Workplace bullying has increasingly been recognised as a critical occupational stressor with adverse spillover effects on employees' personal and family lives. Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory (COR) and Affective Events Theory (AET) this study examined the relationship between workplace bullying and family functioning, as well as the mediating role of emotional exhaustion among Chinese frontline employees. A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted with 337 frontline employees recruited through purposive sampling, requiring at least six months of continuous work experience. Data were collected online with informed consent obtained. Workplace bullying was assessed using the Revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-R), emotional exhaustion with the Emotional Exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and family functioning with selected subscales of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) alongside the Work-to-Family Conflict Scale. Results indicated that workplace bullying significantly predicted more negative affective interaction and greater work-family conflict. Moreover, emotional exhaustion significantly mediated the relationship between workplace bullying and both negative affective interaction and work-family conflict, underscoring the depletion of emotional resources as a key mechanism linking workplace experiences to family outcomes. These findings highlight the detrimental impact of bullying that extends beyond the workplace into the family domain. Theoretically, these findings align with COR and AET by showing that workplace bullying not only depletes critical emotional resources but also provokes negative affective experiences that spill over into the family sphere, undermining employees' ability to maintain positive family functioning. This study highlights the importance of addressing workplace bullying to safeguard employee well-being across both work and family domains.