Hi Renata – My boss is bullying me at work. What are my rights and what can I do about it?
Psychosocial hazards such as bullying and violence are serious hazards that can have serious negative outcomes – your employer has a duty to proactively eliminate or reduce such hazards. Obviously, when your boss is the bully, they are unlikely to comply with this duty.
Although there is no specific bullying legislation in the OHS Act it is covered as part of the general employer duty of care set out at s.21. The Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 further define your employer’s duties to identify, assess, control and review psychosocial hazards in the workplace. Bullying is a psychosocial hazard.
Do you have an HSR (employee health and safety representative) in your workplace? If you do, report this issue to them immediately - we have an action plan for HSRs to deal with workplace bullying.
First, confirm that the behaviour fits the definition of work-related bullying. You can read about bullying on our OHS Reps Bullying – what is it? page and at the WorkSafe Workplace Bullying page under the Employee resources section. You will also find at that WorkSafe page a Pocket guide to workplace bullying and a guide on What to do if workplace bullying happens to you. It may be that the behaviours exhibited by your boss do not meet the strict definition of bullying - particularly if it’s not repeated behaviour - but that doesn’t mean incivility or undermining behaviour should go unaddressed.
Also be aware that reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner to address staff issue (e.g. around performance expectations, lateness etc) does not meet the definition of bullying.
There are several other psychosocial hazards that may lead to or co-exist with bullying, such as High and low job demands, Aggression or violence, Low role clarity, Poor workplace relationships, Sexual harassment and Poor organisational justice. You can learn more about managing these psychosocial hazards in the Compliance Code: Psychological Health.
Familiarise yourself with your workplace policy and procedure for the reporting of bullying. Be aware that bullying is an OHS hazard and not just a personal grievance or personal dispute – many employers will try to frame it that way to force employees to follow an HR process rather than the OHS process.
Write down everything that has happened and keep a record of any future incidents as they happen. Include as much as you can remember such as dates, locations, witnesses, what happened etc.
Report the incident/s using your organisation’s incident/injury reporting process. If your reporting process requires or defaults to all reports going directly through your boss, obviously that will make the process difficult if there are no provisions in company policy for a work-around. I recommend that you and your HSR or union organiser report the issue at a higher level if possible.
Once a workplace hazard is reported your employer has a duty to follow the OHS issue resolution process. Employers must consult with HSRs and employees in following the issue resolution process and developing controls to resolve the hazard. HSRs have rights and powers to take issues up with management and follow through to resolve safety issues.
If you don’t have an HSR, I strongly recommend contacting your union for support, advice, and representation. You can also call the WorkSafe advisory service 1800 136 089 to discuss this matter.
Bullying is also an industrial relations issue, with specific provisions applicable to bullying appearing in the Fair Work Act (Commonwealth). Since 1 January 2014, if a worker is being bullied at work, he or she has been able to apply to the national industrial commission (the Fair Work Commission) for an 'order' to stop that bullying. The changes to the legislation mean that the Commission must respond to such an application two weeks after it is received. Orders may be anything from directing the bullying behaviour to stop, to ensuring that all staff undergo anti-bullying training. The changes are designed to make sure workers who are bullied have access to fair, fast, and effective mechanisms that will resolve the situation.
You can take the FWC's anti-bullying eligibility quiz. If you're eligible to apply for a stop bullying order, you can lodge a stop bullying application with the FWC. You can also get free legal advice (if eligible) about general protections or bullying from the FWC’s Workplace Advice Service.
We recommend that you join your union for holistic industrial and OHS advice and support.
If you have any questions about OHS we encourage to fill out an Ask Renata query and one of our officials will get back to you shortly. Alternatively give Ask Renatabot a try!