Workplace Bullying as a Psychosocial Hazard: What Employers Need to Know
Workplace bullying and harassment are not just culture problems. Under Australian work health and safety law, they are recognised psychosocial hazards. Hence, every person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) has a legal obligation to identify, assess and control them.
Psychological injury claims tied to workplace bullying and harassment now represent 39.5% of all mental injury claims in 2025 – and 39.5% of all active workers’ compensation claims for FY2025. Yet despite increasing regulatory scrutiny, harmful behaviours remain among the most poorly managed psychosocial hazards in Australian workplaces.
This guide covers what workplace bullying and harassment actually are, how they sit within the psychosocial hazard framework, and what your obligations are as an employer or PCBU.
What is workplace bullying?
Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety. The key word is repeated: a single incident of unreasonable behaviour, while serious, does not meet the legal definition of workplace bullying.
Bullying can be overt or subtle. It does not have to be loud or aggressive to be harmful — in fact, the less visible forms are often the most damaging because they go unchallenged for longer.
Examples of bullying behaviour include:
• Aggressive, threatening or intimidating behaviour
• Verbal abuse, belittling or public humiliation
• Excluding someone from work-related activities or decisions
• Deliberately withholding information a person needs to do their job
• Giving someone meaningless, degrading or impossible tasks
• Taking credit for someone else's work
• Persistent unreasonable criticism or impossible deadlines
• Spreading rumours or gossip about a colleague
• Cyberbullying through work platforms, email or messaging tools
Is workplace bullying a psychosocial hazard?
Yes — and it has been since the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations were updated in 2022 to explicitly include psychosocial hazards as a distinct category of workplace risk.
Workplace bullying falls under the broader category of harmful behaviours in the psychosocial hazard framework, alongside harassment, aggression and violence. These are defined as behaviours that create a risk to psychological health, and PCBUs are required to manage them with the same rigour as physical hazards.
This is a significant shift. Previously, bullying was often treated as an interpersonal issue or an HR problem. The 2022 regulatory changes make clear that it is a critical work health and safety issue that carries legal obligations.
Bullying vs harassment: what’s the difference?
Bullying and harassment are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct legal meanings.
Bullyingis characterised by repeated, unreasonable behaviour. It does not have to be linked to a protected attribute to be unlawful — the pattern of behaviour itself is the hazard.
Harassmentinvolves behaviour that is unwelcome and related to a characteristic protected by discrimination law — such as age, gender, race, disability, religion or sexual orientation. Unlike bullying, harassment can occur as a single incident or an ongoing pattern of behaviour.
Sexual harassment carries additional obligations under the Respect at Work legislation, which was significantly strengthened in 2023. Employers now have a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment — not just respond to it.
Both bullying and harassment fall under the harmful behaviours category of the psychosocial hazard framework, and PCBUs must manage both.
Examples of bullying and harassment at work
Understanding what bullying and harassment actually look like in practice is essential for identifying them early. Many harmful behaviours go unrecognised because they have become normalised, or because they do not match the stereotype of overt aggression.
Bullying examples:
A manager who consistently undermines a team member in front of colleagues
A colleague who excludes someone from team events or informal social groups
Someone who takes credit for another person's work in front of leadership
A supervisor who sets impossible deadlines or constantly moves the goalposts
A team member who spreads rumours about a colleague or shares personal information without consent
Harassment examples:
Jokes or comments targeting someone's age, race, gender, disability or religion
Unwanted physical contact or sexually suggestive comments
Deliberately misgendering a colleague after being corrected
Making assumptions about someone's capabilities based on their background
What are your obligations as a PCBU?
Under the model WHS laws, PCBUs must manage the risk of psychosocial hazards — including bullying and harassment — so far as is reasonably practicable. This means:
Identifying whether bullying and harassment are present or likely in your workplace
Assessing the risk — considering the nature, frequency and severity of exposure
Implementing control measures to eliminate or minimise the risk
Reviewing those controls to make sure they are working
This is a proactive duty. Waiting for a formal complaint before taking action is not sufficient. If there are signs that harmful behaviours are occurring, even without a formal report, you are expected to act.
The duty also extends to how workplace bullying is managed once identified. Responses must be prompt, fair and confidential. Workers who raise concerns must be protected from retaliation.
How to identify bullying and harassment in your workplace
One of the most consistent findings in workplace psychosocial research is that bullying is significantly underreported — particularly when the perpetrator is in a position of authority. This means you cannot rely on formal complaints as your primary indicator. You need to actively look for the signs.
What workers say:
Workers experiencing bullying and harassment often do not name it directly. Instead, they may say they feel stressed, anxious, afraid, isolated or dreading coming to work. They may raise concerns about a specific person or team dynamic without using the word bullying. These signals matter.
What you can observe:
Increased absenteeism or turnover in a specific team or under a specific manager
Workers who have become withdrawn or are no longer raising concerns
Decreased performance, increased errors or missed deadlines
A team that appears to have an in-group and an out-group
Workers not attending optional team events or social activities
Silence is often the loudest signal. If workers in a particular team have stopped raising concerns altogether, that is not a sign that everything is fine.
How to prevent and manage harmful behaviours
Effective management of bullying and harassment requires both structural controls and cultural conditions. Policies alone are not enough — if the culture does not support people to speak up, even the best policies will fail.
Structural controls:
Clear, accessible policies on bullying and harassment that define expected behaviours
Confidential reporting mechanisms that workers actually trust
A fair and transparent investigation process for when complaints are made
Consequences that are applied consistently, regardless of the perpetrator's seniority
Building the right culture:
Manager capability training — managers are both the most common perpetrators and the most important line of prevention
Regular team-level conversations about psychological safety and acceptable behaviour
Leadership that models the standard it expects from others
A genuine commitment to taking concerns seriously and respectfully
When a concern is raised, how you respond matters as much as the outcome. Workers who feel their concern was handled well are far more likely to report in the future. Workers who feel dismissed or retaliated against rarely report again.
Manager capability is one of the highest-leverage interventions available. Better Learning's psychosocial safety training is designed to build exactly this — practical capability for managers and HR teams to identify, respond to, and prevent harmful behaviours.
The bottom line
Workplace bullying and harassment are not soft issues. They are legally recognised psychosocial hazards that cause real psychological and physical harm, and PCBUs have a duty to manage them proactively, not reactively.
Effectively managing workplace bullying as a psychosocial hazard starts with building organisational capability before harmful behaviours escalate. That means investing in your managers and HR professionals with the tools and frameworks to act with confidence.
Better Learning helps organisations build that capability — practically and in line with WHS obligations.
