Poland’s 2026 Labour Code Amendment: Mobbing and Employer Duties

A disciplinary conversation held in front of the whole team during a daily stand-up. Excluding an employee from project email threads. A joke at an all-hands meeting repeated every week. From 5 November 2026, each of these behaviors, if repeated, may be classified as mobbing under Polish law. You do not need an intention to harass in order to be held responsible.

The Act of 19 June 2026 amending the Labour Code and the Code of Civil Procedure (Journal of Laws of 4 August 2026, item 1046) enters into force on 5 November 2026. It makes the most far-reaching changes to mobbing rules since 2004: a new definition, higher minimum compensation, a reversed burden of proof and five duties to implement, regardless of company size.

This article maps the changes, deadlines and practical steps. It explains the revised definition of mobbing, the financial and litigation risks of failing to prepare, and what to do before November 2026 and May 2027.

Key terms you need to know

Before looking at the amendment, it helps to clarify terms whose meaning is changing or has specific legal consequences.

What the 2026 Labour Code amendment changes in the definition of mobbing

The previous definition of mobbing in Article 94³ § 2 of the Labour Code required an employee to establish four elements together: persistent and long-lasting harassment, the perpetrator’s intent, harm to health and a reduced professional self-assessment. Meeting all conditions was difficult; employees won only 4.6% to 11% of cases.

The 2026 amendment removes three of those barriers.

What the definition no longer requires

1. Long duration. Repeated, recurring or continuous behavior is sufficient. Courts previously sometimes required harassment to last several months; now a series of repeated acts may suffice.
2. Harm to health. An employee no longer has to prove that mobbing caused a health disorder. They may seek compensation without a medical certificate.
3. The perpetrator’s intent. Intent is irrelevant. The focus is on how the conduct appears externally and whether it is repeated.

Statutory examples of mobbing

The amendment introduces an open list of conduct that may constitute mobbing:

1. Humiliating or degrading a person.
2. Intimidation.
3. Undermining a person’s professional suitability.
4. Unjustified criticism.
5. Belittling or ridiculing a person.
6. Isolating an employee.
7. Making it difficult to function in the workplace, including excluding someone from information flows, cutting off work tools or taking away assignments.

The last point matters particularly to technology companies. Excluding a developer from a Slack channel, not assigning work during a sprint or leaving them out of project meetings may qualify as mobbing if repeated.

Who may be a perpetrator, and who may be a victim

This is an asymmetric structure. A B2B contractor may commit mobbing against an employee but is not protected as a victim under the Labour Code. Their protection comes from the Civil Code (Articles 23 and 24, protection of personal interests) and the Act of 3 December 2010 on Equal Treatment, if the conduct relates to a protected characteristic such as sex, age or disability.

Exclusion from mobbing: justified criticism

The amendment expressly excludes justified conduct expressed in an appropriate manner, particularly holding someone accountable for their work and criticizing it. The distinction is between:

1. Substantive feedback about a specific deliverable, provided in a one-to-one conversation.
2. Public criticism of an employee’s competence in front of the team, repeated regularly.

The first is part of management. The second, if repeated, may meet the definition of mobbing regardless of the manager’s intent.

Financial and litigation risks for employers

Minimum compensation for mobbing

The amendment sets minimum compensation at six times the minimum monthly wage. Using the minimum wage of PLN 4,806 gross (Council of Ministers Regulation of 11 September 2025, Journal of Laws 2025, item 1242), this equals PLN 28,836 gross, with no upper limit.

Claims can accumulate. If three employees in one team report mobbing, minimum exposure is PLN 86,508, excluding legal costs, other damages and lost productivity.

Reversed burden of proof

This change has the greatest effect on an employer’s defense strategy. Under the amendment:

1. The employee must make the breach plausible, not prove it.
2. The employer must show that no breach occurred.
3. The rule also applies to internal proceedings conducted by committees.

Without documented, systematic preventive and responsive measures, it is practically impossible to defend the employer. If you have no procedures, training or documentation, you lose.

The court may change the legal classification on its own

A court may not dismiss a claim if the facts support a different legal basis. An employee may sue for mobbing, but if the court finds the mobbing criteria unmet, it may still award compensation for infringement of personal interests. The employer may therefore lose even after defeating the mobbing allegation.

Which court hears the case

Monetary claims of up to PLN 100,000 go to a district court at first instance. This threshold was raised from PLN 75,000 by the Act of 9 March 2023. Non-monetary claims, such as an order to stop an infringement, go to a regional court regardless of value.

National Audit Office data for 2018 to 2023 show that employment-law cases in district courts took an average of 5.1 months longer. For employers, this means months of uncertainty while internal procedures still need to be followed.

How the new rules apply to continuing conduct

The new rules apply to conduct that began before 5 November 2026 and continues after that date. An ongoing internal case or unresolved team conflict may therefore be assessed under the new, less demanding criteria for employees.

Five employer duties: what you need to implement

The amendment requires every employer to counteract mobbing and breaches of equal treatment systematically in five areas. These are statutory duties, not recommendations, and compliance affects the employer’s ability to defend itself in court.

1. Prevention

Take preventive steps, including management training, standards for supervisors’ conduct, a code of good practice and transparent promotion and pay-rise criteria.

Training should focus on difficult conversations: accountability for tasks, negative feedback, disciplinary conversations and corrective discussions. The goal is to explain the boundary between justified criticism, which is excluded from mobbing, and conduct that may qualify as harassment.

Labour Inspectorate data for 2023 show that only 23% of inspected employers provided anti-mobbing training. 56% had an anti-mobbing policy and 55% had procedures for handling cases.

2. Detection

Waiting passively for a complaint may fail the duty to detect breaches. The amendment requires active monitoring of the workplace.

Detection tools include:

1. A periodic, for example semiannual, anonymous workplace-climate survey asking about specific behaviors.
2. Analysis of turnover and absence by team.
3. A defined response threshold, such as two independent signals from one team in six months triggering an inquiry.
4. Reviewing survey trends rather than isolated responses.

Important: climate surveys may become evidence against the employer if they reveal a problem and the employer does not respond. Every survey should therefore have an escalation procedure.

3. Response

Use a multi-channel reporting system with defined deadlines for each stage of an investigation. It should include:

1. At least two reporting routes independent of the direct supervisor.
2. A duty to provide feedback to the person reporting.
3. A designated review body, such as an internal committee, an external entity or a mixed body.
4. Documentation of every stage of the investigation.

4. Corrective action

After an investigation, take concrete corrective steps, such as changing work organization, transferring the perpetrator, mediation or updating procedures. Document every corrective action.

5. Support for affected people

This is a new duty. It applies not only to victims but potentially to witnesses as well. It includes:

1. Access to psychological consultation at the employer’s expense, through an agreement with a clinic or psychologist or an employee assistance program.
2. Support regardless of the investigation’s outcome.
3. Monitoring the reporting person’s situation after the case closes.

Protection against retaliation: a new duty that is easy to miss

The amendment prohibits adverse treatment of people who report a breach and those who support them, including witnesses. Keep three rules in mind:

1. A finding that a complaint is unfounded does not remove protection. An employee whose complaint was dismissed remains protected against retaliation.
2. Compensation for breaching the anti-retaliation rule is at least one minimum monthly wage, PLN 4,806.
3. Witnesses are also protected, regardless of whose case their testimony supported.

Example: an employee reports mobbing, the committee finds the complaint unfounded, and the employer withholds their quarterly bonus. This may breach the anti-retaliation rule and create an additional compensation claim.

To implement protection, appoint someone outside the reporting person’s management line to monitor their situation, including reviews, bonuses, schedule and promotions, for 6 to 12 months after the report.

Deadlines, documents and formal duties

Implementation timeline

Documents to prepare

An employer with at least 10 employees must set rules, procedures and the frequency of actions in four areas through a collective agreement, work rules or a separate policy:

1. Dignity and employees’ personal interests.
2. Equal treatment.
3. Discrimination.
4. Mobbing.

If you choose a separate policy, allow 30 days to agree it with trade unions or employee representatives and 14 days of vacatio legis after informing employees.

Relationship with the Whistleblower Protection Act

The Whistleblower Protection Act of 14 June 2024 (Journal of Laws 2024, item 928) and the Labour Code amendment create two distinct but partly overlapping protective regimes.

Mobbing is not included in the list of legal violations under Article 3(1) of the Whistleblower Protection Act. A report of mobbing as such is not covered by the full whistleblower-protection regime.

Mobbing is listed in Article 12(1) of that Act as an example of prohibited retaliation against a whistleblower.

Article 3(2) lets an employer include breaches of internal rules, including an anti-mobbing policy, in its internal reporting procedure. This is the employer’s choice, not a statutory duty. If it does so, a mobbing report becomes an “internal report” under that Act, but rules for external reporting and public disclosure do not apply.

There is no official guidance on integrating the two systems.

Implementation costs and the cost of doing nothing

Estimated implementation costs

Cost of doing nothing

1. Minimum compensation for mobbing: PLN 28,836 per affected person, with no upper limit.
2. Compensation for breaching the anti-retaliation rule: at least PLN 4,806.
3. Legal and litigation costs.
4. Employee attrition. In IT, SaaS and e-commerce, where competition for specialists is strong, reputational fallout from a mobbing dispute may cause talent to leave.
5. No procedures means no defense arguments under the reversed burden of proof.

Mobbing cases increased from 807 in 2023 to 954 in 2025. With the definition’s criteria being eased, this trend may accelerate. Research by the Safe at Work Coalition Association indicates that about 15% of employees report experiencing mobbing during their careers, while fewer than a thousand cases reach the courts each year.

Roadmap: what to do over the next six months

By November 2026: substantive duties

1. Audit current work rules, anti-mobbing procedures and anti-discrimination policies. Prepare a gap analysis and completion schedule against the five pillars: prevention, detection, response, corrective action and support.
2. Review ongoing internal cases and recent signals. The new rules apply to conduct continuing after 5 November 2026, even if it began earlier. Assess it against the new criteria.
3. Train managers. Use scenarios from your organization: disciplinary conversations, negative feedback and the boundary between firm management and harassment.
4. Introduce a multi-channel reporting system with at least two channels independent of the direct supervisor.
5. Implement anti-retaliation monitoring by appointing someone to monitor the reporting person’s situation.
6. Audit pay and benefits by comparing rates for equivalent roles by sex, age, contract type and working time. Document the objective reason for each difference.

By May 2027: formal duties for employers with 10 or more people

1. Draft or update internal rules covering the four areas required by the Act.
2. Start the agreement process with trade unions or employee representatives, allowing 30 days.
3. Allow 14 days of vacatio legis after announcing the rules to employees.
4. Provide access to psychological consultation at the employer’s expense.
5. Introduce recurring workplace-climate surveys with an assigned escalation process.
6. Set standards for supervisors’ conduct in a handbook or code of good practice, available during onboarding and on the intranet.

We can help

Implementing the new mobbing rules is not just a matter of changing a few clauses in the work rules. It changes how your company documents team management, responds to signals and protects people reporting breaches.

We help technology, SaaS and e-commerce businesses organize workplace relationships, combining employment law with business context such as IP, ownership structure and growth plans. We design rules for how the organization operates instead of applying standard policies.

Our support for the amendment includes:

1. Readiness audit: identify documentation and process gaps and recommend priorities.
2. Rules and procedures: prepare rules for the four statutory areas, tailored to the company.
3. Management workshops: difficult conversations, feedback, crisis recognition and the boundary between management and harassment.
4. Reporting system: a multi-channel process with deadlines and feedback duties.
5. Pay audit: identify pay gaps and document their rationale.
6. Ongoing support: monitor changes, provide legal alerts and update procedures.

Contact us to assess your readiness for the new rules and identify where to start.

Prepare before November 2026, not after an inspection

The 2026 Labour Code amendment changes the rules in three ways: it lowers the threshold for conduct to qualify as mobbing, raises minimum compensation and reverses the burden of proof in favor of the employee. Without procedures, training and documentation, you may be unable to defend the company in court.

You have six months to implement substantive duties and one year to adapt internal documents. Each week of delay is another week in which ongoing workplace conflicts may be assessed under the new criteria without your organization being ready to respond.

If you need help auditing procedures, preparing work rules or training managers, contact us.

Frequently asked questions

We have 25 people, half on B2B contracts. Do the new rules apply to civil-law contractors?

Partly. Only an employee under Article 2 of the Polish Labour Code may be a victim of mobbing under that Code. A B2B or civil-law contractor may be a perpetrator of mobbing against an employee, and the employer may be liable for the conduct. Contractors who experience harassment may seek protection under the Civil Code (Articles 23 and 24, protection of personal interests) or the Act of 3 December 2010 on Equal Treatment, if the conduct relates to a protected characteristic. In practice, anti-mobbing policies should cover everyone in the workplace.

Where is the line between firm management and mobbing under the new rules?

The amendment expressly excludes justified conduct expressed appropriately, especially holding someone accountable for work and criticizing it. The distinction is between substantive feedback on a specific task, given in the right context such as a one-to-one conversation, and public, repeated criticism of an employee’s competence. Form, context and repetition matter, not the manager’s intent.

What documents must we have by May 2027, and where should we start?

An employer with at least 10 people must regulate four areas: dignity and personal interests, equal treatment, discrimination and mobbing. This can be done in a collective agreement, work rules or a separate policy. Start by auditing current documents against the five statutory pillars. Then draft or update the rules and begin consultations with trade unions or employee representatives, allowing 30 days plus 14 days of vacatio legis.

What if an employee misuses the new rules and makes an unfounded complaint?

A finding that a complaint is unfounded does not remove the reporter’s protection against retaliation. The employer must not take adverse action merely because the employee complained. The defense is to document a sound investigation, an objective assessment and compliance with the procedure. Disciplinary action may be possible for a clearly unfounded complaint made in bad faith, but it requires careful legal analysis and solid documentation.

We have an internal case that started a few months ago. Do the new rules apply?

Yes, if the conduct at issue continues after 5 November 2026. The new rules apply to conduct that began earlier but continues after the Act enters into force. Assess ongoing cases against the new criteria and take corrective action if needed before a court does.

Is reporting mobbing covered by whistleblower protection?

Not directly. Mobbing is not on the list of legal violations in Article 3(1) of the Whistleblower Protection Act. However, Article 12(1) lists mobbing as an example of prohibited retaliation against a whistleblower. Under Article 3(2), an employer may voluntarily include breaches of its anti-mobbing policy in its internal reporting procedure. In that case, a mobbing complaint becomes an internal report under the Act, but the full protections for external reports and public disclosure do not apply.