Workplace Bullying

Repeated, health-harming mistreatment at work — verbal abuse, humiliation, intimidation, or work sabotage — that falls short of illegal harassment but is increasingly recognized as a serious problem.

Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behavior directed at an employee or group of employees that creates a risk of physical or psychological harm. Unlike illegal harassment, bullying doesn't have to target a protected characteristic — a boss who screams at subordinates, publicly humiliates them, excludes them from meetings, or sabotages their work is engaging in bullying even if they do it regardless of gender, race, or age. This distinction is why workplace bullying is largely unaddressed by US federal law: there's no general federal statute prohibiting it, unlike most peer countries.

Bullying behaviors fall into several patterns: verbal abuse (yelling, insults, put-downs), work sabotage (withholding information, setting impossible deadlines, undercutting work), social exclusion (excluding someone from meetings, social events, communication), and intimidation (threatening behavior, invasion of personal space, glaring). The defining feature is persistence — most definitions require that the behavior be repeated rather than an isolated incident. Severity, power imbalance, and the target's inability to defend themselves are also characteristic.

The consequences of workplace bullying are documented and serious: higher rates of anxiety, depression, PTSD, sleep disorders, and physical health problems in targets; higher absenteeism and turnover for employers. The Healthy Workplace Bill, model legislation proposed in many states, would create a civil cause of action for bullying-based employment injury, but as of 2024 no state has passed it. Targets do have some options: if the bullying overlaps with protected characteristics it may constitute illegal harassment; retaliation for protected activity is illegal; and some states have general duty of care requirements.

Bullying vs. Harassment vs. Difficult Management

The distinctions matter because they determine what remedies are available. Harassment is mistreatment tied to a protected characteristic — race, sex, age, disability — and is illegal under federal and state law. Bullying is repeated mistreatment that doesn't target a protected characteristic: equally damaging, but largely unaddressed by US federal law. Difficult management — high standards, blunt feedback, demanding deadlines, visible frustration — is uncomfortable but not bullying; the key question is whether the behavior is aimed at improving performance or aimed at demeaning a person. A manager who applies pressure consistently to the whole team is being demanding. A manager who singles out one person for public humiliation, withholds information from them, or sabotages their work without cause is bullying. Micromanagement and harsh criticism, on their own, don't meet the threshold — persistence, targeting, and the effect of undermining rather than developing are what distinguish it.

What You Can Do

  • Document every incident: date, what was said/done, witnesses, any electronic trail.
  • Report to HR — even where there's no legal obligation to investigate bullying, many companies have dignity at work or respect policies that cover it.
  • Consult an employment attorney to evaluate whether the behavior crosses into legally actionable territory (harassment, retaliation, IIED).
  • Use EAP (Employee Assistance Program) if available — therapy and counseling resources can help with the psychological impact.
  • Assess whether the company is likely to act: if leadership is aware and enabling, external options (OSHA general duty, attorney review, departure) may be more realistic than internal resolution.

Example

A senior engineer who consistently excludes a junior colleague from technical discussions, assigns them impossible deadlines, and publicly ridicules their ideas in code review — targeting no protected characteristic, just one person they dislike — is engaging in workplace bullying. It's harmful, it's documented, but under US law it's not yet illegal.