Straining and workplace bullying can make it difficult even to face an ordinary day: exclusion from communications, stripped-down tasks, humiliations, disproportionate workloads, or contradictory requests are not mere words to be endured in silence. You may wonder whether this constitutes mobbing, a conflict with a manager, or a legitimate organizational change. It can be equally difficult to understand whether concrete legal protection exists even when the episodes are not numerous or do not appear designed to target a specific individual.
I want to help you distinguish facts that may carry legal significance from unpleasant but non-unlawful situations. I will explain what the terms straining and workplace bullying indicate, what protection the law imposes on the employer, what elements are needed to prove damages, and what alternatives you can consider before or after claiming compensation.
Straining, Bullying, and Mobbing: Why the Distinction Matters
Workplace bullying is not an independent crime nor a legal category with its own rules. It is a common expression that can describe offensive, marginalizing, or prevaricating behavior by a supervisor or colleagues. Their legal significance, however, depends on the facts: frequency, content, context, effects on performance and health, as well as the reaction of the organization that should have prevented or interrupted them.
Mobbing generally indicates a sequence of hostile conduct which, considered as a whole, aims at or is capable of isolating and harming the worker. Therefore, heated disagreements, professional criticism, or a single unfavorable measure are not sufficient. One must look at the continuity of the episodes, their consistency, and their concrete impact on the dignity, professionalism, or health of the person suffering them.
Straining can emerge even without a long series of episodes. The Court of Cassation has categorized this phenomenon as an attenuated form compared to mobbing, characterized by the absence of continuous vexatious actions: what matters is the creation or maintenance of a hostile and stressful working condition capable of impacting health. You can consult the Cassation review on Order no. 18164 of 2018.
Protection of Health and Dignity in the Employment Relationship
The central rule is Article 2087 of the Civil Code. This provision requires the employer to adopt the measures necessary to protect the physical integrity and moral personality of workers, based on the type of work, experience, and technique. This does not mean the employer is automatically liable for every suffering experienced in the workplace; rather, it means they must prevent and counter reasonably foreseeable risks to health and dignity. The reference text is Article 2087 of the Civil Code on Normattiva.
The label given to the problem does not solely determine protection. In a 2024 ruling, the Court of Cassation clarified that mobbing and straining are medico-legal notions useful for identifying conduct incompatible with Article 2087 and the protection of health in the workplace. Therefore, the absence of a declared persecutory intent does not necessarily close the matter: the judge must verify whether the behaviors created a wearing and stressful environment. The reference is the Cassation review regarding Order no. 4664 of 2024.
Prevention also concerns work-related stress. Article 28 of Legislative Decree no. 81 of 2008 requires risk assessment to consider all risks to safety and health, including those related to work-related stress. The risk assessment document concerns the organization as a whole: it can be significant in understanding what measures were planned, but it alone does not prove either the existence or non-existence of individual damage. See Article 28 of Legislative Decree no. 81 of 2008.
Which Facts Turn Hardship into a Potential Violation
An organizational change is not unlawful simply because it is disadvantageous. The company may reorganize offices, distribute tasks differently, modify priorities, and demand results consistent with the contract and job duties. The important question is another: does the choice have a real reason and is it applied in a proportionate manner, or does it become a means to hollow out the role, isolate a person, or subject them to pressures incompatible with health protection?
Professional marginalization must be described with precision. Systematic exclusion from necessary meetings, unjustified removal of tasks, assignment of useless or role-incompatible activities, spreading unfounded accusations, repeated use of degrading tones, or imposition of unreasonable goals can all be relevant. A generic narrative such as “I was mobbed” is less useful than an orderly sequence of dates, people present, communications, and concrete consequences.
Who caused or tolerated the problem also matters. The conduct may originate from a manager, colleagues, or multiple subjects. If hostility arises between colleagues, it becomes crucial to understand whether the employer knew about the facts, could have known about them with ordinary attention, or failed to take adequate action after a report. Liability depends not only on the material perpetrator of the offense, but also on the organization and the protection measures concretely adopted.
Damage to health requires a demonstrable link. Medical certifications, therapeutic paths, and specialist assessments can document a condition of suffering or pathology, but it is also necessary to link that damage to the alleged working conditions. The fact that a period was difficult does not authorize the automatic presumption of a causal link; likewise, the existence of personal factors does not rule out in advance that work contributed to the damage.
Documents and Evidence That Can Clarify the Situation
The most useful evidence is often contemporaneous with the events. Emails, professional messages, summons, service orders, communications on duties, calendars, shifts, and minutes can show what really happened and when. Performance evaluations, documents describing the role, and communications changing tasks or objectives can also be important if linked to the contested fact.
An orderly chronology avoids misunderstandings. Subtly noting the date, the episode, the people involved, any witnesses, and available documentation makes it possible to distinguish repeated conduct from a general impression. There is no need to multiply accusations or interpretations: it is more effective to preserve verifiable facts, including any requested interventions and responses received.
Testimonial evidence can supplement documents. Anyone who witnessed a meeting, received the same instructions, or knows the concrete distribution of activities can help reconstruct the context. However, testimony does not replace proof of health damage nor render organizational reasons asserted by the employer irrelevant: every element must be read together with the others.
Reporting the Problem and Choosing Proportionate Protection
A written report can serve to request protection. Stating past facts, indicating employment consequences, and demanding concrete intervention allows bringing the problem to the employer's attention without immediately turning every conflict into a lawsuit. The report alone does not prove the validity of the claim, but it can document that the organization was informed and what response it chose to give.
The internal solution is useful only if it addresses the specific fact. A confrontation, a different distribution of activities, the restoration of necessary communications, or measures against offensive behavior can be adequate when they genuinely eliminate the risk condition. If instead the response remains generic, minimizes documented episodes, or exposes the worker to further prejudicial consequences, external protection must be considered more carefully.
Compensation is not the only possible claim. Depending on the facts, requests to halt conduct, remove the effects of an unlawful measure, or obtain redress for suffered damages may become relevant. The content of a legal claim depends on the employment relationship, demonstrable conduct, and alleged damage; there is no formula valid for every situation nor a guaranteed result.
When Compensation for Damages May Arise
Compensation requires proven damage. It is not recognized automatically simply because a person uses the words mobbing, bullying, or straining. It is necessary to identify conduct or omission contrary to protection obligations, demonstrate the prejudice suffered, and link it to workplace facts. The reconstruction may concern damages to health, effectively proven economic consequences, and non-pecuniary prejudices, but each head of claim has its own prerequisites.
The intensity of the facts can affect quantification. The Court of Cassation has observed that repetition, intensity of intent, and other characteristics of the conduct can be relevant to the amount of compensation, without making the label of mobbing indispensable to establish the violation of the protection obligation. For this reason, it is essential to focus not only on the name of the phenomenon, but on the actual consequences and the facts that produced them.
Civil compensation and insurance benefits remain distinct. Any welfare or insurance protection follows its own rules and procedures and does not automatically replace the claim for compensation against the employer. Similarly, an assessment of health suffering does not establish on its own either employer liability or the amount due: the connection with work must be proven in the specific case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I speak of straining even if there was only a single episode?
Yes, but counting episodes is not enough. Straining can also concern non-repeated conduct when it produces a hostile or stressful working condition that persists over time. However, it is necessary to demonstrate what happened, why that measure was unjustified or disproportionate, and what concrete effects it had on work or health.
Do I need a medical diagnosis to seek protection?
No, protection does not depend on a diagnosis. You can contest behaviors harmful to dignity or ask for them to cease even without alleging a pathology. Health documentation becomes particularly important when claiming compensation for health damage, because it helps define the prejudice and assess its connection with working conditions.
Are workplace bullying and mobbing automatically crimes?
No, they are not independent crimes solely due to the name used. They can be relevant at the employment and civil levels as violations of the protection obligation. Some individual facts could also have criminal relevance, but this depends on specific conduct and its specific elements: it is incorrect to automatically classify every conflict, humiliation, or poor organization as a crime.
Can an internal report be useful before claiming compensation?
It can be useful if it describes verifiable facts. A written communication with dates, episodes, people present, and a request for a concrete measure can allow the employer to intervene and document the response received. It does not replace the evidence needed in a potential lawsuit, but prevents the problem from remaining confined to informal conversations or later memories.
Does the risk assessment document prove that I suffered straining?
No, it does not prove the individual case on its own. The work-related stress assessment is a prevention obligation concerning the organization and its risks. It can be a useful element in context, but for a personal claim, one must also prove the behaviors suffered, any omission of adequate measures, the damage, and the link between those facts and the alleged prejudice.
How to Navigate Without Confusing Labels with Facts
The priority is to reconstruct in an orderly manner what happened: what conduct occurred, how long it lasted, who was aware of it, what protection was requested, and what consequences are documentable. If you wish to clarify whether a situation of straining or workplace bullying can establish grounds for protection in Milan, you can contact me to frame the facts and concretely practicable alternatives.