Bullying Outside Work: Three Myths That Still Catch Employers Out

Bullying doesn’t need to happen at a desk, during office hours, or inside your building to become your problem.

A comment in a group chat. A Facebook pile-on. A message sent on a Saturday and read on Monday. None of it looks like “workplace bullying” in the old-school sense, but the old-school sense isn’t the test anymore.

The better question isn’t “did it happen at work?” It’s “is it connected to work, the workplace, or the working relationship?” That’s where things get uncomfortable.

Myth 1: “It happened outside work hours, so it’s not our problem”

If the conduct is connected to work, outside hours won’t save you. In Bowker v DP World Melbourne Limited [2014] , three employees applied for stop-bullying orders after Facebook comments called them “scabs” and “laggers”, some posted outside rostered hours. The employer and union argued the posters weren’t “at work” when they hit send, so none of it should count.

The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission disagreed. A worker can be “at work” when they access the offending material while performing work, even if the person who posted it was on the couch at home. The bullying doesn’t just happen the moment the post goes up, it continues for as long as the post sits there and affects the person in a work context.

So “it was after hours” isn’t a clean defence, not if the target’s a colleague, the subject’s work, or it spills back into the workplace. If your social media policy still only talks about conduct “during work hours”, it’s about as useful as the fax machine gathering dust in the corner of your office.

Myth 2: “It happened online, so it automatically counts”

This is the opposite mistake. Some employers panic the moment screenshots appear and assume every nasty online comment is a bullying issue. It isn’t. Online doesn’t automatically mean “at work”, the Commission still looks for a real connection to the work.

In E.E. v Australian Association of Social Workers and others [2022] , a director copped critical Facebook comments after publicly backing a candidate in an internal election. The Fair Work Commission dismissed her stop-bullying application, finding the comments weren’t connected to the work she was engaged to perform. She’d waded into an election debate, and that’s not the same as being bullied about her job.

You don’t need to police every dumb opinion your employees post online. You do need to step in when the conduct actually connects to work. A Facebook spat about politics between two employees may not be yours to manage. A post calling a colleague incompetent or dangerous in their role probably is. The platform isn’t the test. The connection to work is.

Myth 3: “They’re on leave, so it’s dead”

Leave can matter, but it’s not a magical trapdoor that makes the issue disappear.

Two recent NSW Industrial Relations Commission decisions show why. In Haigh v Thaler [2026] , a council executive assistant alleged bullying by a councillor, including conduct that happened while she was off on workers compensation. The Commission found that part of it didn’t happen while she was “at work”, since she wasn’t performing any duties at the time. But it refused to strike the material out entirely, because it could still be relevant to whether there’s a future risk if she returns.

In Toma v Commissioner of Police & Ors [2026] , the employer argued a similar application should be dismissed because the employee wasn’t currently at work and had no medical clearance to return. The Commission wouldn’t dismiss it either, the material didn’t rule out a future return, so the risk question stayed open.

The lesson: “they’re on leave” might win you part of the argument, but it doesn’t let you ignore the complaint. If the person’s still employed, may return, and the conduct ties back to the same people or team, you still need to assess the risk properly.

What employers should actually do

Don’t start with the location. Start with the connection. When something lands on your desk, ask:

• Is it connected to work, performance, role, team, injury, or employment status?
• Did it involve people from work, employees, managers, contractors, clients, or union officials?
• Could it damage working relationships, psychological safety, or someone’s ability to do their job?
• Is there a real risk it continues, not just what happened, but what might happen next?
• What did the business know, and what did it do about it?

If managers knew about the group chat, the posts, the comments, and did nothing because “it happened outside work”, that’s a hard decision to defend later. You don’t need to overreact. You do need to show you assessed it properly.

Your social media policy needs to say more than “be respectful”

A vague policy isn’t much help when you’re staring at screenshots on a Monday morning. It should make clear that personal accounts and private messages can still be dealt with by the business where the conduct connects to work, colleagues, clients, or managers, and should spell out what employees can’t do:

• post abusive or humiliating comments about colleagues or managers
• share confidential workplace information
• take part in online pile-ons connected to work
• use group chats to exclude, mock or target a colleague
• damage the reputation of the business, its people or its clients
• continue conduct online after being told to stop

The policy is only half the job. The other half is training managers not to wave off complaints just because they happened after hours, on a personal device, or while someone was on leave. That’s where most businesses actually get caught, not because they had no policy, but because nobody knew when to use it.

What this means for you

You don’t need to become the internet police, and you definitely don’t need a nana-police policy that tries to control everyone’s personal life. But you do need a working radar for conduct that has crossed back into the business:

• if it’s about work, look at it
• if it targets a colleague, look at it
• if it affects someone’s ability to work safely, look at it
• if managers know about it, don’t ignore it
• if someone’s on leave but may return, don’t assume the issue has disappeared

Most of these go wrong because the business waits too long. By the time formal help gets called in, the screenshots have circulated, the team’s taken sides, and the person affected has lost trust that the business will deal with it properly. That’s when it gets expensive, not just legally, culturally too.

FAQs

Can bullying outside work hours still be workplace bullying?

Yes. If the conduct connects to work and affects the worker while they’re at work, being outside hours won’t automatically protect the business, as confirmed in Bowker v DP World Melbourne Limited [2014] FWCFB 9227.

Does online bullying always count as bullying at work?

No. It still needs a real connection to work. In E.E. v Australian Association of Social Workers [2022] FWC 3019, an application was dismissed because the comments related to an election dispute, not the applicant’s actual work.

Can we discipline an employee for something posted on their personal account? Potentially. If the post connects to work, damages working relationships, breaches confidentiality, or breaches a clear policy, you may have grounds to act. Get advice before disciplining, context matters.

What if the alleged bully doesn’t work for us?

You may still need to act. The law focuses on whether the worker was bullied at work, not on whether the bully is your employee, contractors and clients count too.

Can an employee on leave still bring a bullying complaint?

Possibly. Leave doesn’t automatically end the issue, Haigh v Thaler and Toma v Commissioner of Police both show the real question is whether a live risk remains if the person returns.

The HR Gurus take

The workplace stopped ending at the front door a decade ago. That doesn’t mean you own every stupid thing an employee posts online, but you can’t ignore conduct just because it happened after hours, on Facebook, or while someone was on leave. The line is connection. If it’s connected to work, deal with it properly, not dramatically, and not with a 30-page policy nobody reads.

At HR Gurus, we help Australian SME owners work through exactly this kind of grey area before it turns into a Fair Work problem.

Got a group chat, social media post or after-hours blow-up that feels like it might be your problem? Talk to the HR Gurus team. We’ll help you work out what to act on, what you don’t, and how to handle it without making it worse.