Bullying Bill: A Startup Playbook for Respect at Work

A toxic workplace doesn’t just cost you morale—it costs you growth. In UK startups, where small teams move fast and everyone feels the pressure, “banter” and blurred boundaries can quietly turn into bullying. The proposed Bullying and Respect at Work Bill (still early-stage) is a signal that the direction of travel is clear: government, employees, and investors want stronger expectations around dignity at work.

For founders, this sits squarely in our Governance, Regulation & Public Trust series for a reason. Public trust isn’t only about data privacy or financial reporting. It’s also about how companies treat people. Culture is governance. And governance is brand.

What follows is a practical, startup-friendly way to think about what the Bullying and Respect at Work Bill could mean—and how to turn “compliance” into an employer-brand advantage that helps you hire, retain, and perform.

What the Bullying and Respect at Work Bill signals (even before it becomes law)

The simplest read: the UK is likely moving towards clearer, stronger duties on employers to prevent bullying and promote respect at work, not just respond after harm happens.

Even without the final text in front of us, most “respect at work” legislative proposals follow a familiar pattern:

• A higher bar for prevention, not only handling complaints
• Clearer definitions and expectations around behaviours (including subtle patterns, not just extreme incidents)
• More accountability for leaders and managers
• Stronger routes for employees to raise issues safely
• More pressure to evidence what you did (policies, training, investigations, outcomes)

If you’re running a startup, the big change isn’t the paperwork. It’s the likely shift from “we have a policy somewhere” to “show your working.” When regulators, tribunals, employees, or the press ask what you did to prevent harm, “we’re a small team” won’t be a defence.

A useful stance for founders: treat this as a product-quality problem. If your culture produces harm, it will eventually show up in churn, poor execution, and reputation risk.

Why this matters to startups more than big corporates

Startups feel cultural damage faster. A large company can absorb a disengaged team or a poor manager for longer. A 12-person startup can’t.

The growth maths is brutal

When one person becomes a source of fear or humiliation, the fallout is rarely contained:

• People stop raising risks early, so mistakes ship to customers
• Teams avoid “difficult” conversations, so priorities blur
• High performers quietly exit, so hiring costs spike
• Founders spend time on fires, so product and sales slow down

Replacing an employee is expensive. Various UK HR estimates commonly put replacement cost at months of salary once you include recruiting time, onboarding, and lost output. Startups don’t have “spare” months.

Employer brand is now a growth channel

In 2026, candidates don’t just research your product—they research your leadership. Review sites, founder reputation on social, and word-of-mouth in tight UK talent markets matter.

A respectful culture becomes a marketing asset:

• It improves offer acceptance rates
• It reduces regrettable attrition
• It builds credibility with partners and enterprise buyers who care about ESG
• It makes fundraising easier when diligence includes people practices

Respect at work isn’t a poster on a wall. It’s how your company behaves when deadlines hit.

What counts as bullying at work (in the way regulators and tribunals tend to see it)

Bullying is often less about one dramatic incident and more about patterns of behaviour that undermine dignity.

Common examples that show up in real workplaces:

• Publicly humiliating someone in Slack or meetings
• Persistent “jokes” about competence, background, disability, or identity
• Setting someone up to fail (impossible deadlines, unclear goals, moving targets)
• Excluding someone from key information or decisions
• Threatening job security to force compliance
• Retaliation after someone raises concerns

Also: many behaviours become more serious when tied to a protected characteristic (e.g., sex, race, disability), because they can cross into harassment and discrimination territory under existing UK frameworks.

The startup trap: confusing intensity with intimidation

High standards are fine. Aggression isn’t.

A founder can be direct, urgent, and demanding without being demeaning. The difference is usually observable:

• Healthy intensity: clear expectations, specific feedback, accountability, respect
• Bullying pattern: personal attacks, unpredictability, fear, humiliation, isolation

If your team is “performing” but scared to speak, you’re borrowing output from the future.

Practical steps to future-proof your startup (without turning into a bureaucracy)

You don’t need a 40-page handbook. You need a small set of systems that work under pressure.

1) Write a behaviour standard people can actually use

Most policies fail because they read like legal templates. Your goal is a one-page Respect at Work standard that answers:

• What respectful communication looks like here
• What crosses the line (with examples specific to your tools: Slack, WhatsApp, GitHub comments)
• How managers should give feedback
• What happens if someone breaches it (and that it applies to founders too)

Make it concrete. If people can’t picture the behaviours, they won’t change them.

2) Create two reporting routes (minimum) and protect confidentiality

In a startup, the line manager might be the problem. Give employees at least two options:

• Their manager
• A second route: another leader, People lead, or trusted external HR adviser

Then set expectations:

• What happens after a report
• Likely timelines (even if approximate)
• How confidentiality is handled
• What retaliation looks like—and that it won’t be tolerated

This is governance in action: clear process builds trust.

3) Train managers on “pressure moments,” not generic HR theory

Most training is too vague. Focus on the moments that create risk:

• Missed targets and performance management
• Code review and design critique
• Customer escalation calls
• Re-orgs, role changes, and redundancy conversations

A short, scenario-based workshop beats a long e-learning module.

4) Document enough to show you took reasonable steps

If this Bill increases expectations on prevention, you’ll want to evidence what you did. Keep a lightweight “culture compliance” folder:

• Respect at Work standard (versioned)
• Onboarding checklist showing it was shared
• Manager training attendance and materials
• A simple log of concerns raised and how they were handled (restricted access)
• Any actions taken (coaching, warnings, team changes)

This isn’t about paranoia. It’s about being able to say, credibly: we take this seriously, and here’s the proof.

5) Measure culture like you measure product

If you only find out about bullying when someone resigns, you’re too late.

A practical startup cadence:

• A monthly anonymous pulse (5 questions)
• A quarterly “manager quality” score
• Exit interview themes tracked in a spreadsheet

Look for patterns by team, manager, or function. Culture problems are usually local.

Turning respect at work into a brand advantage (not a PR claim)

The strongest employer brands aren’t built by slogans. They’re built by consistency.

Build it into your external story carefully

If you do the work internally, it’s fair to signal it externally. Just don’t overclaim.

Good signals:

• Publishing your values and behaviour standards
• Explaining how you handle conflict and feedback
• Highlighting manager training and employee development
• Sharing retention and engagement improvements when you have credible numbers

Bad signals:

• “We’re a family” (often code for unclear boundaries)
• Big promises with no process (“zero tolerance” without clear reporting and investigation)

Here’s a line I’ve found useful: “We move fast, but we don’t use speed as an excuse to treat people badly.”

Why buyers and investors care

This is where the Governance, Regulation & Public Trust theme becomes real.

• Enterprise procurement increasingly asks about people policies and governance.
• Investors worry about founder risk and reputational blow-ups.
• A public bullying allegation can spread faster than your product announcement.

Respect at work is part of operational resilience.

People also ask: what should founders do right now?

What if the Bullying and Respect at Work Bill never passes? Do the work anyway. You still reduce attrition, protect productivity, and improve hiring outcomes. A respectful culture pays dividends even without a new law.

Do we need a full HR team to handle this? No. Early-stage startups can use a fractional People lead or external HR adviser for reporting routes and investigation support, especially when conflicts involve leadership.

Isn’t this going to make feedback “softer”? No. It makes feedback clearer. Respect at work is compatible with high standards. It’s incompatible with humiliation and intimidation.

What’s the one thing to implement this month? Write a one-page Respect at Work standard and add two reporting routes. Then tell the team, explicitly, that it applies to everyone—including founders.

The real opportunity: build trust before you’re forced to

The Bullying and Respect at Work Bill is early-stage, but the intent matters: the UK is moving towards stronger expectations that employers prevent bullying, not just clean up after it. If you wait for the final wording, you’ll be building under pressure.

If you’re a startup, the upside is bigger than risk reduction. A respectful workplace is a compounding advantage: better hiring, better decision-making, better retention, and a brand people recommend.

What would change in your company’s growth trajectory if your team felt completely safe to challenge ideas, raise concerns early, and disagree without fear?