Examples Of Personal Harassment At Work

The examples of personal harassment at work hardest to address are the ones where every individual act is defensible.

• Asking a question you know the person cannot answer, in front of others.
• Copying a manager into an email that did not need it.
• Correcting a small error publicly and a large one privately for everyone else.
• Agreeing to something verbally, then behaving as though it was never agreed.
• Praising work in a tone that makes it sound surprising.
• Booking over someone’s known commitments, repeatedly, with an apology each time.

Each is a reasonable act performed at somebody’s expense. A policy written in terms of prohibited behaviour will not catch any of them.

What catches them is pattern and direction. One person, repeatedly, in ways that do not happen to anyone else.

Safe Work Australia covers the duty. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s respect at work training and workplace policy templates.