Templates by allegation type
Workplace Bullying Investigation Report Template & Example
Last updated 2026-07-30
Start with a jurisdictional point that changes how this investigation works. *There is no general federal workplace bullying statute in the United States. Federal law reaches bullying only where it is tied to a protected characteristic, in which case it is analyzed as harassment under Title VII rather than as bullying. So in most US workplaces a bullying complaint is a policy* matter — measured against the employer's own respectful-workplace or code-of-conduct provisions.
Check your jurisdiction before assuming that, because the picture is not uniform. Puerto Rico's Act No. 90-2020 is a general workplace-harassment statute covering the private sector, with a private civil cause of action and a mandatory employer investigation protocol. California (Gov. Code §12950.1, from AB 2053) mandates abusive-conduct prevention training and supplies a statutory US definition of abusive conduct — conduct 'with malice' that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive and unrelated to legitimate business interests — which is a better analytic frame for a US matter than the Australian one below. Tennessee and Utah operate policy-incentive and public-sector schemes.
That is worth stating plainly because much of the material available online on this topic is Australian. The phrase "reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner" is a term of art from section 789FD(2) of the Australian Fair Work Act, where bullying is a statutory concept with a defined test and a tribunal that hears applications about it. The concept is genuinely useful as an analytical frame, and this template borrows it — but if you are investigating in the US, do not cite it as though it were law. Cite your own policy.
With that settled, the substantive question is the same in either system: is this bullying, or is it legitimate management action carried out in a reasonable way? Performance management is uncomfortable by design, and an employee experiencing it as distressing does not make it bullying. Equally, "I was just managing performance" is a defense that has to be tested, not accepted — the test has two limbs and an investigation that answers only one has not finished: was there a legitimate management purpose, and was it carried out in a reasonable manner? Most matters turn on the second, because the first is rarely contested. A legitimate performance concern delivered by shouting at someone in an open-plan office passes limb one, fails limb two, and is still capable of breaching a respectful-workplace policy.
Jurisdiction
Written primarily against US federal standards — EEOC guidance, NLRB decisions and Title VII case law — and against general investigative practice. State law, sector rules (public employers, education, regulated industries) and collective agreements impose additional requirements this page does not cover. Where a page borrows a concept from another jurisdiction it says so explicitly. Outside the US, treat the structure as transferable and the legal references as not.
Workplace Bullying Investigation Report template
Free Word download, no email required. Or open it in Professional Drafter — it lands in your template library, ready to draft against.
When to use this document
- Complaints of persistent unreasonable behavior, exclusion or intimidation.
- Complaints about a manager's conduct where performance management is also in play.
- Complaints framed as a 'toxic' or 'hostile' environment without a protected characteristic.
Worked example
Fictional scenario. A Maintenance Technician alleges his supervisor has bullied him over four months. The supervisor says he has been managing genuine performance concerns. Both are partly right, which is the usual shape of these matters.
Itemized, because an accumulation cannot be tested
The complaint arrived as three pages of narrative. Itemized with the complainant on 8 July:
1. 18 Mar — told 'you're the weak link on this team' in the workshop, in front of two colleagues.
2. Mar–Jun — daily written check-ins required of him and of no one else.
3. 2 May — his job card was reassigned mid-task, in front of the team, without explanation.
4. Jun — excluded from the Thursday planning huddle he had previously attended.
5. 19 Jun — told 'I'll be documenting everything from now on' after he questioned a rota change.
Until this was done, none of it could be put to the respondent fairly or found.
Limb one: was there a legitimate management purpose?
Yes, and it is documented. The complainant's fault-closure rate fell from 94% to 71% between January and March 2026 (App. 4), and two jobs required rework. A supervisor addressing that is doing his job. The performance record pre-dates the first alleged incident by six weeks, which matters — a performance concern first documented after a complaint is a very different fact.
So limb one is satisfied for items 2, 3 and 5. I find no legitimate management purpose for item 1.
Limb two: was it carried out in a reasonable manner?
This is where the matter turns, and where an investigation that stopped at limb one would have gone wrong.
Item 1 — 'you're the weak link on this team', said in the workshop in front of colleagues. The respondent accepts saying it and says it was 'a joke to lighten things'. Neither witness heard it as a joke. There is no management purpose that requires characterizing an employee to his colleagues. Unreasonable.
Item 2 — daily written check-ins. A proportionate response to a genuine performance concern, and a common one. But applied to him alone, never explained to him as a performance measure, and continued unchanged for four months with no review. Reasonable in purpose, unreasonable in manner and duration.
Item 3 — reassigning a job card mid-task is within the supervisor's authority. Doing it without a word to the technician holding it, in front of the team, is not the only way to do it and the respondent could not explain why he did it that way. Unreasonable in manner.
Item 4 — exclusion from the huddle. The respondent says attendance was always discretionary and the complainant 'stopped coming'. Two colleagues say the complainant was told he was no longer needed there. I prefer the two accounts. Unreasonable.
Item 5 — 'I'll be documenting everything from now on', said immediately after the complainant questioned a decision. Documenting performance is legitimate. Announcing it as a response to being questioned is not management, it is a warning. Unreasonable in manner.
Finding
Items 1, 3, 4 and 5: SUBSTANTIATED as unreasonable conduct. Item 2: SUBSTANTIATED in part — reasonable in purpose, unreasonable in its indefinite continuation without review.
Taken together these form a course of repeated unreasonable conduct over four months and breach section 4.2 of the Respectful Workplace Policy.
I record expressly that the underlying performance concerns are genuine and remain unresolved. A finding that conduct was unreasonable is not a finding that the complainant's work was satisfactory, and this report should not be read as preventing proper performance management conducted properly.
Section-by-section guide
What each section is for, what a good one contains, and where they typically go wrong.
1.Matter identifiers
Parties, dates and who commissioned the investigation.
2.Scope and standard of proof
What you were asked to determine, what is expressly excluded, and the standard applied — ordinarily the preponderance of the evidence.
3.The conduct alleged, itemized
Break the complaint into discrete incidents with dates. Bullying complaints arrive as accumulated narrative, and an accumulation cannot be tested until it is itemized.
4.Repetition and pattern
Most bullying definitions require repeated behavior. Assess the pattern cumulatively — frequency, duration, escalation — while noting that a single sufficiently serious act may be covered by another provision.
5.Reasonable management action
The central question. For each incident that the respondent says was management action, examine three things separately: was there a legitimate management purpose; was the manner proportionate; and was it carried out consistently with how others are managed. A legitimate purpose delivered unreasonably does not become reasonable because the purpose was sound.
6.Effect on the complainant
The workplace effect — on duties, hours, working relationships and attendance. Keep the focus on work effects rather than inviting detailed health disclosure, which is usually outside scope and creates handling obligations.
7.Context and counter-allegations
Bullying complaints frequently attract counter-allegations, and performance concerns often pre-date the complaint. Establish what was documented and when, so the sequence is clear — but do not treat the existence of a performance file as an answer.
8.Evidence summary and credibility
Set out each itemized incident with the accounts that bear on it. Resist summarizing the pattern here — the accumulation is the point, and it is more persuasive when a reader assembles it from the incidents than when they are told it exists.
9.Findings of fact
One finding per numbered allegation: substantiated, not substantiated, or inconclusive, with the evidence relied on.
10.Policy analysis
Apply the facts found to the policy provisions quoted, keeping the two questions separate.
11.Investigator statement and appendices
Attestation of impartiality, the limits of the report, signature, and a numbered appendix index.
Common mistakes
The failure modes that show up most often when this document is reviewed later.
Accepting 'it was performance management' without testing it
The defense is the thing to investigate. Legitimate purpose, proportionate manner and consistent application are three separate tests, and failing any of them matters.
Finding bullying because the complainant was distressed
Distress establishes effect, not unreasonableness. Reasonable management action can be genuinely distressing.
Investigating the accumulated narrative rather than incidents
An un-itemized pattern cannot be put to the respondent fairly and cannot be found or dismissed with reasons.
Letting counter-allegations expand the scope uncontrolled
They may need investigating, but as a separate scoped matter — not folded into the original one mid-flight.
Questions
- The respondent has raised a counter-allegation. Do I investigate it in this matter?
- Not by folding it in mid-flight. Counter-allegations are common in bullying matters and may well need investigating, but scope it separately with its own mandate and its own record. Merging them makes both harder to determine and gives the appearance that one complaint was used to answer the other.
- The complainant is signed off sick. Can I continue?
- Sometimes, but proceed carefully and take advice. You may be able to progress documentary work and other witnesses while their evidence waits. What you should not do is press an unwell complainant for an interview, or quietly close the matter because getting their account has become difficult. Record what you did, what you deferred, and why.
- What is the difference between bullying and reasonable management action?
- Reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner is not bullying, even when it is unwelcome. There are two limbs — a legitimate management purpose, and a reasonable manner of carrying it out — and both must hold. In practice most matters turn on the second, because the purpose is rarely the disputed part.
- Does bullying have to be repeated?
- Most policy definitions require repeated unreasonable behavior, which is why itemizing incidents matters. A single sufficiently serious act may still be covered under another provision, such as a respectful-workplace or violence policy.
- Is workplace bullying illegal in the United States?
- There is no general federal workplace bullying statute, and no US *state* has enacted a broad private-sector bullying law with a private right of action of the kind proposed in various Healthy Workplace Bill drafts — though Puerto Rico has, in Act 90-2020, and California mandates abusive-conduct training with a statutory definition under Gov. Code §12950.1. Bullying becomes legally actionable mainly when it is tied to a protected characteristic, at which point it is analyzed as harassment under Title VII. In practice a US bullying complaint is a policy matter measured against the employer's own code of conduct.
- Where does the phrase 'reasonable management action' come from?
- Section 789FD(2) of the Australian Fair Work Act, which excludes reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner from the statutory definition of bullying. It is a useful analytical frame anywhere, but it is Australian law — do not cite it as authority in a US investigation.
The blank template
Exactly what is in the Word download, so you can see the structure before deciding whether you want it.
Matter identifiers
Scope and standard of proof
The conduct alleged, itemized
Repetition and pattern
Reasonable management action
Effect on the complainant
Context and counter-allegations
Evidence summary and credibility
Findings of fact
Policy analysis
Investigator statement and appendices
Download this template
Free Word download, no email required. Or open it in Professional Drafter — it lands in your template library, ready to draft against.
Sources
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This page is a documentation aid, not legal advice. Workplace investigation requirements vary by jurisdiction, sector and policy, and a template cannot tell you what your matter requires. The worked example describes a fictional scenario.