Chicken Cutlets for Everyone, Except Lowest-Performer Zhao A-min? Managers Beware: A Single Piece of Fried Chicken Can Become Evidence of Workplace Bullying via "Social Exclusion"

"The company issued meal funds to treat everyone to fried chicken, but ordered one less portion—is it really that serious?"

"Zhao A-min's performance ranks dead last every year. Is it illegal if Manager Lin just doesn't want to buy him a portion?"

What looks like merely leaving Zhao A-min out of a fried chicken order could carry the steep price of a workplace bullying dispute!

Suppose Blue Ocean Company allocates a special NT$100,000 meal allowance from headquarters to reward employees at its Green Island branch for their hard work. Branch Manager Lin happily announces: "The company is treating everyone to fried chicken today!"

The office cheers.

When the fried chicken arrives, everyone gets a portion—except Zhao A-min, whose performance has been dead last for years.

A colleague asks: "Where's A-min's?"

Manager Lin replies: "He wants to eat with performance that bad? The General Manager said rewards are based on merit. This is to reward those who contribute. Those who don't contribute and only drag the unit down aren't qualified to eat fried chicken!"

In normal circumstances, if colleagues order fried chicken together and someone is left out due to an occasional administrative oversight, failing to include that person certainly will not constitute workplace bullying.

However, if Manager Lin deliberately uses his supervisory position to turn a company-wide benefit or group activity into a tool to publicly exclude a specific low-performing employee—and consistently isolates that same individual through dinners, group chats, meetings, and activities—it enters the evaluation scope of Article 2 of the Regulations Governing Measures for Preventing Workplace Bullying: "deliberately excluding, ignoring, cold-shouldering, or preventing a specific person from participating in necessary and important meetings, affairs, or activities." The regulations mandate a holistic assessment considering the background, frequency, location, motivation, and purpose of incidents, rather than ruling that "leaving someone out of a food order" automatically constitutes bullying.

Therefore, what business owners and HR should truly care about is not how much the fried chicken costs, but why the manager "left out that one specific person."

For labor law compliance training, board member continuing education credits, external committee members for workplace harassment/bullying, and litigation mediation representation, please contact Yesin Law Firm (Tel: +886-2-25156822; Website: https://www.yesinlaw.com).

1. The core of workplace bullying via "social exclusion" is not who was left out, but whether a specific person was deliberately excluded from organizational affairs.

Article 2 of the Regulations Governing Measures for Preventing Workplace Bullying lists "deliberately excluding, ignoring, cold-shouldering, or preventing a specific person from participating in necessary and important meetings, affairs, or activities" as a scenario to be holistically evaluated when determining workplace bullying. The Ministry of Labor's guidance handbook further classifies this category as social exclusion, citing examples such as a manager deliberately withholding a specific employee from essential work messaging groups or intentionally excluding them from all work meetings.

Note the concepts of "specific person" and "deliberately."

If Blue Ocean Company specifies: "This meal allowance is a reward for employees who meet performance targets," and Zhao A-min objectively failed to meet his target while all underperforming employees were excluded from the reward, this would not necessarily constitute workplace bullying.

However, if headquarters provided a meal allowance intended to "reward all employees at the Green Island branch," but the branch manager unilaterally decided: "Zhao A-min's performance is the worst, so everyone else in the branch gets fried chicken except him," the issue becomes entirely different.

Because at this point, the fried chicken is no longer just fried chicken.

It becomes a public signal transmitted by the manager to the team: "I am using my official authority to ostracize Zhao A-min because of his poor performance."

When the entire team gathers to eat, take photos, and chat while only Zhao A-min sits nearby working—knowing full well he was excluded because of his "poor performance"—this act may simultaneously demonstrate public humiliation, exploitation of power dynamics, and social exclusion.

The real question is not "who shouldn't be left out when ordering food," but "by what standard did the manager decide Zhao A-min was unqualified to eat?"

2. Poor work performance can be managed directly, but "collective exclusion" cannot be used as a management tool.

This is the boundary supervisors at all levels need to establish most.

If Zhao A-min ranks dead last in performance year after year, the company certainly has the right to manage him.

Managers can set reasonable KPIs, conduct performance reviews, demand improvements within a deadline, provide training, and execute a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) through lawful procedures when necessary.

However, "performance management" and "personal degradation" are two fundamentally different things.

If an employee performs poorly and the supervisor, instead of addressing work outputs, tells colleagues "ignore him," deliberately leaves him out of dinners, excludes him from group chats, omits him from team activities, or even uses company benefits to publicly humiliate him by proclaiming "you're not qualified to eat with us," this crosses the red line from legitimate management authority into workplace bullying via power-based exclusion.

Furthermore, remember that legal determinations of workplace bullying do not evaluate individual acts in isolation, but analyze the broader context.

Article 2 of the Regulations Governing Measures for Preventing Workplace Bullying mandates a holistic assessment of background, frequency, location, motivation, and purpose. In other words, investigators are looking to establish a behavioral pattern.

• Today, missing a piece of fried chicken.

  
  

• Last month, not inviting him to the departmental dinner.

  
  

• The month before, kicking him out of the work group chat.

  
  

• During meetings, intentionally denying him the floor.

  
  

• During employee recreation activities, leaving his name off the list entirely.

  
  

Viewed individually, each incident might be brushed off as "forgetfulness," "administrative oversight," or "the manager just doesn't like him."

However, connected along a timeline, they reveal a clear pattern of continuous exclusion.

Therefore, when investigating such cases, HR must look beyond asking "was one piece of fried chicken missing that day?" to probe deeper: "Has Zhao A-min been treated long-term by the supervisor as an unwanted presence in the team who ought to be ostracized?"

3. What companies must guard against is not ensuring "everyone gets fried chicken in the future," but managers turning organizational resources into tools for malicious power-based exclusion.

This is the true corporate governance issue business owners should care about.

Not all corporate benefits must be distributed without distinction, nor does it mean top performers cannot receive extra incentives.

Companies can certainly establish performance bonuses, competition rewards, achievement dinners, and recognition systems.

The real issue lies in the standards used.

If Blue Ocean Company clearly announces in advance: "The top three performers this quarter will each receive 100 premium fried chicken vouchers," and Zhao A-min receives nothing due to ranking last, this represents the execution of an objective system.

However, if headquarters provided funds intended for all staff, but the branch manager arbitrarily converted it into "only those I like get fried chicken"—using the authority over resource allocation to humiliate a low performer—it raises serious concerns regarding abuse of power.

Even more alarmingly, this type of social exclusion rarely begins with major events.

It may start with "let's not invite him this time," and gradually evolve into "don't add him to this chat group," "no need to notify him about this meeting," and "don't include him in group dinners."

Eventually, it builds an environment where an individual is systematically isolated by the organization.

This is precisely why the Regulations Governing Measures for Preventing Workplace Bullying classify "deliberately excluding, ignoring, cold-shouldering, or preventing a specific person from participating in necessary and important meetings, affairs, or activities" as a typical form of workplace bullying. It requires supervisors to address issues objectively and assess performance fairly, while assisting underperforming staff through warnings and guidance—rather than resorting to passive-aggressive tactics like isolation to coerce resignations.

Advice from Attorney Chen Ye-xin

Does leaving someone out of a fried chicken order constitute workplace bullying?

This question cannot be decided with a single stroke of a knife like slicing chicken.

Workplace bullying must still return to the statutory elements under Article 22-1 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, evaluating the overall background, frequency, location, motivation, and purpose. "Social exclusion" is a behavioral pattern specified under the regulations for holistic consideration; it does not mean that missing out on a meal invite or a piece of fried chicken automatically constitutes workplace bullying.

However, I use this example specifically to remind managers at all levels: do not underestimate the destructive power of malicious management actions like "exclusion" and "isolation."

If performance is poor, demand improvement; if capabilities fall short, provide training; if work fails to meet requirements to the point of incompetence, execute lawful severance or dismissal.

However, do not use "making sure everyone knows we dislike this person" or "hoping he takes the hint and resigns" as a management strategy.

When a manager controls company resources and continuously makes an employee feel ostracized through dinners, chat groups, meetings, benefits, and team activities, it is no longer merely personal office preferences—it becomes a labor compliance event that must face strict scrutiny under statutory workplace bullying criteria.

Truly mature management does not force supervisors to like every employee. Instead, even when dealing with the lowest-performing, most difficult, or least likable staff member, it ensures performance issues are handled through performance systems—never punished through isolation, humiliation, or collective exclusion.

The next time your company allocates NT$100,000 to treat all employees to a meal, and a manager prepares to intentionally leave out one specific portion of fried chicken, does that manager know whether they are managing "performance," or potentially generating evidence of social exclusion that easily serves as grounds for a substantiated workplace bullying complaint in a future investigation report?