How technology can help

HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP

Despite spending nearly £250 million on crime prevention across the retail sector, incidents of violence, abuse and theft continue to rise. Employers should be questioning how far these measures go in increasing the feeling of safety for workers, when they are all standard measures to have in place.

The first step may be to acknowledge that there is an issue with staff safety concerns; the second may be to consider a different solution to employee safety.

Safety devices and apps are not traditionally used in the retail and hospitality sector, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t help. Personal safety alarms provide 24/7 protection, can support the prevention of incidents, and critically, actively manage situations as they arise.

Some UK retailers are already taking decisive steps, equipping their staff with personal safety devices that allow them to call for help, no matter where they are.

Card Factory is providing staff with personal safety devices that allow them to record any incidents of abuse by activating the SOS Alarm, which will automatically alert Peoplesafe’s 24/7 Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC).

A highly trained ARC Controller will follow the pre-defined escalation process and, if necessary, notify the emergency services with the power to bypass 999 for the fastest possible response.

Similarly, retailers have been seeing the benefits of deploying body worn cameras. They have proven to reduce staff assaults by 47% partly due to the deliberately obvious design which deters potential aggressors from acting on impulse and causing harm; and partly because the high-quality recording can be admissible as evidence in a prosecution.

Our study suggests that focussing on employee safety is an untapped recruitment and retention tool that has the potential to make a substantial improvement to the way staff feel about coming into work, subsequently enhancing wellbeing and productivity as well.

By shifting the dial on the importance of personal safety, employers in the retail and hospitality sector may also fair better in the current recruitment crisis. There is clearly a tangible benefit to employee peace of mind as well as physical safety and to the perception of how they are valued by an employer.

Body worn cameras reduce staff assaults by 47%

FIGHTING CRIME WITH BETTER INCIDENT REPORTING

In the 2021 USDAW Annual Survey, 46% said they were not confident that reporting abuse, threats and violence would make a difference.

A maximum of only 38% of retail crimes are reported to the police and we know that repeat offenders make up the majority of incidents. 30% of retailers stated that they don't report crime because of the time it takes to file and process reports. However, without reporting these incidents with evidence to the police, how can theft and abusive behaviour in stores be reduced?

Low-cost tech can help with this too. Implementing a simple process and capturing reliable evidence are two elements where technology can make incident reporting quicker and easier.

Audio recordings are gathered from every SOS alarm raised by a Peoplesafe personal safety device or app. In addition, body worn cameras are being successfully used by several retailers to capture video evidence. Both audio and video files of this nature provide impartial and empirical evidence to the police and simultaneously speed up the process of filing a report.

DUTY OF CARE BEYOND WORKING HOURS

51% of employees agree that employers have a duty of care towards them outside of working hours

The retail and hospitality sectors, more than any other, have unsociable working hours and therefore commutes to and from the place of work often happen when it is quieter and darker.

Therefore, it is not just employee safety in the workplace that should be a focus for employers. Throughout our research, it became clear that many employees felt concerned and vulnerable before and after work, often as part of their commute. Employees that travel to and from work should be supported at these times to give them peace of mind and help if something happens.

To protect employees from situations that make them concerned about their safety, greater protection must be given to employees at times outside their working hours.

This would help to address concerns of workers’ travelling to and from work, particularly during non-social hours.

Extending the duty of care of employers is the clearest way of doing this. 51% of employees agree that employers have a duty of care towards them outside of working hours.

This will be an important step to support employees, particularly woman and those commuting at unsociable times, to feel more safe and secure.

Technology can play an important and often unnoticed role here for employees, that is available if and when required. Moreover, technology can help employers to deliver their employees the feeling that the duty of care has been extended by offering them round the clock protection in a simple and affordable way. It means employers and policies don’t need to always be available due to the protection afforded by 24/7 personal safety solutions.