Workplace Mobbing: Employer Obligations and How to Build a Prevention Policy

What is workplace mobbing and what are an employer's legal duties? Read about TBK art. 417, Circular 2011/2, prevention policy and complaint steps.

Every team has a situation everyone knows about and nobody says out loud: one employee is constantly left out of meetings, has their work taken away and is belittled in front of everyone. Months later, that employee either goes on long-term sick leave or resigns; sometimes the matter turns into a court file. Workplace mobbing, or psychological harassment, is not simply a disagreement between two people; it is a management issue that affects employee health, team productivity and the organisation's legal security all at once. In this article we look at what mobbing is, what obligations it places on employers in Turkey, and how an effective prevention policy can be built.

What Is Workplace Mobbing?

Mobbing is the sum of behaviours that target an employee, are repeated over a period of time, and aim to wear the person down, devalue them or push them out of the job. In the practice of the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), behaviour is generally expected to be systematic, continuous and intentional before mobbing can be said to exist.

Mobbing can run from manager to employee, between colleagues or, more rarely, from employees towards a manager. Common examples of behaviour include:

• Constant criticism, humiliating or mocking someone in front of others
• Deliberately excluding them from information and meetings
• Giving them tasks far below their competence or impossible to complete
• Taking away their duties and leaving them with nothing to do
• Spreading gossip and targeting their private life
• Verbal threats and intimidation

The difference between mobbing and ordinary workplace conflict

Not every conflict is mobbing. A one-off argument, fair performance feedback or tension during a busy period does not, on its own, amount to psychological harassment. To tell the difference, you need to look at how long the behaviour lasts, how often it is repeated, whether it is aimed at a particular person and what effect it has. The Information Guide on Psychosocial Factors published by Turkey's Ministry of Labour and Social Security also covers the types, causes, consequences and prevention of mobbing in a separate section (ÇSGB, 2024).

What Does Workplace Mobbing Cost an Organisation?

According to the ILO's 2026 report, 23% of employees worldwide have experienced violence or harassment at work at least once; the most common form is psychological violence, at 18% (ILO, 2026). In a European survey, 7% of employees report harassment or bullying at work (EU-OSHA, 2022).

The cost of mobbing to an organisation arises through several channels:

• Health and absence: The targeted employee may experience sleep problems, anxiety, a low mood and physical complaints. This picture turns into sick days and into coming to work but being unable to function productively.
• Staff turnover: Both the targeted employee and the colleagues who witnessed the events may consider leaving.
• Safety: In an atmosphere of fear and mistrust, employees avoid reporting errors and near misses. In a factory setting, this increases the risk of accidents.
• Legal risk: Claims may arise for termination for just cause, severance pay, non-material damages and violations of personality rights.
• Reputation: At the local level, particularly in industrial zones in Anatolia, how a workplace "treats its people" becomes known quickly and makes it harder to attract qualified staff.

A significant share of workplaces in Europe find psychosocial risks harder to manage than other risks (EU-OSHA, 2025). Workplace mobbing is a typical example of this difficulty: it often develops slowly, its witnesses stay silent, and by the time it is noticed the team has already suffered a serious loss of trust.

What Are the Employer's Legal Obligations?

In Turkey, mobbing is not regulated under its own name and in detail in a single law; however, the employer's obligations clearly follow from several core provisions.

Turkish Code of Obligations, article 417

Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (Türk Borçlar Kanunu, TBK) requires the employer to protect and respect the personality of the employee within the employment relationship and to maintain an order in the workplace consistent with the principles of good faith. In particular, the article requires the necessary measures to be taken so that employees are not subjected to psychological and sexual harassment and so that those who have been harassed are not harmed further. Where personality rights are violated through a breach of these obligations, compensation is subject to the provisions on liability arising from breach of contract. According to legal interpretations, this may place on the employer the burden of proving that it was not at fault; we recommend seeking your organisation's lawyer's opinion on this point.

Prime Ministry Circular No. 2011/2

The Circular titled "Prevention of Psychological Harassment (Mobbing) in the Workplace", published in the Official Gazette on 19 March 2011, covers both the public and private sectors. The Circular treats combating psychological harassment first and foremost as the employer's duty and asks employers to take all necessary measures. It states that support will be provided through psychologists on the ALO 170 line (Turkey's labour hotline), that a Psychological Harassment Combat Board will be established within the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and that preventive provisions should be included in collective labour agreements.

The Labour Law and Court of Cassation practice

The word "mobbing" or the phrase "psychological harassment" does not appear in Labour Law No. 4857. However, paragraph II of article 24 of the law gives the employee the right to terminate immediately for just cause in situations that violate the rules of morality and good faith. In legal doctrine and Court of Cassation practice, mobbing is treated as grounds for termination for just cause, assessed within the general framework of that paragraph together with TBK 417. In one reported Court of Cassation decision, it was held that even if the elements of mobbing could not be proven, the employee may terminate for just cause against an employer who fails to prevent attacks on their personality rights (Yargıtay 22nd Civil Chamber, 2014).

A prevention policy, a complaint procedure and training records are not merely signs of good intentions; they are the documents that show the employer "took the necessary measures".

How Do You Build a Mobbing Prevention Policy?

In Europe, 55% of workplaces with 20 or more employees have a procedure for cases of bullying and harassment; in 2019 that figure was 45% (EU-OSHA, 2025). An effective policy is not a text that stays on paper but a process that everyone knows about and believes works. The core components are as follows:

1. A written commitment from top management: The policy should be signed by the general manager or business owner and should clearly state that psychological harassment will not be tolerated in the organisation.
2. Clear definitions and examples: What mobbing is, what it is not, and which behaviours are considered unacceptable should be explained in language that makes sense on the shop floor.
3. More than one channel for reporting: Employees should not be forced to go only to their direct supervisor; there should be alternatives such as HR, an ethics committee or an independent external consultant.
4. Confidentiality and protection against retaliation: It should be guaranteed in writing that employees who report and employees who give testimony will be protected.
5. Investigation process and timeframes: Who will investigate a complaint, within what timeframe and how should be determined in advance.
6. Sanctions: The disciplinary steps applied to established behaviour should be proportionate and consistent.
7. Training: Regular training should be given to managers and employees, and training records should be kept. In training, working with realistic examples from the field, for instance discussing when a joke turns into humiliation, is more memorable than abstract definitions.
8. A link to risk assessment: Interpersonal relations and organisational culture should be handled as part of the psychosocial risk assessment. For details, see our article on psychosocial risk assessment.

The role of managers and foremen

The face of a prevention policy on the shop floor is its managers. Employees often take their problems first to their foreman, shift supervisor or unit manager. If these people belittle the complaint, say "sort it out between yourselves" or spread the matter around, the policy loses its function. For this reason, training for managers should cover not only legislation but also how to open a difficult conversation, how to listen and how to direct a report to the right channel. The fact that the strongest-evidenced recommendation in the WHO's guidelines on mental health at work is mental health training for managers also shows the importance of this role (WHO, 2022). A manager's own communication style also needs to be reviewed; environments where a harsh and demeaning management language is normalised as "discipline" provide fertile ground for workplace mobbing.

What Should You Do When a Complaint Arrives?

The real test of a policy is the first complaint. Suppose two operators go to HR in the same week about a line supervisor. The steps to take at this point can be set out as follows:

• Take it seriously and put it on record: Listen to the report without belittling it and record it in writing with its date and content.
• Take a temporary protective measure: If necessary, make arrangements during the investigation that reduce direct contact between the parties; do not present this to the person who complained as a punishment.
• Investigate impartially: Have the investigation carried out by people with no hierarchical link to the parties; hear the parties and witnesses separately and collect documents.
• Communicate the outcome: Explain the outcome of the process and the measures taken to the parties to an appropriate extent. File all the steps, dates and people heard in writing.
• Monitor: Follow for a set period whether there is any retaliation and whether the team climate is improving.

According to ESENER 2024, the biggest difficulty in managing psychosocial risks, at 59%, is reluctance to talk openly about these issues (EU-OSHA, 2025). What reduces employees' worry of "what happens if I speak up" is seeing that earlier complaints were handled fairly.

Psychological Support for the Affected Employee and the Team

TBK 417 asks the employer not only to prevent harassment but also to take measures so that employees who have been harassed are not harmed further. For this reason, psychological support should be planned in parallel with the investigation process.

Employees who have been exposed to psychological harassment for a long time may experience intense anxiety, sleep disorders, feelings of worthlessness and burnout. Our article on anxiety symptoms offers a general framework for these signs. Confidential one-to-one sessions can help the employee talk about what they have been through in a safe setting and strengthen their ways of coping. At team level, it should not be forgotten that employees who witnessed the events are affected too. Witnesses are often afraid that "it will be their turn next", carry guilt about having stayed silent, or become distant from the job. It is helpful to remind these people, too, of the option of confidential support.

There are also things that can be done at team level. Once the investigation has concluded, talking again about the working order, the distribution of tasks and the communication rules in the unit can help the team leave what happened behind. The aim of these meetings is not to expose anyone but to clarify shared working rules. The targeted employee's return to the team, or their move to another unit, should be planned with their views taken into account; sending an employee somewhere they do not want to go "for their protection" can create a second injustice.

If thoughts of self-harm are noticed in an employee, this should be treated as an emergency and 112 (emergency services) should be called.

How Do You Get Started in Your Organisation?

Mobbing prevention work can be structured in three stages:

1. Needs analysis: Review your existing policies and procedures, the complaint and disciplinary records of recent years, and turnover and absence data by unit. Use an anonymous employee survey to measure perceptions of interpersonal relations and management style.
2. Programme: Put the policy into writing, set up the reporting channels, plan training for managers and employees, and decide on the confidential psychological support option for affected employees.
3. Measurement: Do not treat the number of complaints alone as a measure of success; in the first years a policy may increase reports, which often shows that trust is growing. Monitor survey results, turnover and absence data regularly.

Suppose a medium-sized factory has no written policy and complaints are passed on only verbally to the foreman. The first step might be to understand the current situation through a few short interviews and an anonymous survey; then to prepare the policy text together with an employee representative and present it at shift meetings. After the first workplace mobbing training, holding a short reinforcement session within a few months makes it easier for what was learned to be applied on the shop floor.

You can explore training and consultancy options suited to your organisation on our corporate services page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Under which article of the Labour Law is mobbing regulated?

It does not appear under the name mobbing in the Labour Law. The employer's obligation to prevent psychological harassment is set out explicitly in TBK 417; the employee's right to terminate for just cause is assessed within the general framework of Labour Law article 24/II together with Court of Cassation practice. Sub-paragraph 24/II-d concerns sexual harassment only.

Who must prove a mobbing claim?

In a mobbing claim, the burden of proof generally falls on the employee and is difficult to meet; for this reason records, witnesses and reports become decisive. On the other hand, it is also important for the employer to be able to document that it took the necessary measures under TBK 417.

Does a small business need a mobbing policy?

Yes. The obligation in TBK 417 does not vary with the number of employees. In small businesses the policy can be simpler, but an independent reporting channel and a confidentiality guarantee should still be provided.

Who should receive mobbing training?

The priority is managers, foremen and HR staff, because they are the people who first hear complaints and who most influence the team climate. After that, short briefings explaining the policy and the reporting channels should be given to all employees. We recommend that training is not limited to a single seminar and is also added to the orientation of new starters.

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Eda Erkan Alapala

Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.

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