Workplace harassment, bullying and transgressive behaviour at work

Workplace harassment in the Netherlands is not one legal problem but three, and which one you are dealing with decides what you can demand and from whom. Conduct that simply makes work unbearable is a working conditions problem, and the claim runs against your employer under its duty of care. Conduct tied to a protected characteristic is discrimination, and a second set of remedies opens up. Conduct that crosses into assault, stalking or a sexual offence is a criminal matter as well, and the three tracks can run at the same time.

This page sets out all three routes, what the employer is actually obliged to do, how to build a file that survives a hearing, which external bodies can help and what they cannot do, and what a court can order. It applies equally to an employee who is on the receiving end and to an employer who has just received a report.

Three legal categories, and why the label matters

The same behaviour often falls into two categories at once, and that is worth spelling out rather than glossing over. Describing what happened as “harassing remarks about my accent” is legally stronger than “general rudeness”, because the first version brings the equal treatment legislation into play, and with it a burden of proof that shifts to the employer once you establish facts from which discrimination may be presumed. Where the conduct is tied to a protected ground, our page on employment discrimination law sets out the grounds, the burden of proof and the procedural deadlines.

One point about who is protected. The duty to prevent psychosocial workload is owed under the Working Conditions Act not only to employees with a contract of employment, but to everyone who works under the employer’s authority on its premises, which includes agency workers, secondees, trainees and in most situations self-employed contractors working on site. A person without an employment contract has a weaker route to damages against the hirer, but the working conditions obligations still apply.

What counts as bullying, harassment and transgressive behaviour

Dutch practice distinguishes between unwanted conduct and transgressive conduct. Unwanted conduct is behaviour you experience as unpleasant or disruptive without your boundaries necessarily being crossed: a stream of jokes at your expense, dismissive remarks, being talked over. Transgressive conduct goes further and crosses a personal boundary or a right: unwanted touching, sexual harassment, verbal or physical aggression, abuse of a position of power.

For bullying, the test the courts apply is a pattern. Isolated friction, a single sharp exchange, justified critical feedback or a lawful warning do not qualify. Repeated, escalating conduct that undermines someone’s dignity or safety does. The distinction shows up in the file, and it is the first thing an employer will argue about, so it is worth being precise from the outset.

The forms it takes

Naming the behaviour precisely matters, because a vague complaint is hard to investigate and easy to dismiss.

• Verbal. Insults, “jokes” at someone’s expense, relentless non-constructive criticism, remarks about appearance or private life.
• Psychological. Rumours, exclusion from meetings and group chats, withholding information needed to do the job, impossible deadlines, moving the goalposts, denying what plainly happened.
• Non-verbal. Staring, aggressive gestures, offensive images left where they will be seen.
• Digital. The same conduct through email, chat platforms and social media, which follows people home and, unlike a corridor remark, leaves a record.
• Physical. Unwanted touching, blocking someone’s way, interfering with their belongings or equipment.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment has its own weight. It is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment, and the equal treatment legislation treats it as direct discrimination on grounds of sex. That matters procedurally: it opens the route to the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights and it shifts the burden of proof once the employee has established facts from which harassment may be presumed.

Alongside that civil track, the Wet seksuele misdrijven (Sexual Offences Act), in force since 1 July 2024, broadened the criminal definitions of sexually transgressive conduct, including in the workplace and online, and lowered the threshold for offences committed without consent. Serious cases therefore run on two tracks at the same time, and the choices made on one affect the other: a criminal complaint can strengthen a civil claim, but it also takes the pace of the matter out of your hands.

What your employer is obliged to do

The duty of care is the backbone of every bullying and harassment claim. Article 7:658 of the Civil Code and the Working Conditions Act together require an employer to prevent or limit psychosocial workload, a statutory term that expressly covers bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, aggression, violence and discrimination. The Working Conditions Act requires the employer to identify those risks in its risk assessment and evaluation, to set out measures against them in a written policy, and to review both when circumstances change. The Working Conditions Decree adds that where the assessment shows a risk of psychosocial workload, the employer must take concrete measures and inform staff about the risks and the measures taken.

In practice the obligation comes down to three things: a policy that names the behaviour and the measures, a complaints procedure that a complaint can actually reach and that is not routed through the person complained about, and prompt action once the employer knows, or should have known, what is going on. Beyond that, article 7:611 of the Civil Code requires an employer to behave as a good employer, and it is under that heading that courts assess how a report was handled once it was received.

The last point is where employers lose cases. Liability does not require that management approved of the conduct, nor that a formal complaint was ever filed. It is enough that signals reached the organisation, through sickness absence figures, an exit interview, a remark to a team leader or an employee survey, and that nothing was done with them. The duty also covers conduct by colleagues, by managers and by third parties such as clients, patients, passengers or contractors on the site, which is why sectors with heavy public contact are expected to have specific measures in place.

The confidential adviser: not yet compulsory

It is often written that every Dutch employer must appoint a confidential adviser, a vertrouwenspersoon. That is not the law today. The private member’s bill that would make it compulsory was passed by the House of Representatives on 23 May 2023 and is still before the Senate, where the written preparation has not been completed; in September 2025 the House designated a new member to defend the bill in the Senate, which is where matters stand. Until the bill is passed and brought into force, appointing a confidential adviser is strongly expected as part of a sound policy and is evidence that the employer took its duty seriously, but it is not a standalone statutory obligation.

What is compulsory is that a report can be made somewhere and that it goes somewhere. An organisation with no accessible route for a complaint, or with a route that leads straight back to the person complained about, is in breach of its duty of care regardless of what the policy document says.

The works council and whistleblowing

The works council has consent rights over the policy on psychosocial workload and over the complaints procedure, so an employer cannot introduce or amend either unilaterally where a council exists. The council has no role in an individual complaint, and taking your case to the works council is not a substitute for the complaints procedure.

A separate route can open where the conduct is not just a personal matter but points to a structural failing, for example a pattern of sexual harassment that management has tolerated. A report of that kind may qualify as a report of wrongdoing under the Wet bescherming klokkenluiders (Whistleblower Protection Act), which prohibits detrimental treatment of the reporter and places the burden on the employer to show that any measure taken against them was unconnected to the report. The threshold is that the matter must engage a public interest rather than only your own position, so the route is narrower than it first appears, but in the right case it is the strongest protection available.

Building the file

These cases are decided on paper. The party that arrives with dates, messages and medical records usually prevails over the party that arrives with a narrative. Start recording as soon as the behaviour feels wrong, well before you decide whether to do anything with it.

The incident log

Record facts, not conclusions. “He was condescending” is an opinion; the sentence he used is evidence.

Keep the log off your employer’s systems: a personal device, a private mail account or a notebook at home. A log stored on a company drive can be lost with your account on the day the relationship breaks down.

Preserving digital evidence

Forward messages to a private address as they arrive and save them as PDFs with the header visible, screenshot chat threads in full with the date and time in shot because the sender can delete a message later, and do not edit the files, because metadata is part of what makes them credible. Be careful with covert recordings. Recording a conversation you are yourself taking part in is not a criminal offence in the Netherlands, and such a recording is in principle admissible in civil proceedings, but using it can breach confidentiality obligations or damage the working relationship beyond repair, and a judge may weigh how it was obtained. Take advice before you rely on one.

Witnesses and health

Ask colleagues who saw what happened to write a short statement while it is fresh, from a private email address. If they are afraid to, note their names anyway; a court can hear them later, and witnesses who would not put anything in writing while employed sometimes speak freely once they have left.

Health damage counts only if it is recorded. See your GP, the company doctor or a psychologist and ask for their findings in writing, and keep sick notes, occupational health reports and invoices. This is what connects the conduct to a loss, and without it a damages claim has no figure attached to it.

The internal route

A court expects an employer to have been given a fair chance to solve the problem. Going internally first is not a formality; it also puts the duty of care squarely on the employer and creates the record that a later claim rests on.

Addressing it directly

Where it feels safe, a short factual conversation often ends the behaviour, and it establishes that the conduct was unwelcome, which is an element of harassment in the legal sense. Keep it to the behaviour and its effect: “I do not want remarks about my appearance. Please stop.” Write down afterwards what you said and how the other person responded, and where you can, follow up with a short email confirming the conversation.

Where the other person is your manager, where you fear retaliation, or where the conduct is already serious, skip this step. It is not a required stage and your safety comes first.

Reporting

Find the policy first, in the staff handbook or on the intranet. It names who can receive a report. In most organisations that is HR, a manager other than your own, or the confidential adviser where there is one. If your own manager is the problem, report above or around them, never to them.

When you report, bring the log and one or two representative pieces of evidence rather than the whole archive, state what outcome you are asking for, and ask for a written record of the meeting. Send your own confirmation from a private address as well. Being explicit about the outcome you want matters more than people expect: an employer that is asked to stop the behaviour and separate the reporting lines has a concrete instruction to respond to, while an employer told only that someone is unhappy will usually respond with a conversation and nothing else.

When the internal route is failing

There are recognisable signs that the procedure is not going to deliver. The investigator reports to the person complained about. Deadlines in the procedure keep moving. You are heard once and then hear nothing. Tasks are taken away, a warning appears in your file, or your role is quietly changed while the complaint is still open.

Record each of these as its own incident. Detrimental treatment because you have complained is prohibited in its own right where the complaint concerns discrimination or a report of wrongdoing, and in every other case it strengthens the claim rather than weakening it. It is also the point at which external advice stops being premature.

External routes

Four external bodies matter, and it helps to know in advance what each can and cannot do, because the most common disappointment in these cases is approaching a body that has no power to give you what you want.

The Netherlands Labour Authority

The Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie, as the inspectorate has been called since 1 January 2022, enforces the Working Conditions Act. It can investigate whether the employer has a policy on psychosocial workload and whether it is actually applied, and it can issue demands, order improvements and impose fines for breaches of that act. It does not decide individual disputes, it does not award compensation and it will not reinstate you. Treat it as leverage on the employer’s systems rather than as a remedy for your own case, and be aware that a report can be made anonymously but that anonymity limits what the inspectorate can investigate.

The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights

The College voor de Rechten van de Mens is free, needs no lawyer and is open to you where the conduct is connected to a protected ground. It gives a reasoned opinion on whether the equal treatment legislation has been breached, after a written exchange and usually a hearing. The opinion is not binding, and the Institute cannot award damages or set aside a dismissal, but it carries real evidential weight in later court proceedings and most employers comply with it. Because it is not a court, going there does not stop any limitation period running, so keep an eye on the deadlines that do apply.

Union, works council and company doctor

A union representative can attend meetings and negotiate, and in sectors with a strong collective agreement the union may have a role in the complaints procedure itself. The company doctor can record that continued exposure to the situation is unsafe and advise on adjustments or on a temporary change of workplace, and that opinion weighs heavily in later proceedings because it comes from an independent professional rather than from either party.

The police

Where the conduct amounts to assault, threats, stalking or a sexual offence, a report can be made. Two practical points. Stalking, belaging under article 285b of the Criminal Code, is an offence that can only be prosecuted on the complaint of the victim, so a formal complaint rather than a mere notification is required. And as an injured party you can claim compensation within the criminal proceedings, which is quicker and cheaper than a separate civil case, although the criminal court will refer a complicated claim to the civil court rather than deal with it.

What a court can do

Interim relief

Summary proceedings, a kort geding, can be heard within weeks and are the right tool when the point is to make it stop now. Typical orders are that the other person has no further contact with you or is moved, that you may work from home on full pay, that access to the building is restricted, or that a penalty is payable for each day an order is breached. Because the relief is provisional, the evidential bar is lower: a consistent log, a medical note and a handful of messages can be enough. The employer has to show it has already taken all reasonable measures, and that is the test many fail.

Damages

A claim for damages goes to the kantonrechter, the subdistrict court, which hears employment claims whatever the amount involved and where representation by a lawyer is not compulsory. Three things have to be established: a pattern of conduct rather than incidents, a breach by the employer of its duty of care, and a causal link to the loss claimed. Under article 7:658 of the Civil Code the burden is favourable to the employee once the harm and the connection with the work are established, because it is then for the employer to prove that it complied with its duty of care or that the harm is substantially due to the employee’s own deliberate act or conscious recklessness.

The loss falls into two parts. Material loss covers treatment costs, medication, lost income and expenses actually incurred. Immaterial loss, smartengeld, compensates the harm to health and dignity itself. Awards vary widely and are driven almost entirely by the quality of the medical and documentary evidence, so a figure quoted from another case says very little about yours. A claim is subject to a limitation period of five years running from the moment you know both the damage and who is liable for it, which in practice is often later than the conduct itself.

Ending the employment on your terms

The route that is used most and discussed least is an application by the employee to have the employment contract dissolved because of the employer’s conduct. Where the employer has acted in a seriously culpable way, by allowing the situation to continue or by handling the complaint badly, the court can award fair compensation on top of the transition payment. This keeps the initiative with the employee and avoids the risks of resigning.

Resigning for urgent cause is the more dangerous version of the same idea. It ends the contract immediately, but if the urgent cause is not accepted you may be left without unemployment benefit. In practice, the credible threat of a dissolution application is usually what produces a settlement agreement, and that is where most of these matters end: a termination payment, a contribution to legal costs and a neutral reference. Whichever route is taken, watch the deadlines. A challenge to a dismissal or a request for compensation must be brought within two months, and a claim for the transition payment within three months of the end of the contract.

Sick leave while the complaint runs

Many of these situations run in parallel with sick leave, and the two processes have their own timetable under the Wet verbetering poortwachter. The company doctor draws up the problem analysis no later than week six, and the plan of action follows within two weeks of that, so by week eight. The plan is drawn up with you and is reviewed at least every six weeks.

One rule is worth knowing before the first appointment: reintegration into a workplace where the conduct has not been addressed is not suitable work, and you are entitled to say so. If the employer and the company doctor disagree with you, either party can ask the UWV for an expert opinion, a deskundigenoordeel, which is the ordinary way of breaking a deadlock about suitable work or about the sufficiency of the reintegration effort. Refusing suitable work can cost you your wages, so the disagreement should be put on record and tested rather than acted on unilaterally. Our page on sick leave and reintegration sets out the full timetable and the wage rules that go with it.

After the complaint: recovery and the record

Two practical points get overlooked once the legal question is settled.

The first is that your medical file stays with the doctor. Your employer is entitled to know what you can and cannot do at work, not what is wrong with you or what you discuss in treatment, and under the GDPR and the guidance of the Dutch data protection authority an employer may not record a diagnosis or ask about one. If questions go beyond fitness for work, they are questions your employer is not allowed to ask, and you may decline them without consequence. Keep the invoices for treatment: they are both proof of impact and a head of recoverable loss.

The second is the reference. Where the matter ends in a settlement agreement, what the agreement says about the reason for leaving and what a future employer will be told is negotiable, and it is worth as much as a few weeks of severance. Agree the wording in writing rather than trusting that it will be handled decently later, and check what happens to the internal file, to any warning on it and to the confidentiality clause, which should not prevent you from speaking to a doctor, a lawyer or a supervisory authority.

For employers: handling a report

A report has to be investigated, and the investigation is judged later on how it was run, not on what it concluded. An employer that reaches a defensible process and an uncomfortable conclusion is in a far better position than one that reaches a convenient conclusion through a flawed process.

Decide first who investigates. It cannot be someone who reports to either party, and in serious cases, or where senior management is involved, it should be external. Hear both sides: everyone involved has to be able to give their account and to respond to what is said about them, and an investigation that does not confront the person complained about with the allegations will not survive scrutiny. Take interim measures where needed, and make sure they do not fall on the person who complained, because sending the complainant home while the other person carries on is itself detrimental treatment. Weigh all the interests, including those of the person complained about, and reach a reasoned decision that is communicated in writing to both. Then follow up, because a conclusion with no consequence attached is what a court reads as a failure to act.

Handle the data carefully as well. An investigation file contains special category personal data, statements about identifiable people and often health information, so access should be restricted, retention limited to what is necessary and the people involved informed about what is held. Two mistakes recur. The first is treating a report as an HR nuisance until it becomes a claim. The second is over-correcting: dismissing on the basis of an investigation that did not hear the other side produces a second dispute alongside the first, and summary dismissal in particular requires an urgent cause, immediate action and immediate notification of the reason. Our employment law guides set out the dismissal routes and the evidence each one requires.

Frequently asked questions

Dealing with harassment or a complaint at work

Whether you are being worn down at work and want it to stop, or you are an employer holding a report that has to be handled correctly, the questions are the same: what does the file show, what has been done with the signals so far, and which of the three legal routes fits. Acting early is what changes the outcome, because the remedies that work best, an interim order or a well-timed dissolution application, depend on a record that was built before the situation reached breaking point.

Law & More advises employees and employers on bullying, harassment and transgressive behaviour at work, from the first report through internal investigations, proceedings before the subdistrict court and negotiated exits. Our employment lawyers act on both sides, in Dutch and in English. Contact us for a confidential assessment of your position.