Australians pride themselves on a fair go. It’s practically stitched into the national identity. Yet the reality inside many Australian workplaces tells a different story, one that a surprising number of workers know all too well.
Australia and New Zealand have some of the highest rates of workplace harassment in the world. Nearly 47.9% of Australian and New Zealand workers have experienced workplace harassment, compared to a global average of just 21%.
Let that sink in for a moment. That’s almost one in every two workers. If you’ve ever left work feeling humiliated, threatened, or belittled by someone’s words, you’re far from alone. And no, you don’t have to put up with it.
This guide covers what verbal abuse in the workplace is, how to spot it, what Australian law says about it, and what both employees and employers can do about it, including how platforms like Sentrient help organisations get serious about workplace compliance.
What Is Verbal Abuse In The Workplace?
Verbal abuse in the workplace isn’t about a boss raising their voice once because the quarterly numbers came in badly. We’ve all had those days.
Verbal abuse in the workplace is a pattern of behaviour where one person uses their words to control, demean, or intimidate another. It’s a power imbalance, and the intent is to cause harm.
Think of it this way: a healthy workplace communicates openly, even during conflict. Verbal abuse shuts down that communication entirely and creates an environment where people walk on eggshells. It can come from a manager, a colleague, or even a subordinate.
The key is pattern. A single heated comment in an otherwise respectful relationship is very different from repeated, targeted behaviour designed to make someone feel worthless, afraid, or incompetent.
That distinction matters legally, too, as we’ll cover shortly.
How Common Is Verbal Abuse at Work in Australia?
The numbers are genuinely alarming, and they deserve attention.
According to Safe Work Australia’s 2024 report, there has been a 56% increase in serious workers’ compensation claims for assault and exposure to workplace violence over the last five years. A 2023 survey also found that 87% of workers reported experiencing verbal abuse from a customer within the previous 12 months.
In a survey of healthcare professionals, teachers, and police working in rural and remote Australia, 57% of respondents reported experiencing verbal abuse from community members in the past 12 months.
Among women or gender diverse respondents surveyed in the ACT, 81% reported being verbally abused or bullied at work.
These aren’t fringe statistics. Verbal abuse is happening across industries, from hospitals and schools to retail counters and construction sites.
What Does Verbal Abuse in the Workplace Look Like?
Verbal abuse isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s quiet, targeted, and completely invisible to everyone standing two metres away.
Examples include being sworn at, threatened, insulted, continually inappropriate and/or invalid criticism, name-calling, unjustified threats of punishment, belittling and humiliation, gossip and malicious rumours, inappropriate language, and yelling.
Here’s a closer look at the most common forms it takes in Australian workplaces.
Constant, Targeted Criticism
This goes far beyond constructive feedback. It’s a relentless stream of negative comments about someone’s work, personality, or abilities, often delivered in front of others, specifically to cause humiliation.
A manager who says, “This report isn’t quite right, here’s what to improve”, is doing their job. A manager who says, “You’re useless, I don’t know why we hired you”, every single week? That’s verbal abuse.
Humiliation and Sarcasm Disguised as Humour
The abuser uses jokes, teasing, or sarcastic remarks to make you feel small or foolish. They might joke about your appearance, intelligence, or personal life, often disguising their cruelty as humour.
The old “I was just joking; can’t you take a joke?” line is one of the most common deflections abusers use. If the “joke” always targets the same person and always makes them feel awful, it isn’t a joke anymore.
Threats and Intimidation
Threats can be direct (“If you don’t do this, you’ll be fired”) or indirect (“You know what happened to the last person who crossed me?”).
Threats don’t need to be shouted to cause damage. A calm, quiet threat delivered in a one-on-one meeting can be just as terrifying.
Yelling and Swearing
This one tends to be easier to identify. If someone regularly screams at employees, uses foul language in an aggressive manner, or has explosive outbursts that leave staff feeling scared, that behaviour qualifies as verbal abuse.
It’s not “just passion.” It’s not “just the industry.” It’s not acceptable.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a particularly insidious form of verbal abuse. The abuser manipulates the target into questioning their own sanity and reality. They might deny things they said, twist events, or make the other person believe they are overreacting.
Gaslighting is especially damaging because it erodes the target’s confidence in their own perceptions. Victims often blame themselves and hesitate to report what’s happening.
Spreading Rumours and Malicious Gossip
Negative behaviours like spreading gossip or excessive criticism also count as verbal abuse, as does treating someone badly when they return to work after illness.
Rumour-spreading might seem like low-level behaviour, but when it’s targeted, repeated, and designed to damage someone’s professional reputation, it causes serious harm.
Verbal Abuse vs. Workplace Bullying: What’s The Difference?
Short answer: Verbal abuse is often a form of workplace bullying, but the two aren’t identical.
Workplace bullying is characterised as verbal, physical, psychological, or social abuse directed at another person. According to the Fair Work Commission, workplace bullying also happens more than once and is considered a health and safety risk.
Verbal abuse specifically involves the use of words spoken, written (like emails or messages), or implied through tone to cause harm. Physical intimidation, social exclusion, and work sabotage fall under the wider bullying umbrella.
The important overlap is this: both are patterns of unreasonable behaviour that damage a person’s health and safety. Both carry serious legal consequences in Australia.
What Australian Law Says About Verbal Abuse at Work
Australia takes workplace verbal abuse seriously, and employers who ignore it can face significant legal and financial consequences.
The Fair Work Act 2009
The Fair Work Act 2009 provides the primary legal framework for dealing with workplace bullying in Australia. Under this Act, bullying occurs when a person or group repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards another worker.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is the national workplace relations tribunal that deals with applications to stop workplace bullying under the Fair Work Act.
Workers who experience verbal abuse that constitutes bullying can apply to the FWC for an order to stop the behaviour. The FWC doesn’t provide financial compensation through this pathway, but it does have the power to intervene and stop ongoing abuse.
Work Health and Safety Laws
Under the model WHS laws, persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) must manage the health and safety risks posed by workplace violence and aggression from workers and other people at the workplace, such as customers and clients.
What this means in plain English: if you run a business and someone in your team is being verbally abused, that’s a workplace health and safety risk. You have a legal obligation to address it, not just hope it resolves on its own.
Anti-Discrimination Laws
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) accepts complaints about workplace bullying, harassment or discrimination covered by federal discrimination laws, including sex, disability, race and age discrimination.
If the verbal abuse ties to a protected characteristic such as someone’s gender, race, disability, age, or religion, it may also constitute unlawful discrimination or harassment under federal or state anti-discrimination laws.
Victoria’s New Psychosocial Regulations (2025)
The Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 came into effect in Victoria on 1 December 2025. These regulations require employers to identify and control psychosocial hazards and risks, and review and revise risk control measures for psychosocial hazards in certain circumstances.
Victoria is leading the way in explicitly requiring employers to treat psychological safety with the same rigour as physical safety. Other states are watching closely.
The Real-World Impact of Verbal Abuse
Beyond the legal consequences, verbal abuse causes genuine, measurable harm to people’s lives.
Verbal abuse can seriously affect professional growth. It can make employees dread going to work, impact their performance, and even force them to leave jobs they once loved. Studies show that employees who feel unsafe in their workplaces tend to withdraw from colleagues and exhibit higher absenteeism rates.
Research shows that stress from verbal abuse changes how our bodies react, leading to an elevated fight-or-flight response even when it’s not needed.
Common signs someone is experiencing the impact of verbal abuse include:
- Dreading going to work or interacting with specific people
- Physical symptoms like headaches, sleep problems, or stomach issues
- Reduced confidence and self-esteem
- Withdrawing from colleagues or social activities
- Increased absences from work
- A significant drop in productivity or job satisfaction
For organisations, the cost adds up fast. High absenteeism, staff turnover, low morale, workers’ compensation claims, and potential legal proceedings all eat directly into the bottom line. A toxic culture is far more expensive than fixing the problem early.
Who Can Be Guilty of Verbal Abuse at Work?
Here’s something many people don’t expect: the abuser isn’t always someone in a position of authority.
Yes, managers and supervisors who verbally abuse their teams are the most discussed scenario. But verbal abuse can flow in any direction:
- Manager-to-employee: the most recognised form. Using authority to demean, threaten, or control a team member.
- Colleague to colleague: Horizontal abuse between peers. Just as damaging, and often harder to address because there’s no clear power imbalance.
- Employee to manager: Less common, but it happens. Repeated verbal aggression directed upward.
- Customer or client to employee: Some jobs have a high incidence of lower-level violence, such as verbal abuse of workers in fast-food outlets, although such incidents rarely have severe outcomes. But frequency doesn’t make it acceptable.
- Group-based: Sometimes called “mobbing,” where a group collectively targets one individual.
The source of the abuse doesn’t change the impact on the person experiencing it.
What To Do If You’re Experiencing Verbal Abuse at Work
If verbal abuse is happening to you, here are concrete steps to take, not vague encouragement, but actual actions.
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Document Everything
Keep a detailed record of every incident. Write down the date, time, what was said, who was present, and how it affected you. Save any relevant emails or messages. This documentation is valuable if you decide to escalate the matter.
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Talk to the Person (If It’s Safe To Do So)
Sometimes people genuinely don’t realise their behaviour is crossing a line, particularly with things like sarcastic “jokes” or dismissive language. A calm, direct conversation may resolve the issue. However, only do this if you feel safe. If the person has made threats or the behaviour is severe, skip this step.
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Report It Internally
Speak to your HR department, a senior manager, or your workplace’s nominated contact person for bullying and harassment. Your workplace has a responsibility to protect your health and safety. This includes preventing and dealing with workplace bullying. If you report bullying or are involved in a bullying report, you can expect your workplace to respond quickly, treat your report seriously, and treat everyone involved fairly.
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Escalate to External Bodies
If internal reporting doesn’t resolve the issue, you have options:
- Fair Work Commission: Apply for an order to stop bullying under the Fair Work Act.
- Your state or territory’s WHS regulator: WorkSafe Victoria, SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe QLD, and their equivalents, handle complaints where verbal abuse creates a health and safety risk.
- Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC): If the abuse relates to discrimination.
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Seek Support
Don’t carry this alone. Resources available to Australians include:
- Beyond Blue: Free mental health support: 1300 22 4636
- Lifeline: 24/7 crisis support: 13 11 14
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): Many employers offer free, confidential counselling through EAP services. Check if yours does.
What Employers Must Do About Verbal Abuse
If you’re an employer, a manager, or an HR professional, this section is for you. The law places clear duties on your shoulders, and “we weren’t aware” is not a defence.
Workplace violence may not always begin in a critical or extreme situation; it sometimes follows a pattern of escalating behaviour from agitation, expressed anger or frustration, and intimidating body language to verbal abuse and threats, physical threats or assault.
Acting early before things escalate is always better than managing a crisis. Here’s what good practice looks like.
Have Clear Policies in Place
You need a written workplace behaviour policy that defines what verbal abuse is, makes clear it won’t be tolerated, and explains how people can report it. Staff should read and acknowledge this policy, not just have it buried in a folder somewhere.
Train Your People
Training isn’t optional. Train workers to be aware of what to do in potentially violent situations and to predict, prevent, and manage aggression.
This applies to all levels. Managers need specific training on how to respond to reports and how to avoid crossing the line themselves.
Create Reporting Mechanisms
People need a safe, confidential way to report verbal abuse. If the only option is to tell the manager and the manager is the abuser, the system has already failed.
Take Reports Seriously and Act Promptly
When someone reports verbal abuse, investigate it properly. Take it seriously. Don’t minimise it, don’t dismiss it, and don’t retaliate against the person who came forward.
How Sentrient Helps Australian Workplaces Address Verbal Abuse
Getting your workplace compliance right isn’t easy, especially when you’re trying to run a business at the same time. That’s exactly where Sentrient comes in.
Sentrient is a Melbourne-based provider of workplace compliance training and compliance management software solutions, helping businesses across Australia and New Zealand manage their obligations with confidence and ease. Founded in 2016, Sentrient was created to help businesses meet their compliance requirements without unnecessary complexity.
Sentrient includes Compliance Solutions and GRC Software as part of a broad HR software offering. It can be deployed in just minutes, without the stress of complex system configurations. The platform includes modules to support every stage of the employee lifecycle and comes with pre-loaded, legally endorsed compliance courses, workplace policies, inspection checklists, and ready-made audit reports.
In practical terms, here’s what Sentrient brings to the table for organisations serious about addressing verbal abuse and workplace bullying:
- Legally Endorsed Compliance Training: Sentrient’s online compliance courses are legally endorsed and kept up to date as legislation changes. They are short, sharp, and to the point, and can be completed within 15–20 minutes per topic. That includes courses on workplace bullying, equal employment opportunity (EEO), work health and safety, and more.
- HR Policy Templates: Sentrient provides ready-made, legally sound HR policy and procedure templates. You can adapt them to suit your organisation and assign them directly to staff for review and sign-off.
- Incident Reporting: The Sentrient platform includes an incident reporting tool, a breach register, a whistleblowing feature, a compliance and safety culture survey tool, and ready-made reports for audit purposes. This means when a verbal abuse incident is reported, there’s a proper system in place to capture, track, and respond to it.
- Impressive Results: Sentrient reports time savings of up to 67% and average completion rates up to 220% higher than the industry average.
Two in three businesses achieve 93% compliance within 45 days of using the Sentrient platform.
For HR managers who spend more time on paperwork than people, that’s a meaningful shift.
Whether you’re a small business trying to get the basics right or a large organisation looking to tighten up your compliance processes, Sentrient offers a path to doing so without a team of lawyers or a six-month implementation timeline.
You can request a free demo at sentrient.com.au or call 1300 040 589.
Building a Culture Where Verbal Abuse Can’t Thrive
The best defence against verbal abuse isn’t a policy document sitting in a drawer. It’s a workplace culture where respect is genuinely valued, leaders model good behaviour, and people feel safe to speak up.
That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes deliberate effort from leadership, consistent training, proper reporting systems, and a willingness to act when something goes wrong.
In the end, workplace verbal abuse isn’t something anyone should “suck up” or “deal with.” It’s a serious issue that deserves attention. By understanding it, knowing your rights, and acting, we can work towards creating a truly respectful and safe working environment for all Australians.
The good news? Most workplaces genuinely want to get this right. They just need the right tools and knowledge to do so.
FAQs
What counts as verbal abuse in the Australian workplace?
Verbal abuse in the workplace includes any repeated pattern of behaviour where someone uses words to control, demean, threaten, or intimidate another person. Common examples include being sworn at, threatened, insulted, subjected to continual inappropriate criticism, name-calling, belittling and humiliation, gossip and malicious rumours, and yelling. The key factor is that it happens repeatedly, not just once.
Is verbal abuse at work illegal in Australia?
Yes, in most circumstances it is. Australian law takes workplace bullying, including verbal abuse, very seriously. The Fair Work Act 2009 provides the primary legal framework for dealing with these issues, and every employer has a duty of care to provide a safe working environment, including protecting employees from verbal abuse. State-based WHS laws and anti-discrimination legislation may also apply depending on the circumstances.
What should I do if my boss verbally abuses me at work?
Start by documenting every incident with dates, times, and details of what was said. If you feel safe doing so, address the behaviour directly with your manager. If not, report it to HR or another senior leader. If nothing changes internally, you can escalate to the Fair Work Commission, your state’s WHS regulator, or the Australian Human Rights Commission. You can also seek support through Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) or your workplace’s Employee Assistance Program.
Can you make a complaint about verbal abuse to the Fair Work Commission?
Yes. The Fair Work Commission is the national workplace relations tribunal that deals with applications to stop workplace bullying under the Fair Work Act. You can apply for an order to stop the bullying behaviour. This pathway is available to workers covered by the national workplace relations system. If you’re unsure whether you’re covered, the FWC website has an anti-bullying eligibility quiz.
What’s the difference between verbal abuse and constructive feedback at work?
This is one of the most common questions, and it’s a fair one. Constructive feedback is specific, focuses on the work or behaviour rather than the person, is delivered respectfully, and is aimed at improvement. Verbal abuse is personal, repeated, designed to demean or intimidate, and goes beyond any legitimate management purpose. A one-off cranky comment from a stressed-out manager isn’t abuse. But if that same manager consistently tears you down, undermines your work, or makes you dread coming into the office, you’ve crossed into verbal abuse territory.
Can an employer be held responsible for verbal abuse by their employees?
Absolutely. Employers have a legal duty of care to provide a safe work environment. If an employer knew, or reasonably should have known, about verbal abuse occurring in their workplace and failed to act, they can be held liable. Under the OHS Act, the abuser could be guilty of an offence if prosecuted. Their employer may also be charged for failing to implement preventive measures or for failing to step in.
Does verbal abuse from customers or clients count as a workplace issue?
Yes, it does. Under the model WHS laws, PCBUs must manage the health and safety risks of workplace violence and aggression between workers and from other people at the workplace, like customers and clients. Employers have an obligation to put in place systems that protect employees from abusive behaviour, even when it is committed by members of the public.
How can Sentrient help my business manage compliance with verbal abuse and workplace bullying?
Sentrient provides an all-in-one compliance platform with pre-loaded, legally endorsed compliance courses, workplace policies, inspection checklists, and ready-made audit reports. This includes training on workplace bullying, harassment, and WHS obligations, making it straightforward for businesses of all sizes to meet their legal duties, document their compliance efforts, and build safer workplace cultures. Visit sentrient.com.au to request a free demo.
