Supervisors Can Be Strict, But Never Malicious: Three Legal Boundaries Between Reasonable Performance Management and Workplace Bullying

"If an employee performs poorly, am I not allowed to be strict with them?"

This is the most common—and most easily misunderstood—question raised by corporate managers following the implementation of the new Workplace Bullying Prevention regulations on July 1, 2026.

The answer is clear: supervisors certainly can—and indeed have a responsibility to—demand strong performance. Being strict is entirely permissible.

The law has not revoked management rights from employers, nor does it require supervisors to give up assigning tasks, conducting evaluations, correcting errors, or requiring underperforming employees to improve just to avoid complaints.

However, managers must establish clear boundaries when exercising their managerial authority.

The true boundary between reasonable performance management and workplace bullying does not depend on whether the employee feels stressed, agrees with the management, or whether the supervisor believes "it's all for their own good." Instead, it hinges on whether the management practice serves a legitimate purpose, adheres to reasonable standards, employs proportionate methods, and follows a fair process.

Having malicious intent is not a necessary legal condition to establish workplace bullying. Even without subjective intent to harm, if a supervisor objectively takes advantage of their position or power dynamic to exceed necessary and reasonable business boundaries—consistently engaging in humiliation, threats, exclusion, isolation, or other improper management tactics—it may still constitute workplace bullying, even if the supervisor claims it was merely to "discipline" or "train" the team member.

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. Reasonable management aims to improve work performance; bullying management aims to force resignation, retaliate, or exert control.

Requiring employees to revise reports, correct mistakes, or achieve reasonable targets are essential management actions for any business.

However, if a manager has already decided to force an employee out and works backward by setting impossible KPIs, suddenly overloading them compared to peers in similar roles, deliberately withholding necessary information, or using a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) as a tool to coerce resignation, performance improvement shifts into an abuse of power.

To justify performance management, a company must be able to demonstrate:

• A concrete, objective performance gap actually exists.

  
  

• Performance standards were clearly communicated in advance.

  
  

• Improvement goals were reasonably achievable.

  
  

• The company provided necessary training, assistance, resources, and feedback.

  
  

• The manager genuinely expected the employee to improve, rather than predetermining termination.

  
  

Demanding high performance is not illegal, but standards must relate to job responsibilities, deadlines must be reasonable, and adequate resources must be provided. If a manager constantly shifts goalposts so the employee can never succeed, or treats close associates leniently while singling out specific employees with selective severity, this differential treatment carries a high risk of constituting workplace bullying.

2. Reasonable management focuses on work outcomes; workplace bullying attacks personal character.

A supervisor can say: "This report lacks a cost analysis and risk assessment. Please revise and submit it by Friday."

A supervisor should never say: "Do you even have a brain? How dare you submit something like this?"

The former addresses the work product; the latter directly attacks the employee's personhood.

Reasonable feedback explicitly identifies work standards, improvement methods, and deadlines. High-risk management styles bordering on bullying often feature public humiliation, mocking physical appearance, insulting capability, threatening termination, or repeatedly singling out employees in group chats—demeaning their dignity and professional reputation.

Supervisors cannot use "I'm just a direct person" as an excuse. A manager's words carry the implicit weight of authority tied to performance reviews, bonuses, and promotions. The same words spoken by a peer carry a vastly different psychological weight than when spoken by a supervisor controlling one's career.

Companies should pay special attention to five high-risk behaviors:

• Deliberately excluding an employee from essential meetings

  
  

• Withholding information necessary to complete tasks

  
  

• Withholding meaningful work to sideline/freeze an employee long-term

  
  

• Repeatedly humiliating an employee in public

  
  

• Using unreasonable targets to create a record of failure

  
  

Supervisors can be strict, but they must remain task-oriented. They can criticize work results, but they cannot deny a person's intrinsic worth.

3. Legitimate performance management must withstand procedural and evidentiary scrutiny.

The most dangerous approach for a company is deciding to terminate an employee first and retroactively fabricating warning letters, performance reviews, and improvement records.

Genuine, lawful management must adhere to procedural justice.

Supervisors should first clarify performance standards and specific gaps, giving the employee an opportunity to explain whether the root cause stems from skill deficiencies, lack of training, unreasonable workload, insufficient resources, or health issues. A reasonable improvement period and phased milestones should then be established.

During the improvement period, the company must provide regular feedback and necessary support—not simply announce failure when the deadline expires. All meetings, directives, employee explanations, progress, and resources provided must be faithfully documented to preserve evidence showing that the process was fair, consistent, and verifiable.

Does the company apply comparable procedures to other employees making similar mistakes? Did the supervisor suddenly downgrade ratings, cut shifts, exclude from meetings, or halt promotion opportunities right after an employee filed a complaint? If disciplinary measures immediately follow a bullying complaint, the company must investigate the risk of unlawful retaliation against the complainant or whistleblower.

In future labor inspections or court proceedings, the company must present objective performance data, clear standards, improvement notices, interview notes, and consistently applied management policies to prove the action was lawful management—not improper harassment or workplace bullying disguised as governance.

Advice from Attorney Chen Ye-xin

Reasonable performance management and workplace bullying can be distinguished in three sentences:

• Reasonable management aims to improve work performance; bullying aims to oppress or force resignation.

  
  

• Reasonable management critiques job behaviors; bullying denies personal character.

  
  

• Reasonable management maintains fair and complete procedural records; bullying decides the outcome first and fabricates reasons later.

  
  

Companies should not abandon performance management out of fear of employee complaints; nor should they package every unreasonable demand as managerial discretion.

What organizations truly need to build is a performance management system that empowers supervisors to manage with confidence, ensures employees are treated with respect, and produces verifiable decisions.

When your supervisors prepare to initiate evaluations, PIPs, reassignments, or disciplinary actions, can your company prove that these measures are designed to help an employee improve—rather than to push them out until they feel forced to resign?