Working Well Together

15/10/2025

Are your employees who come from countries other than Australia safe from harm in your workplace?

Australia is in a period of heightened social and political tension around migration and cultural identity. Public commentary has singled out Indian communities, anti-immigration marches are demanding cuts despite falling migration numbers, and Jewish and Muslim communities are reporting increased hostility.

But these tensions don’t stop at the street. They walk into our workplaces.

Recent research shows ethnic minorities are more than three times as likely to experience workplace bullying compared to non-minority colleagues. For those who feel like a minority, the risk escalates even further. Bullying is not the same as discrimination — it is ongoing, repeated harm that undermines psychological safety.

The question for employers is clear: what are you doing to ensure your culturally diverse employees are safe at work?

Australia is experiencing a wave of social and political tension around migration and cultural identity. For Australians from it’s many non-Anglo backgrounds, this can be a deeply concerning time. Will they be the target of aggression in their community, or even in their workplace?

01/10/2025

We often think of workplace bullying as causing stress, anxiety, or burnout — but what if the impacts go deeper than that?

Recent research suggests bullying at work can actually contribute to personality change over time. The implications are significant, not only for individual health and safety, but also for how people are perceived and treated in the workplace.

The full article can be read at

Recent research explored the long term impact of workplace bullying on target personality change. This article presents the implications for Australian workplaces.

15/09/2025

Psychosocial risk isn’t only about policies—it’s about leadership. The way managers lead can make or break a team’s experience of safety.

One powerful lever is creating a conflict management climate (CMC). This isn’t just about fixing disputes—it’s about shaping a culture where issues are addressed early, fairly, and consistently.

In larger organisations, culture isn’t always uniform. One team may thrive while another struggles—and often, the difference is the local leader. That’s how influential frontline managers really are.

A strong CMC does more than resolve issues—it actively prevents bullying by:
✅ Reducing uncertainty and promoting a sense of control
✅ Providing clear, fair pathways for addressing concerns
✅ Building trust that managers will step in early
✅ Preventing frustration from spiralling into harmful conflict

Leaders who step up to create this climate aren’t just managing risk—they’re preventing harm. And prevention is always more powerful than damage control.

👉 Want to equip your leaders to reduce psychosocial risk? Contact us about our workshops designed to build safer, stronger workplaces.

03/09/2025

Prevention is not the same as management

Too often, organisations confuse prevention with risk management when it comes to hazards like bullying.

Here’s the difference:
➡️ Prevention stops harm before it happens. It’s proactive, equipping managers to recognise issues early and respond constructively so injury never occurs.
➡️ Management happens after the fact. It’s about minimising further harm, reducing exposure, and containing damage once someone is already hurt.

Both matter, but they are not the same. If your workplace focuses only on “managing” you’re already behind. You're dealing with injured employees, WorkCover claims, reputational damage, and lost productivity.

The real value lies in prevention. It’s not just about compliance. It’s about creating workplaces where people feel safe, respected, and able to perform at their best.

The question is are your managers equipped to prevent psychosocial harm, or are they stuck reacting when it’s too late?

Reach out if you’d like to explore how we help workplaces shift from managing to preventing harm when it comes to behavioural risks.

27/08/2025

Workplace health and safety laws are clear. Employers must proactively manage psychosocial risks. But here’s the catch — compliance doesn’t live in policy documents. It lives in the day-to-day decisions and behaviours of your managers. Yet too often, it's left in the hands of H&S and HR to do the heavy lifting.

Psychosocial risks like bullying, exclusion, conflict avoidance, and poor communication are people risks; and people risks need people solutions. If managers aren’t stepping up, those risks escalate — into complaints, claims, disengagement, and costly workers’ comp cases. The average mental health-related claim in Australia costs $65,000 and 37 weeks of lost time.

That’s why managers must be equipped to:
✔ Recognise and respond to bullying and conflict early
✔ Build trust, inclusion, and fairness in their teams
✔ Hold difficult conversations constructively
✔ Model behaviours that shape culture

At Working Well Together, we focus on the human side of psychosocial safety prevention — how people work together. Upskilling managers isn’t just about meeting WHS obligations. It’s about protecting people, strengthening culture, and driving performance.

The question is are your managers stepping up to the challenge? I'd love to hear how your managers are engaging with psychosocial safety if at all?

Cheers, Michael

25/08/2025

How are you preparing your managers to walk the talk on psychosocial safety?

Psychosocial safety is increasingly on the minds of H&S and HR team members at work. But is that message filtering down to managers, supervisors and team leaders?

When it comes to psychosocial risks including bullying and harassment, poor management support, burnout, conflict, role ambiguity, frontline managers will generally be the first to know something is wrong or 'not quite right'. Concerns may be heard first through informal chats, workers understating concerns, or sometimes sarcastic remarks where nothing has been done to remedy a perceived problem.

Often, when unaddressed at the frontline level, it escalates. H&S and/or HR becomes aware of the problem after the fact, but by then it has resulted to harm for organisation or individual (or both as the case may be).

It’s time to get management to step up into the psychosocial risk prevention discussion. It’s important they are educated in what this area of risk management means for your workplace, them and the teams that they lead.

If your workplace has a leadership day or regular leadership group meetings, scheduling part of that time to talk psychosocial safety and harm prevention is a great way to start the ball rolling. There are many areas you could cover from psychosocial risks and hazards to some of the specific tools that have been shown to reduce psychosocial risks such as the conflict management climate at your work or psychological safety tools. But it's important it is relevant to your workplace.

Reach out if you’d like to discuss how we can help you with leadership sessions and workshops.

13/08/2025

When we talk about bullying at work, it’s easy to get caught up in definitions, legal frameworks, and procedures. And yes, those matter. But behind every “case” is a person; often someone who once felt safe and valued, now feeling smaller, silenced, or on edge.

Bullying prevention starts long before a complaint is made. It’s in the conversations we have (and the ones we don’t). It’s in how leaders respond when someone raises a concern. It’s in those tiny moments - listening without defensiveness, noticing changes in behaviour, checking in because something feels “off.”

You don’t have to be perfect. You do have to be present. Small, consistent actions (respect in every interaction, transparency in decisions, holding people accountable) sends a loud message: “This is a safe place to work.”

The real goal? To make bullying rare, not just to respond well when it happens.

If you’re wondering where to start, begin with one question: What can I do today that makes it easier for someone to speak up tomorrow?

Bullying prevention is about creating workplaces where people don’t just survive. They thrive.

04/08/2025

In every workplace, conflict is inevitable. But whether that conflict escalates into harmful behaviours like bullying depends heavily on one key factor: the Conflict Management Climate (CMC).

CMC refers to how employees perceive the organisation handles interpersonal conflict including whether managers intervene fairly and consistently, and whether systems are in place to support resolution.

A strong CMC does more than resolve issues, it actively prevents bullying by:
• Reducing uncertainty and promoting a sense of control
• Giving employees clear, fair pathways for addressing concerns
• Building trust that managers will step in and address issues early
• Preventing frustration from spiraling into harmful conflict

Research shows that when employees believe their workplace handles conflict well, bullying is less likely to occur and less likely to escalate when it does.

This isn’t about individual manager style. It is about how the organisation as a whole creates safety, fairness, and consistency around conflict.

Want to prevent bullying at work? Start by strengthening your conflict management climate.

Reach out and we can help you build a psychosocially safe workplace.

28/07/2025

Do you have a conflict management policy?

You might be thinking, “Why do we need yet another workplace policy gathering digital dust?”

But here’s the thing—conflict management isn’t just another box to tick. It’s a valuable, preventative tool that saves time, resources, and, most importantly, protects people.

Unresolved conflict is a psychosocial risk. Left unaddressed, it can escalate into something far more harmful—like workplace bullying. At that point, it’s often too late for easy solutions.

You might say, “But we already have a bullying policy!” That’s great—but bullying policies are reactive. They come into play after harm has occurred.
A conflict management policy is different. It focuses on early intervention and building a culture where conflict is recognised, addressed, and resolved before it escalates.

What could it include?
· A clear statement on the value of proactive conflict resolution
· A commitment to equipping employees with the skills to manage conflict early
· Clear expectations for leaders to coach and mentor their teams through conflict

Let’s stop waiting for problems to become crises. Prevention is not only safer—it’s smarter.

23/07/2025

Do we need to talk more about leadership as an enabler of workplace bullying?

I say yes, because too often our focus is on the behaviour and it's impacts on the workplace and the harm it causes to individuals as opposed to how we can prevent it; and there is increasing evidence that we can prevent bullying through how we lead and how our systems operate.

In this edition of Workplace Wobbles and Wisdom, we explore leadership as tool for bullying prevention.

What are your experiences and what has your workplace done in relation to leadership that has successfully prevented bullying?

07/05/2025

You know you’ve got a problem. He’s doing it again.

You’ve spoken to him—yet here we are. Other employees are now letting you know too. They’re fed up. It’s time to act.

When abrasive or bullying behaviours show up, it can feel like termination is the only answer. It’s not.

You can take action before it gets that far.

Three steps:
- Set clear limits.
- Set real consequences.
- Offer meaningful help.

Notice I say abrasive, not bullying. Why?

Because language matters.

Call someone a bully and the walls go up.

Say, “your behaviour is coming across as abrasive” and you create a moment to pause, think—and engage. It’s an early warning sign, not a final verdict. An opportunity to prevent escalation, not react after the damage is done. Change isn’t guaranteed. Some won’t—or can’t—shift.

But if you take action and offer support, you know you’ve done everything possible to turn it around.

And if you need backup, our Abrasive Leaders Specialised Coaching Program is ready to help. (https://lnkd.in/gRAEpUAE)

Be smart. Act early.

Cheers, Michael
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03/03/2025

Workplace bullying and conflict are often confused, but they are not the same.

The Fair Work Act defines bullying as:
- Unreasonable behaviour
- That is repeated, and
- Creates a risk to health and safety.

Conflict, on the other hand, has no clear legal definition—but it can escalate into bullying if unresolved. So how do we tell them apart?

- Frequency: Bullying is ongoing, while conflict can be one-off.
- Behaviour: Bullying includes undermining, exclusion, or humiliation; conflict doesn’t necessarily involve harmful actions.
- Power Imbalance: Bullying often involves a real or perceived power difference, making it hard to stop.
- Duration: Conflict is more likely to be resolved quickly; bullying is longer-lasting.
- Intent: Bullying is often perceived as intentional or malicious, while conflict is seen as a misunderstanding.

Why does this matter?
- Bullying causes harm and requires intervention.
- Conflict can be resolved early through effective communication.

All workplace employees (leaders, HR and/or general employees) must know the difference to respond effectively. Have you seen these lines blur at work?