Harassment and bullying at work FAQs

The main difference between bullying and harassment is that harassment is linked to a protected characteristic, whereas bullying is not.

Harassment is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010 when unwanted behaviour relates to a protected characteristic such as sex, race, disability, age, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.

Bullying can involve similar harmful behaviours — such as intimidation, humiliation, or aggression — but it is not legally defined and is not tied to a protected characteristic, though employers must still address it under general health and safety and duty-of-care obligations.

Harassment and bullying can be verbal, non-verbal, written, physical, or digital. Examples include insults, threats, exclusion, spreading rumours, offensive jokes, intrusive questioning, unwanted physical contact, displaying or sending offensive material, and repeated negative comments about someone’s work or personal characteristics. They can occur in person, via email, messaging apps, social media, or any other form of communication.

Examples of bullying and harassment at work can include a wide range of behaviours that intimidate, undermine, humiliate, or offend someone. These may be obvious or subtle, one-off or repeated. Examples include:

• Shouting, swearing at, or aggressively criticising someone.
• Spreading rumours, gossip, or deliberately excluding someone from work activities.
• Undermining a person’s work by withholding information or setting them up to fail.
• Mocking, belittling, or making demeaning comments about someone’s appearance, personality, or abilities.
• Sending hostile, threatening, or inappropriate messages.
• Displaying offensive material such as images or jokes.
• Unwelcome physical contact, invading personal space, or intimidating body language.
• Making repeated unwanted comments, advances, or suggestions.
• Persistently overloading someone with work or deliberately giving demeaning tasks.

The difference lies in intent, fairness, and impact.

Firm management involves setting clear expectations, giving constructive feedback, managing performance, and addressing issues fairly and proportionately. It is task-focused, justified by business needs, applied consistently, and aimed at improving work or behaviour.

Bullying is unreasonable, intimidating, or humiliating behaviour that goes beyond legitimate management. It is often personal rather than task-focused, repeated or persistent, disproportionate, and creates a hostile or degrading environment.

Yes. A single incident can be enough to qualify as harassment.

Under the Equality Act 2010, harassment does not have to be repeated. A one-off incident may be unlawful if it is serious enough to violate someone’s dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.

This often applies where the conduct is particularly severe, for example:

• A sexually explicit comment or gesture
• Unwanted physical contact
• A serious verbal threat or humiliating remark

Tribunals look at the nature of the behaviour, its impact, and the context, not just whether it happened more than once.

Direct harassment is unwanted conduct aimed at a specific person that violates their dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. This might include sexual comments, jokes, touching, or messages directed at an individual.

Environmental harassment occurs when the overall workplace atmosphere is hostile or sexualised, even if the behaviour isn’t targeted at one person. Examples include sexualised banter, explicit posters, repeated jokes, or normalised inappropriate behaviour that makes people feel uncomfortable.

Direct harassment is person-focused, while environmental harassment is about a toxic setting that affects anyone exposed to it.

In a harassment claim, the law focuses on effect, not intent.

Under the Equality Act 2010, behaviour can be harassment if it has the effect of violating someone’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment, even if the person did not intend that outcome.

When deciding this, a tribunal looks at:

• How the behaviour affected the individual
• Whether it was reasonable for it to have that effect
• The wider context, including power dynamics and workplace culture

This means comments or actions described as a “joke,” “banter,” or “well-meant” can still be unlawful if they reasonably caused offence or distress.

Under the Equality Act 2010, victimisation occurs when someone is treated unfairly because they have taken, or are believed to have taken, action to enforce their equality rights.

This includes situations where a person is disadvantaged because they have:

• Made a complaint of discrimination or harassment
• Supported someone else’s complaint
• Given evidence or information in relation to a complaint
• Raised concerns about equality rights, even informally

Yes. Harassment does not have to come from your boss or a colleague.

Under UK law, harassment can be carried out by anyone you encounter through your work, including clients, customers, service users, contractors, or members of the public.

Employers may be legally responsible if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent or deal with this behaviour, particularly under the strengthened duties introduced by the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023.

Third-party harassment is harassment of an employee by someone who is not their colleague or employer, such as a customer, client, service user, contractor, or member of the public.

Under UK law, employers can be responsible for third-party harassment if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent it. This duty has been strengthened by the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, which introduces a positive duty to take proactive, preventative measures.

This means employers should:

• Assess where third-party harassment risks are likely
• Put controls in place (policies, reporting routes, staff training)
• Act promptly and effectively when issues arise

Yes. Under UK law, including the Equality Act 2010, behaviour can still amount to harassment or bullying when it happens:

• Online (emails, messaging apps, video calls)
• During virtual meetings
• Outside normal hours, if it is work-related

Employers’ duties to prevent harassment and protect staff apply wherever work is carried out. This includes managing conduct in digital communications and addressing behaviour that creates a hostile or intimidating environment, even if people are not physically together.

To prove bullying at work you need to gather clear, consistent evidence that shows a pattern of unreasonable, offensive, or intimidating behaviour.

Useful forms of evidence include dated emails, messages, meeting notes, performance records, witness statements, screenshots, incident logs, and any written complaints previously raised. Keeping a detailed diary of incidents — including what happened, when, where, who was present, and how it affected your work — can strengthen your case.

Demonstrating that the behaviour was repeated and had a negative impact on your wellbeing, dignity, or ability to do your job is key.

Harassment may be a criminal offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which makes it illegal to pursue a course of conduct that causes someone alarm or distress. Physical assault, threats of violence, stalking, and malicious communications may also amount to criminal offences under other laws.

Under the Equality Act 2010, harassment is also unlawful when it relates to a protected characteristic (such as sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, age, gender reassignment, or pregnancy and maternity). While the Equality Act is a civil law rather than a criminal one, conduct that meets the threshold for harassment under this Act may also overlap with criminal offences where behaviour is severe or threatening.

Bullying, although not specifically defined in criminal law, may become a criminal matter if it involves assault, threats, harassment, or other behaviour prohibited by legislation such as the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Yes, you can take legal action against your employer for workplace bullying and harassment, but how you do so depends on the type of behaviour and the legal route available.

If the behaviour meets the legal definition of harassment under the Equality Act 2010 (i.e., unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic such as sex, race, disability, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, or pregnancy/maternity), you may bring a claim to an Employment Tribunal for harassment.

If the behaviour does not relate to a protected characteristic but amounts to serious mistreatment, you may still be able to act through other legal routes (for example, claiming constructive dismissal, personal injury, or breach of the employer’s duty of care).

In most cases, a harassment claim must be brought to an Employment Tribunal within 3 months less one day of the incident.

Key points:

• The time limit usually runs from the last act of harassment.
• If the harassment is part of a continuing course of conduct, the clock starts from the most recent incident.
• Before submitting a claim, the claimant must contact ACAS Early Conciliation, which pauses (“stops the clock”) on the time limit while conciliation takes place.

Tribunals can extend time limits only in limited circumstances, where it was not reasonably practicable to bring the claim in time or where it is just and equitable to do so.

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 strengthens the law by introducing a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment at work.

Employers must now take reasonable and proportionate steps to reduce the risk of sexual harassment, including by third parties such as customers or clients.

The Act also gives the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) stronger powers to enforce compliance, and employment tribunals can increase compensation by up to 25% where an employer has breached the duty.

The new “positive duty” to prevent sexual harassment requires employers to take proactive steps to stop harassment before it happens, not just respond to complaints.

Under the Equality Act 2010, as amended by the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, employers must take reasonable and proportionate measures to prevent sexual harassment at work. This includes assessing risk, putting effective policies and training in place, and regularly reviewing whether controls are working.

• An effective way to prevent bullying and harassment is to create a workplace culture where unacceptable behaviour is clearly defined, consistently challenged, and never ignored. This involves setting clear standards through a well-communicated policy, providing regular bullying and harassment training for all staff, encouraging open reporting without fear of retaliation, and ensuring managers respond quickly and fairly to concerns.

  Strong leadership, visible commitment to respect and inclusion, and early intervention are key to preventing issues from escalating and maintaining a safe, supportive working environment.

If the council is responsible for the property, Awaab’s Law protections apply regardless of how temporary the accommodation is intended to be.

A bullying and harassment policy is an organisation’s formal commitment to preventing, addressing, and managing unacceptable behaviour at work. It sets out clear definitions of bullying and harassment, provides examples of prohibited conduct, outlines how employees can report concerns, and explains how complaints will be investigated and resolved.

The policy also establishes expected standards of behaviour, supports a safe and respectful workplace culture, and ensures employees understand their responsibilities and the consequences of misconduct.

An informal resolution is a way of addressing a workplace issue without starting a formal grievance or disciplinary process. It usually involves a direct conversation, mediation, or early intervention to resolve the problem quickly and proportionately.

It is appropriate where:

• The behaviour is low-level or isolated
• There is no immediate risk to health, safety, or wellbeing
• The person affected wants to resolve it informally
• The issue appears to stem from misunderstanding or poor communication, rather than deliberate misconduct

Examples include asking for the behaviour to stop, a manager having an informal conversation, or using mediation.

Informal resolution is not appropriate where the behaviour is serious, repeated, involves abuse of power, or where the person affected feels unsafe or fearful.

If you witness a colleague being bullied, it’s important to act safely, supportively, and appropriately.

You can:

• Check in with the colleague privately to offer support and see how they want to proceed
• Encourage them to report it, and explain the options available (manager, HR, union, or formal policy)
• Challenge the behaviour calmly if it’s safe to do so, focusing on what’s inappropriate rather than who’s at fault
• Record what you’ve seen, including dates, behaviour, and any witnesses
• Report the behaviour yourself if your workplace allows this, especially if the person affected feels unable to speak up

Avoid confronting the bully aggressively or sharing the issue widely.

Bullying and harassment can amount to gross misconduct if the behaviour is serious, deliberate, or repeated, and if it breaches workplace standards, policies, or the implied duty of mutual trust and confidence.

Employers commonly classify acts such as intimidation, threats, humiliation, discrimination, or sustained inappropriate behaviour as gross misconduct because they can cause significant harm to individuals and the wider organisation. In such cases, disciplinary action (including dismissal) may be justified following a fair investigation and procedure.