Workplace bullying is sometimes dismissed as a personality clash, a difficult management style, or ordinary workplace conflict. But when negative behaviour becomes repeated, persistent, and targeted, its impact can extend far beyond an uncomfortable day at work.

It can affect a person’s health.

Workplace bullying can take many forms: repeated humiliation, intimidation, exclusion, undermining someone’s work or credibility, withholding information needed to perform a role, persistent unreasonable criticism, spreading rumours, threatening job security, or misusing authority in ways that leave an employee feeling targeted or powerless.

Not every disagreement, performance discussion, unpopular decision, or difficult interaction is bullying. Healthy workplaces must allow respectful disagreement, accountability, constructive feedback, and legitimate management action.

The concern arises when harmful behaviours become persistent, form a pattern, or create psychological risk.

When Workplace Stress Follows You Home

The human body does not always leave workplace stress at the office.

Repeated exposure to threatening, hostile, or intimidating situations can create prolonged psychological stress. Employees may begin anticipating the next confrontation, email, meeting, criticism, or incident before it even happens.

Over time, prolonged workplace stress may be associated with:

• anxiety or persistent worry;

• difficulty sleeping;

• headaches and muscle tension;

• difficulty concentrating;

• emotional exhaustion;

• reduced confidence;

• depression or low mood;

• increased absenteeism; and

• other physical and psychological symptoms associated with chronic stress.

The World Health Organization identifies violence, harassment, discrimination, excessive workloads, low job control, and other harmful workplace conditions as psychosocial risks to mental health. Its mental-health-at-work guidance emphasizes the importance of organizational interventions that directly address working conditions and workplace risks.

Recent research reinforces these concerns. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis examining workplace bullying among nurses found significant relationships between workplace bullying, job stress, and professional quality of life. Another 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis found that even witnessing workplace bullying was associated with adverse health and well-being outcomes.

What About Employees With Pre-existing Medical Conditions?

This deserves particular attention.

An employee may already be managing hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, an autoimmune condition, or another medical condition when significant workplace stress occurs.

Workplace bullying does not automatically cause an existing medical condition, and individual medical outcomes are complex. However, chronic stress can affect physical and psychological well-being and may aggravate symptoms or make an existing condition more difficult to manage.

That distinction matters.

The question should not always be:

“Did the workplace create the illness?”

Sometimes an equally important question is:

“Is what is happening at work contributing to the worsening of an employee’s existing health condition?”

For HR professionals and organizational leaders, that possibility should be taken seriously and handled appropriately, including through occupational health, medical, accommodation, or other professional processes where necessary.

The Organizational Cost Is Also Real

Bullying rarely affects only the individuals directly involved.

Other employees observe what happens. They learn whether it is safe to speak up. They watch how leadership responds when concerns are raised.

Over time, trust can decline. Employees may disengage, take medical leave, transfer to another department, or leave the organization entirely.

Importantly, research suggests that employees do not necessarily need to be the direct target of bullying to experience negative effects. Witnessing workplace bullying has also been associated with poorer health and well-being.

This is why psychological safety cannot simply be written into a policy.

Employees need to see that concerns can be raised without retaliation, that complaints will be handled fairly, that confidentiality will be respected as far as reasonably possible, and that standards of respectful conduct apply regardless of someone’s position in the organization.

A Healthy Workplace Requires More Than a Policy

An anti-bullying or respectful-workplace policy is important. But the real test of organizational culture is what happens when someone actually raises a concern.

Do we listen?

Do we document?

Do we investigate appropriately?

Do we protect employees from retaliation?

Do we distinguish legitimate performance management from intimidation or personal attacks?

And when an employee tells us that workplace circumstances may be affecting an existing medical condition, do we respond appropriately and take the concern seriously?

Workplace bullying should not be treated simply as an interpersonal inconvenience.

When persistent workplace behaviour creates psychological or physical harm, it becomes more than an employee-relations issue. It can become an organizational health and safety issue.

A respectful workplace does not mean a workplace without disagreement, accountability, performance management, or difficult conversations.

It means creating a workplace where those things can happen without intimidation, humiliation, retaliation, or harm.

References

Galanis, P., Moisoglou, I., Katsiroumpa, A., & Mastrogianni, M. (2024, March). Association between workplace bullying, job stress, and professional quality of life in nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis. In Healthcare (Vol. 12, №6, p. 623). MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12060623

Nielsen, M. B., Einarsen, S. V., Parveen, S., & Rosander, M. (2024). Witnessing workplace bullying — A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual health and well-being outcomes. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 75, 101908. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2023.101908

World Health Organization. (2022, September 28). WHO guidelines on mental health at work. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240053052 | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2023.101908

World Health Organization. (2026, September 15). Mental health at work. World Health Organization.
WHO identifies poor working environments, including discrimination, excessive workloads, low job control, and job insecurity, as risks to mental health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-at-work

This article is intended for general workplace education and does not provide medical or legal advice.

Feel Like You’re Being Bullied at Work?

If you’re experiencing workplace bullying and need someone to talk to, a member of our team is available for a free, confidential conversation. Sometimes, talking through what’s happening can help you gain clarity, understand your options, and decide on the next steps that feel right for you.