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Violence in the workplace

Last updated December 2024

This chapter explains the health and safety risks of exposure to work-related violence, and how to manage these risks to meet your health and safety obligations.
Definition: Work-Related Violence

Work-related violence is any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances arising out of, or in the course of, their work.

This definition covers a broad range of actions and behaviours that can create a risk to workers’ psychological and physical health and safety, including:

  • verbal threats;
  • sexual assault;
  • threatening with a weapon;
  • throwing objects;
  • pushing, shoving and hitting; and
  • spitting and biting.

Exposure to work-related violence includes being the victim of, or witnessing:

  • assault by a person or persons who may or may not be work colleagues, e.g. a visitor to your workplace; or
  • bank robberies, hold-ups and other violent events at work.
Important: The number of serious workers’ compensation claims for assault and exposure to workplace violence increased 56% between 2017–2018 and 2022–2023, according to Safe Work Australia's Workplace and work-related violence and aggression in Australia report.

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