneous record matter enormously.

General protections claims cover adverse action taken against you because you exercised a workplace right — including making a complaint about your employment. If the bullying intensified, hours were cut, or you were dismissed after you complained, that sequence is the substance of a general protections claim, and compensation is available. Time limits are short where a dismissal is involved.

Unfair dismissal applies if you were dismissed, including where you were forced to resign because the employer's conduct left you no reasonable alternative. Constructive dismissal is genuinely hard to establish and the time limit is short and strictly applied, which is another reason not to rely on resigning as a strategy.

Discrimination complaints go to the Australian Human Rights Commission or to a state or territory equal opportunity body, and cover behaviour connected to a protected attribute. These processes are conciliation-based, compensation is available, and they can run alongside other claims in some circumstances.

Sexual harassment now has its own dedicated pathway in the Commission, with the ability to seek orders and, unlike bullying, compensation. There is also a positive duty on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment, which shifts the focus from responding to complaints to preventing conduct.

Choosing between them is not always exclusive but it is not free either — some pathways bar others once commenced, and time limits differ sharply. This is the point at which free advice from a union, a community legal centre or the Fair Work Ombudsman's advice line is worth more than any amount of reading.

Employers should treat a bullying complaint as a WHS matter, not just an HR one. The duty is to eliminate or minimise the risk so far as is reasonably practicable, which means acting on what you know, controlling the hazard while you investigate, and not leaving the complainant working under the same conditions for months while a process runs.

Investigate properly or not at all. A poorly run investigation — no terms of reference, no natural justice, no written outcome, an investigator with a conflict — damages both parties and frequently becomes the substance of a later claim. If internal capability is thin, an external investigator is cheaper than the alternative.

Do not respond to a complaint with performance management. Even where performance concerns are genuine and predate the complaint, initiating disciplinary steps immediately after a complaint is the fact pattern that converts a bullying matter into a general protections claim with compensation attached.

Interim measures should reduce risk without punishing the complainant. Moving the person who complained to a worse role or a different site while the alleged bully continues unaffected reads as retaliation regardless of intent, and is routinely treated that way.

If you have been accused, take it seriously and get advice, but do not assume it is career-ending. Reasonable management action carried out reasonably is not bullying, and many complaints resolve on the basis that the conduct was legitimate but the manner was poor. What damages respondents is retaliating, contacting the complainant directly, or discussing the matter with colleagues.

Respondents are entitled to know the substance of the allegations and to respond before findings are made. Ask for the allegations in writing, take time to respond, and keep your own record. Support is available through employee assistance programs for respondents as well as complainants.

For both sides, the practical reality is that most matters settle on arrangements rather than findings. Coming to a conference with realistic proposals about reporting lines, communication and supervision resolves matters that a fight over whether it was 'really' bullying will not.