Workplace harm, defined plainly

Workplace harm is a broad term for behaviour or conditions at work that leave someone feeling unsafe, humiliated, excluded, undermined, pressured, or unable to do their work well.

It may involve one incident or a repeated pattern. It may come from one person, a group, leadership, workplace systems, or a combination of these.

Workplace harm can affect a person's confidence, sleep, health, work performance, relationships, income, and career choices.

Workplace mobbing is a repeated pattern where one person becomes the focus of harmful behaviour from a group, a workplace culture, or a chain of people with influence.

It may involve exclusion, rumours, unfair criticism, changing expectations, public undermining, information withholding, social isolation, excessive scrutiny, or pressure that makes it hard for someone to keep doing their job.

Mobbing is usually not one bad meeting or one difficult relationship. It's more often a pattern that develops over time and may involve individual behaviour, group dynamics, and organizational conditions.

Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable, or harmful behaviour that can make someone feel intimidated, humiliated, threatened, undermined, or unable to work safely.

Bullying may be carried out by a manager, coworker, direct report, customer, client, or group. It may be obvious, such as shouting or insulting someone, or quieter, such as repeated ridicule, sabotage, exclusion, or unreasonable criticism.

Bullying and mobbing can overlap. Bullying often focuses on harmful behaviour from one person. Mobbing more often describes a group-based pattern.

Workplace harassment is unwelcome conduct, comments, gestures, or behaviour that offends, humiliates, threatens, or harms someone at work.

Harassment can be connected to race, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age, family status, or another protected characteristic. It may also involve sexual harassment, repeated personal comments, intimidation, threats, unwanted attention, or other harmful conduct.

In federally regulated Canadian workplaces, “harassment and violence” includes any action, conduct, or comment — including conduct of a sexual nature — that can reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation, or physical or psychological injury or illness.

Workplace violence includes threats, attempted violence, physical violence, intimidation, or behaviour that creates a reasonable fear of physical harm.

It can include threats in person, by phone, email, chat, or social media. It may involve a coworker, manager, client, customer, former employee, family member, or another person connected to the workplace.

Violence and threats should always be treated seriously. If there's immediate danger, contact emergency services or the appropriate workplace emergency process.

Workplace discrimination happens when someone is treated unfairly because of a protected personal characteristic.

Protected characteristics vary by country, state, province, territory, and workplace. They can include race, ethnicity, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, family status, nationality, Indigenous identity, or other legally protected grounds.

Discrimination may affect hiring, promotion, pay, scheduling, discipline, training, performance reviews, accommodation, access to work, or how someone is treated day to day.

Retaliation happens when someone is treated negatively after raising a concern, reporting harm, asking for an accommodation, taking protected leave, participating in an investigation, supporting a coworker, or exercising a workplace right.

It may look like exclusion, changed duties, sudden criticism, denied opportunities, a negative performance review, reduced hours, loss of access, threats, discipline, dismissal, or pressure to resign.

Not every negative event after a complaint is automatically retaliation. But a sudden change after someone raises a concern can be worth documenting and discussing with a qualified workplace, union, legal, or regulatory support person.

Lateral violence is harmful behaviour between people who have similar levels of workplace authority.

It can include backbiting, public humiliation, sarcasm, cliques, information withholding, exclusion, refusing support, or setting someone up to struggle.

The term is often used in high-pressure workplaces where people feel powerless, overworked, or unsupported. It doesn't excuse harmful behaviour. It can help explain why workplace harm sometimes moves sideways between coworkers rather than only from managers to employees.

Social exclusion happens when someone is repeatedly left out of work conversations, meetings, decisions, information, informal networks, or social contact.

It may be intentional, careless, or caused by unclear processes. The key question is whether it's repeated, whether it affects the person's work, and whether the organization responds when it's raised.

• Not being invited to meetings connected to your work.
• Not receiving key updates.
• Being ignored in chats or emails.
• Being left out of team decisions.
• Coworkers going quiet or avoiding you.
• Being excluded from informal work networks or opportunities.

Information withholding happens when someone doesn't receive information they reasonably need to do their work.

It may involve missed meeting invitations, incomplete handovers, delayed responses, changing instructions, inaccessible files, missing context, or decisions made without the person responsible for the work.

Information withholding can be a process problem, a management problem, or part of a harmful pattern. The first useful step is often to document what information was needed, when it was requested, and how the gap affected the work.

Scapegoating happens when one person is blamed for wider problems, tensions, mistakes, or failures that have more than one cause.

The person may become the focus of criticism because they are newer, different, less powerful, outspoken, highly visible, or seen as outside the group. A scapegoat may be blamed for problems involving workload, poor leadership, unclear processes, budget pressure, change, team conflict, or organizational failure.

Gaslighting is a term people use when someone repeatedly denies, distorts, minimizes, or reframes another person's experience in a way that makes them doubt their memory, judgment, or reality.

This term is often used broadly online. It can be more useful to start with the behaviour itself:

• “I was told the meeting never happened.”
• “I was told I misunderstood an email that others interpreted the same way.”
• “I was told I was too sensitive instead of receiving an answer.”
• “The expectations changed after I met them.”
• “I was told I was the only person with a concern.”

Clear observations are often more useful than trying to prove another person's intent.

Undermining is behaviour that weakens someone's credibility, confidence, authority, relationships, or ability to do their work.

It may include interrupting someone, dismissing their ideas, questioning their competence without specifics, withholding information, changing instructions, taking credit, spreading rumours, excluding them from decisions, or criticizing them publicly.

Abuse of authority happens when someone uses workplace power unfairly or in a way that harms another person.

This may include threats, coercion, unfair discipline, unreasonable workload demands, misuse of performance processes, favouritism, retaliation, intimidation, or pressure to accept something without time to understand it.

A manager has the right to manage work. The concern isn't ordinary supervision, feedback, or accountability. The concern is whether authority is being used in a harmful, unfair, inconsistent, discriminatory, retaliatory, or intimidating way.

A toxic workplace culture is a broad term for an environment where harmful behaviour is tolerated, normalized, ignored, rewarded, or difficult to report.

It may include fear, blame, gossip, unclear roles, poor communication, high turnover, leadership avoidance, favouritism, excessive workload, weak accountability, or lack of psychological safety.

“Toxic” is a useful starting word, but the next step is to name what people are actually experiencing. What's happening? Who is affected? What systems are making it easier for the problem to continue?

Psychological safety is the sense that people can ask questions, raise concerns, admit mistakes, disagree respectfully, or ask for help without being humiliated, punished, excluded, or threatened.

Psychological safety doesn't mean people never receive feedback or face accountability. It means concerns, mistakes, and disagreement can be handled with respect and fairness.

Moral injury can happen when someone feels forced to act against their values, stay silent about harm, watch unfairness happen, or participate in a process that feels wrong.

It can affect workers, bystanders, managers, HR professionals, union representatives, and leaders. It may show up as guilt, anger, grief, disappointment, loss of trust, or feeling disconnected from work that once mattered.