Bullying and harassment policy: template and guide

Bullying and harassment can wreck your business. Whether the behaviour is coming from a manager or employee, it affects everyone: the people involved and your wider team. To help you stop bullying and harassment in its tracks, we’ve put together a policy template that covers what bullying and harassment looks like, how it can be stopped and more. 

Whether you’ve never had a bullying and harassment policy in place or you’re looking to refresh your current policy, our template is designed to make implementing and refreshing your policy easier.

What is in this bullying and harassment policy template?

Our bullying and harassment policy template sets out standard guidelines around managing conflict and issues in the workplace.  

In the template, you’ll find:

• An introduction outlining the purpose and scope of the policy
• Definitions of the types of bullying and harassment covered
• Examples of bullying and harassment
• Explanations of workers’ rights and obligations, reporting options and the support and investigation process
• How different workplaces stakeholders are responsible for upholding acceptable workplace behaviours

Download the template by filling in the form on the right. 

Workplace bullying and harassment in New Zealand

Employment New Zealand defines bullying as “repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards an employee or a group of employees that can cause physical or mental harm.” A recent NZ Human Rights study found that 40% of New Zealand workers reported being bullied in their working life, highlighting the prevalence of bullying within New Zealand workplaces. 

As an employer, it’s your job to eliminate bullying within your workplace. According to Employment New Zealand, “employers have legal obligations to make sure that their employees are healthy and safe at work. This includes managing the risks of bullying at work.”

What is bullying – and what isn’t?

Bullying is repeated, targeted behaviour. There is also usually an imbalance of power. A single incident or conflict does not typically constitute bullying, though you should also take these instances seriously. Bullying can also be classified as an example of workplace misconduct. 

What bullying could cost your business

Bullying can cost you in a number of ways so it’s important to deal with the issues as soon as you can. As the employer, you could:

• Face legal costs, like fines, lawsuits or worker’s compensation claims
• Lose revenue, as a result of employee absenteeism or turnover
• See a drop in productivity, from lower employee morale
• Pay more for healthcare (if relevant) due to stress
• Experience brand damage, if bullying incidents become public

Handling bullying and harassment in the workplace

When handling bullying and harassment allegations, there are a few things you need to do as the employer. 

First, you should investigate properly, including interviewing affected parties. Then you should provide employees with support, including the accused.

It can also be helpful to separate the accused and the accuser where possible, while the issue is being addressed. 

It’s also important to regularly survey your workplace and identify if bullying and harassment behaviours are beginning. Being able to intervene before behaviours escalate will help you maintain a healthy work culture.

Creating your own workplace discrimination and harassment policy

Our template can be used as a base for your own policy, depending on your workplace’s needs. For example, if your workplace has a particular organisational structure, then you’ll need to update the template accordingly. The template has sections where you can write in your business’ name but you may choose to remove certain sections as well.

Similarly, if your workplace has a particular concentration of any marginalised groups, then you may want to craft a section dedicated to protecting them. However, if you’re looking to get a policy in place as soon as possible, this policy template has been crafted to cover your business, whatever industry you’re in. 

Putting it into practice

Once you’ve developed the policy, it’s time to put it into place. Firstly, you should organise a workforce training session, to answer any questions about the policy and talk about the reasoning behind it. Having an open, honest discussion will help you test the strengths of the policy and gather feedback.

You should also make the policy available to everyone in your workplace. Whether it’s available physically or digitally (or both), people need to have easy access to the policy, so they can refer to it when desired.

Ultimately though, your employees need to see the policy in action, if and when bullying and harassment behaviours occur. Embedding the policy means walking the walk when it’s time, as hard as that may be. A policy is only valuable when it’s being enforced.

Types of workplace harassment and bullying

If you’re looking to understand what different types of workplace harassment and bullying might look like, here’s how they can play out in your workplace.

Physical bullying and intimidation

If physical bullying and intimidation is occurring, this can look like physical acts of violence, damaging people’s property and/or threatening to hurt them.

Verbal harassment and abuse

If verbal harassment and abuse is occurring, this can look like someone shouting, constantly criticising, name-calling and/or humiliating someone in the workplace. Verbal harassment and abuse is designed to bring someone down and make them feel worthless.

Sexual harassment in the workplace

If sexual harassment in the workplace occurs, this can look like inappropriate physical contact, leering and/or suggestive comments made towards another employee.

Psychological bullying and emotional abuse

If psychological bullying and emotional abuse is occurring in the workplace, this might look like someone using any or all of the above to demean someone and to isolate them from the rest of the workforce.

Cyberbullying and digital harassment

If cyberbullying and digital harassment is occurring in the workplace, this can look like someone using their phone, email or other online platforms to demean someone and make them feel lesser than.

Discrimination-based harassment

If discrimination-based harassment is occurring in the workplace, this can look like someone demeaning someone based on characteristics like their gender, sexuality, age, race and so on.

Legal and compliance requirements

As an employer, the Health and Safety at Work Act, the Employment Relations Act and the Human Rights Act require you to deal with workplace bullying. 

Considered a health and safety hazard, you are required to properly investigate cases of bullying and harassment. In the most serious cases, you may need to report the incident(s) to police. You should, as much as possible, also separate the person(s) being bullied from those displaying the harassing behaviours.

Early warning signs and identification

There may be some early signs that there’s bullying and harassment going on in your business. Keep an eye out for:

• Someone constantly criticising another employee
• Someone making unreasonable demands of another employee
• Someone being held to unjustifiable standards by another another employee or their manager
• Someone taking more time off work or more sick days than usual
• Someone’s performance significantly dropping off in recent weeks or months

On their own, each of these may not signify that bullying and harassment is taking place. However, if you start to notice some of these behaviours occurring together, then you should look to investigate a bit further.

Prevention strategies and best practices

To prevent bullying and harassment, you should look to create a safe and respectful workplace culture. You can do this by regularly holding team bonding sessions. It’s also important to create space for open discussions and feedback sessions, both between employees, and employees and management

On a broader level, it can help to reduce hierarchical order where possible, making people feel like they’re on an even playing field. A lot of bullying and harassment stems from power imbalances. Working to mitigate those in your workplace can help you keep bullying and harassment behaviours out of your business.

Reporting and investigation procedures

If you do need to investigate bullying and harassment, then you need to ensure you’re doing a thorough job. This includes:

• Reviewing complaints, and treating each case seriously
• Appointing a neutral internal or external investigator to eliminate bias
• Interviewing those involved as well as those who may have witnessed any alleged behaviours
• Collecting relevant evidence 
• Documenting every action taken as part of the investigation process
• Ensuring confidentiality at all stages of the process

In the most serious of cases, you may need to refer cases of bullying and harassment to the police. By following the steps above for your investigation process, you will be well-positioned to hand over any relevant information to authorities.

Support systems for affected employees

There are a range of support systems that you can use to help affected employees. Employee Assistance Programs are a way of supporting your workforce, both if they’ve experienced bullying and harassment and if they’re experiencing other unrelated issues at home or work. Counselling gives employees space to be their most authentic selves, in a way that might not otherwise be possible at work.

Peer support is another way of providing support to employees. Bullying and harassment is often designed to isolate the affected parties. By creating spaces for peers to provide support to each other, as well as share their experiences, affected employees are less likely to feel alone.

Disciplinary actions and consequences

There are a range of disciplinary measures you may want to take, depending on the severity of the bullying and harassment. These could include verbal and written warnings, or placing the perpetrator on a performance improvement plan.

You may also look into counselling and training to help the perpetrator correct their behaviour, or get them to provide a sincere apology. 

In the most serious cases, you may need to consider demotion or termination. However, bear in mind that this comes with many legal considerations and should be done with the utmost care (and with independent legal advice). 

Download our bullying and harassment policy template

Bullying and harassment can ruin productivity and team morale. You need to stamp it out. Our policy template makes sure everyone knows exactly where your business stands, making it a whole lot easier to get it done.

Download the policy template by filling out the form on the right.

The information in this article is current as at 30 October 2025, and has been prepared by Employment Hero Pty Ltd (ABN 11 160 047 709) and its related bodies corporate (Employment Hero). The views expressed in this article are general information only, are provided in good faith to assist employers and their employees, and should not be relied on as professional advice. Some information is based on data supplied by third parties. While such data is believed to be accurate, it has not been independently verified and no warranties are given that it is complete, accurate, up to date or fit for the purpose for which it is required. Employment Hero does not accept responsibility for any inaccuracy in such data and is not liable for any loss or damages arising directly or indirectly as a result of reliance on, use of or inability to use any information provided in this article. You should undertake your own research and seek professional advice before making any decisions or relying on the information in this article.