Attwood Marshall Lawyers Compensation Law Special Counsel Claire Gibbs examines why middle managers have become an overlooked workplace safety risk, and what the law in Australia says about psychological injury claims when organisations fail to act.
The exposed position of middle management
Middle managers are not coping, and in numbers that should concern every organisation that is serious about psychosocial safety.
One in three Australian middle managers identifies burnout as their greatest challenge, and 82 per cent report feeling frustrated or invisible in their roles, according to a BoldHR research paper. A separate TELUS Health Australia survey found that 47 per cent of workers feel mentally or physically exhausted at the end of the working day, with too much work identified as the leading cause.
Middle managers are structurally exposed in any organisation. They do not have the insulation that comes with executive authority, nor the protections more commonly afforded to frontline staff.
They carry direction from above and accountability from below. They are expected to deliver outcomes, absorb restructures, implement decisions they had no part in making, manage performance compassionately, and still be regarded as effective leaders – often without adequate support, authority or recognition.
Many people step into management roles because they are highly skilled in their technical discipline. But they rarely receive meaningful preparation for people management, i.e. dealing with the interpersonal demands, the conflict, and the cumulative toll of holding a team together while fielding pressure from every direction.
The World Health Organisation defines burnout as chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It presents as emotional and physical exhaustion, increased cynicism and disengagement, and reduced professional efficacy.
It is a recognised occupational syndrome and is increasingly appearing in workers’ compensation data.
When performance management becomes the problem
The volume of formal complaints is rising. Data from Allianz shows an almost 76 per cent increase in active bullying and harassment claims between 2021 and 2025 – growth that workplace safety experts attribute to both an increased awareness and a genuine escalation in harmful conduct.
There is a specific scenario that we see regularly in practice, and it is one that most workplaces seem poorly equipped to handle.
A manager is doing their job. They identify performance concerns with a direct report. They initiate an informal management process. A formal improvement process follows, documented carefully and conducted with care.
And then comes the counterclaim.
Rather than engaging with the performance feedback, the employee alleges they are being bullied by their manager. What began as a straightforward management process becomes a formal complaint – sometimes multiple complaints, sometimes escalating in scope.
This is what is increasingly referred to as “bullying up”: conduct directed upward in the organisational hierarchy, where the target is the manager rather than a subordinate.
Workplace safety regulators acknowledge that conduct, including unjustified criticism, spreading misinformation and making malicious allegations when repeated and harmful, can constitute bullying regardless of the direction it travels.
The psychosocial toll on the manager is real and accumulates quickly.
Isolation. Reputational damage. Anxiety. Moral injury. The harm caused by a vexatious complaint is documented and foreseeable.
Complaints that are knowingly false can amount to serious misconduct. Employers have obligations not only to protect frontline employees from harm but also to protect managers from foreseeable psychosocial risks, including retaliatory conduct by those they are managing.
Yet too often, middle managers are excluded from psychosocial risk assessments entirely, on the false assumption that bullying only travels downward.
What the law requires of employers
Modern workplace health and safety law in Australia is clear: psychosocial hazards are not soft issues or interpersonal difficulties. They are workplace hazards in the same way that faulty machinery or unsafe equipment are hazards, and they carry the same obligations.
Employers are required to identify, assess and control psychosocial risks. These include excessive workload, poor organisational change management, bullying and harassment (in all directions), lack of role clarity, and placing people in leadership positions without the authority or support required to function effectively.
The obligations extend to vexatious complaints. Where an employer knows that retaliatory conduct is a foreseeable risk in their environment and does nothing to deter or sanction it, they are exposed.
Workers’ compensation and psychological injury claims
If a middle manager sustains a psychological injury as a result of workplace conditions, including bullying up, burnout, excessive workload, or the cumulative toll of an unsupported management role, they may be entitled to make a workers’ compensation claim.
Indeed, psychological injury claims are rising across Australia. According to Safe Work Australia, mental health conditions accounted for 9 per cent of all serious workers’ compensation claims in 2021-22, with claims increasing by 36.9 per cent over five years. That is more than double the growth rate of physical injury claims. More than half of serious psychological injury claims are linked to workplace harassment, bullying or excessive work pressure.
Research from the Council of Australian Life Insurers and KPMG in 2024 meanwhile found a 730 per cent increase in permanent disability claims for mental health among Millennials since 2014, with bullying identified as one of the primary precipitating factors.
These are not marginal statistics. They point to a generation of workers accumulating serious, lasting harm in conditions that organisations have a legal obligation to address.
Under Queensland’s workers’ compensation scheme, psychological injuries can give rise to both statutory claims and, where the injury is serious and meets the relevant threshold, common law damages claims.
One important and often misunderstood aspect of the law relates to the “reasonable management action” defence. WorkCover may initially decline a claim on the basis that the injury arose from reasonable performance management.
However, when those decisions are appealed, a significant proportion are approved. In many cases, close to half of all appeals succeed.
This is why early legal advice matters. A claim that appears straightforward to an insurer may be considerably more complex when examined properly, particularly where a manager has been subjected to conduct that crosses the line from performance management into sustained psychological harm.
Something needs to change
If organisations are genuinely committed to psychosocial safety, middle managers can no longer be treated as an afterthought. They are a distinct risk cohort and they must be explicitly identified in psychosocial risk assessments. It is not sufficient to assess risk for frontline workers while assuming that those in the middle will manage.
Equally, organisations need to confront the reality that retaliatory complaints made in response to warranted performance management are a foreseeable psychosocial hazard. Left unaddressed, they cause serious harm to individuals and to the integrity of the systems designed to protect everyone.
Policies must spell out, in plain language, that vexatious complaints are not harmless, and that making knowingly false or malicious allegations carries serious consequences. Those consequences must be enforced, not quietly ignored, if organisations are to protect middle managers from being punished for doing the jobs they were appointed to do.
Organisations also need to invest in genuine leadership development, not just technical training, so that people placed in management roles are equipped to do the work without being consumed by it.
Psychosocial safety must be embedded in how organisations are structured, how risk is assessed, and how conduct is managed at every level.
Attwood Marshall Lawyers – helping injured workers access the treatment and compensation they deserve
If you are a manager or employee who has experienced psychological injury as a result of your working conditions, our Compensation Law team can help you understand your rights and what options may be available to you.
We have extensive experience in Queensland and New South Wales workers’ compensation schemes and understand how difficult it can be to consider making a claim, particularly where workplace relationships are involved. Our team is here to provide clear, confidential advice and support you through every step of the process.
For a confidential discussion, please call our Compensation Law Department Manager Tyra Hanson on direct line 07 5506 8261, email thanson@attwoodmarshall.com.au or free call 1800 621 071 any time.
