Workplace Conduct Concerns: Bullying, Harassment and Disrespect Towards Colleagues

In Australian health care, bullying, harassment and disrespect towards colleagues are dealt with in three overlapping ways. A registered practitioner can be accountable in all three for the same conduct.

• Work health and safety. Bullying and harassment are psychosocial hazards that employers must identify and control like any other risk to health and safety.
• Discrimination and industrial law. Sexual harassment, sex-based harassment and conduct creating a workplace environment that is hostile on the ground of sex are unlawful. Since December 2022 employers have a positive duty under section 47C of the Sex Discrimination Act to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate them, and the Australian Human Rights Commission has had enforcement powers since December 2023. The Fair Work Commission can make orders to stop bullying, and since March 2023 can deal with sexual harassment disputes.
• Professional regulation. Every National Board code expects respectful conduct towards colleagues and students, in person and online. The shared Code of conduct used by twelve Boards since 29 June 2022 added content on bullying and harassment, and the Medical Board and Ahpra issued a joint statement in July 2022 that bullying, harassment and intimidation are unprofessional conduct.

Disrespect between colleagues is also a patient safety issue. Staff who are frightened of a senior colleague stop escalating concerns, stop asking questions and stop speaking up when something looks wrong.

Most workplace conflict, and much bullying, is properly managed by the employer through its own policies and processes. Ahpra and the National Boards are not workplace investigators and do not resolve employment disputes. Regulators generally become involved where behaviour raises concerns about public safety or fitness to practise, or is serious enough to be unprofessional conduct or professional misconduct.

Factors that increase regulatory risk include:

• an escalating pattern rather than a single lapse
• sexual harassment, threats or physical intimidation
• behaviour during clinical care that affects patient safety, such as staff afraid to call for help
• failure to change after local feedback, warnings or performance processes
• misuse of power over students, trainees or junior staff whose assessments and careers depend on you
• conduct online, including in private group chats that later become public

Mandatory notification thresholds focus on four kinds of notifiable conduct: practising while intoxicated, sexual misconduct in connection with practice, impairment that places the public at substantial risk of harm, and a significant departure from accepted professional standards that places the public at risk of harm. Most workplace bullying will not meet them, but some conduct may, and anyone can make a voluntary notification. In New South Wales the Health Care Complaints Commission and the relevant professional council manage complaints; in Queensland the Office of the Health Ombudsman receives complaints and refers some to Ahpra.

Possible regulatory outcomes range from no further action through a caution, an undertaking or conditions (for example education, mentoring or behavioural assessment) to referral to a tribunal for the most serious matters, where a tribunal can reprimand, impose conditions, suspend or cancel registration. If sexual conduct is involved, see our page on sexual boundaries concerns; for wider conduct findings, see unprofessional conduct.

Regulators look for change that is relevant, genuine and sustained, not a collection of certificates. In workplace conduct matters, insight usually means you can explain four things clearly: what happened, the impact it had on the people involved and on patient care, why it happened, and what you are doing differently.

Compare two statements. "I have always had high standards and some staff find that confronting" signals little insight. "I now give corrective feedback privately, after the clinical situation is over, using a structured format, and I have asked the nurse unit manager to tell me if anyone raises concerns" describes a specific, checkable change.

Useful evidence can include feedback from colleagues gathered over time, a coaching or mentoring record, a supervisor's report, and a reflective account that names the behaviour without minimising it. An online course, including ours, can support learning but is not by itself evidence of changed behaviour. If you are subject to a condition, undertaking or direction, confirm with Ahpra or your Board, and with your adviser, whether a particular course is acceptable before relying on it. Our Insight, Reflection and Remediation Program is built around this kind of evidence, and no course can guarantee any regulatory outcome.

The surgeon who calls a nurse useless

A theatre nurse is repeatedly belittled by one surgeon in front of the scrub team. This is repeated unreasonable behaviour creating a risk to health and safety, and seniority does not change the answer. The nurse unit manager must act, and if the pattern continues and affects patient safety, a notification may follow.

Frightened to call the registrar

Graduate nurses stop escalating overnight because a registrar responds with hostility. The risk is to patients as much as staff. Concerns about deteriorating patients must still be escalated through other pathways, and the pattern should be reported.

The group chat that turned cruel

Nurses post mocking photographs of a colleague in a private chat. Professional obligations apply online. A bystander in the chat can refuse to join in, check on the colleague and report it.

Told you are frightening

An experienced midwife learns that graduates find her intimidating. Rather than arguing, she seeks structured feedback, works with a coach on how she teaches under pressure, and records the changes over several months.