Fresh Off the Press: What Is the Fifth Edition of the Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties Trying to Tell Employers?

“Our company has only just established a workplace bullying complaint system under the new law. Why do we still need to review the latest edition of the Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties issued by Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration?”

An HR executive at a publicly listed company sent me this question earlier today.

She had obtained the latest information quickly and accurately. I had also only just received the announcement and press release issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Ministry of Labor. I used the time on the high-speed rail while traveling south for a court hearing to read the new guidelines carefully.

After finishing them, I immediately replied:

“The purpose is to classify each case accurately and apply the correct legal procedure.”

The thought that came to mind was this: the greatest labor-law compliance risk is often not the absence of a system, but the misclassification of a case at the very beginning.

On July 14, 2026, the Ministry of Labor published the fifth edition of the Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties to coincide with the implementation of the new workplace bullying chapter under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Many people may regard this as merely an update to an administrative guideline. In reality, however, it changes the way companies must process a wide variety of workplace complaints.

Going forward, companies can no longer use one single case-management procedure to handle every type of workplace conflict. Workplace violence, workplace bullying, sexual harassment, stalking and harassment, employment discrimination, and unlawful conduct committed by external third parties are each governed by different legal requirements and corresponding procedures.

For labor-law compliance training, accredited continuing education for board members, appointments as external committee members in workplace bullying and sexual harassment investigations, and representation in litigation or mediation proceedings, please contact YesinLaw at +886-2-2515-6822 or visit https://www.yesinlaw.com.

The following is a brief introduction to the key messages conveyed by the fifth edition of the Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties.

1. The Greatest Legal Risk Is Not the Absence of a System, but the Use of the Wrong Procedure

The most important mechanism established by the revised guidelines is case classification and procedural routing.

If a matter involves workplace bullying, sexual harassment, stalking and harassment, or employment discrimination, it must first be handled under the applicable special legislation.

By contrast, if an employee is insulted, threatened, assaulted, or otherwise unlawfully harmed by a customer, member of the public, or third party while performing their duties—or if the conduct does not fall within the recognized categories of workplace sexual harassment, stalking and harassment, employment discrimination, or workplace bullying—the matter should be handled in accordance with the revised Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties.

One of the most common mistakes made by companies is to place every complaint into the same procedural framework.

Once the wrong procedure is applied, the problem is not limited to a potential procedural violation. It may also undermine the legal validity of the investigation result. During a labor inspection, administrative enforcement proceeding, civil damages claim, or subsequent labor litigation, the procedural error may become a decisive reason why the employer loses the case.

Employees may encounter many forms of unlawful conduct while performing their duties, including workplace sexual harassment, stalking and harassment, employment discrimination, and workplace bullying.

Where the conduct is governed by the Gender Equality in Employment Act, the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act, the Act to Promote Employment for Middle-Aged and Older Persons, the Employment Service Act, or the workplace bullying chapter of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the company must give priority to the procedures prescribed by the applicable legislation.

2. Chairpersons Can No Longer Delegate the Entire Matter to HR

The revised guidelines expressly require senior management to publicly declare the company’s prevention policy, establish a fair and reasonable complaint system, and supervise managers at all levels in fulfilling their management responsibilities.

The guidelines further require employers, as a first priority, to establish an organizational culture founded on safety, dignity, professional ethics, freedom from discrimination, and gender equality.

Employers should issue and publicly display a written statement on the prevention of unlawful workplace conduct in order to demonstrate a policy of zero tolerance and eliminate conduct that may potentially cause unlawful harm.

This means that the competent authority expects more than the existence of a policy within the HR management system. Workplace safety must be incorporated into the decision-making and management responsibilities of the chairperson, chief executive officer, and other members of senior management.

Even more notably, the revised guidelines substantially strengthen the management of external violence for the first time.

In frontline industries such as healthcare, retail, food and beverage services, department stores, transportation, and financial services, employees may face malicious complaints, verbal abuse, threats, or even physical violence from customers or members of the public. Employers can no longer simply tell employees to “deal with it themselves.”

For example, incidents in which customers attack convenience-store employees have occurred with increasing frequency. In such cases, the employer should immediately adopt protective measures and, depending on the circumstances, provide legal assistance, medical resources, or psychological support.

Future labor inspections will not focus solely on whether the company handled a particular incident. They will also examine whether the company has genuinely established a mechanism to protect frontline employees.

Where an enterprise employs 100 or more workers, the employer should formulate and implement a separate prevention plan for unlawful infringement in the performance of duties, taking into account the specific risks associated with the employees’ work and referring to the guidelines.

Where an enterprise employs fewer than 100 workers, implementation records or other documents may be used in place of a separate plan. Relevant records must be retained for three years.

3. Genuine Compliance Means That the System Can Be Activated Immediately When an Incident Occurs

The revised guidelines require companies to make multiple complaint channels publicly available. They recommend integrating the contact points for workplace bullying, workplace sexual harassment, and other complaints, appointing designated personnel to receive cases, and establishing complete procedures for reporting, investigation, corrective action, and follow-up.

In addition, where a company installs surveillance equipment, it must balance workplace safety against employee privacy. Employers may not infringe employees’ personal rights under the guise of safety management.

It is foreseeable that the focus of future labor inspections will gradually shift from asking, “Does the company have a system?” to asking, “Has the system actually been implemented?”

Companies that merely download an official template, insert the company’s name, publish the document, and conduct a single perfunctory training session may seriously underestimate the depth of management required by the revised guidelines.

Attorney Chen Yeh-Hsin’s Reminder

In my view, the significance of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration publishing the fifth edition of the Guidelines for Preventing Unlawful Infringement in the Performance of Duties immediately after the new workplace bullying chapter took effect is not that it imposes additional compliance costs on employers.

Rather, it establishes a more mature approach to enterprise risk governance:

Classify first, then process.

Protect first, then determine responsibility.

Establish the system first, then confront the crisis.

I recommend that company chairpersons, chief executive officers, and HR leaders immediately examine whether their organizations have completed five essential measures: a case-classification mechanism, a public policy declaration by senior management, multiple complaint channels, emergency response measures for unlawful workplace conduct, and legally compliant investigation and protection procedures.

The factor that ultimately determines a company’s legal exposure is often not what happens on the day of the incident, but whether the necessary systems were already in place before the incident occurred.

If a labor inspector arrived at your company today—or if your company received its first complex complaint involving multiple forms of unlawful workplace conduct tomorrow—would your system truly know how to classify the case correctly and determine which legal procedure must be followed?