Following a roundtable during the CX Vision Live 2035 event which took place at Wembley Stadium last week, the Policy Liaison Group (PLG) on Workplace Wellbeing has pointed out that employers have an “absolute duty” to provide greater employee protection.
With Respect Week currently highlighting stories of abuse towards retail workers, at the event leading wellbeing experts called for a rethink on how to protect customer-facing employees.
Key insights included:
- Employees are often left to absorb workplace trauma without adequate recovery support.
- Employers must apply the same design discipline to psychological hazards as they do to physical safety.
- Customer-facing staff should actively co-design workplace policies, tools and training.
- Lower-paid workers are typically trapped between customer hostility at the counter and disciplinary action.
The discussion brought together workplace wellbeing and customer experience leaders from the UK, the US and the Gulf.
According to the British Retail Consortium, retail workers experience approximately 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse every day - more than three times pre-pandemic levels. Despite retailers investing an estimated £5bn in security measures over five years, participants at the event questioned whether enough is being done to protect employees.
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The discussion identified that while legislation and security measures help tackle retail crime, participants warned they often overlook the employees dealing with the aftermath.
Workers may be expected to return to work immediately following an abusive encounter, with little opportunity to recover. Gethin Nadin, chair of the PLG, questioned this imbalance: “There’s an employee in the middle of this, and they’re not the person that’s being invested in.” Participants called for greater post-incident care, financial support and staffing arrangements that allow employees time to recover.
Deserving attention
In addition, while employers routinely assess physical hazards, participants questioned whether psychological risks receive the same attention. The discussion highlighted three priorities - practical skills, appropriate tools and workplace design, including de-escalation training and employee involvement in shaping policies.
Nadin added: “If you were to prioritise psychological safety or mental health, how would you change the design of your organisation or the processes that you have in place?”
Thirdly, the roundtable highlighted how customer-facing workers often enforce pricing changes and restrictive policies they had no role in developing, leaving them exposed to customer frustration.
One participant described employees as “literally the representation of the decision.” Others at the event highlighted the pressure to enforce policies despite personal safety concerns, describing it as “a choice between do I get fired or attacked?”
Participants also called for senior leaders to spend more time in customer-facing roles and involve employees in decisions likely to provoke confrontation.
Police investment
After the event, Joanne Thomas, general secretary of Usdaw, said: “Nobody should be afraid to go to work. The Government is making a difference with investment in police, but they need to bring into force the protection of shop workers law passed by Parliament in April.
“Usdaw works closely with retailers to make shops safer. Our volunteer health and safety reps are regularly risk assessing workplaces and discussing mitigations with managers. We encourage retail employers who don’t currently engage with Usdaw to work with us to help make their workplaces safer.”
“Shop workers have had enough of being shouted at, threatened and treated with contempt.”
Charity The Retail Trust also commented, and said: “Our country’s shop workers have had enough of being shouted at, threatened and treated with contempt. We’re hearing from people who are frightened to come into work because they don’t know what they’ll face that day, and from others who’ve been pushed to breaking point by repeated abuse.
“Retail is one of the few places where millions of strangers still interact face-to-face and there’s been a disturbing shift over the last few years where behaviour that would once have been considered completely unacceptable is increasingly being seen as part of the job.
”This is damaging people’s confidence, destroying morale and driving good people out of a sector they once loved.
“Most people do the right thing, but when a minority don’t, the rest of us have a role to play in making sure shop workers still feel seen and valued. No one should face abuse at work and respect can start with something as simple as looking someone in the eye, showing a little patience or simply saying hello.”
You can read more about the efforts being made to raise awareness of these issues in Convenience Store’s piece here.
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