When staff are afraid of your customers

You’ve got the okay to reopen your business, you have an approved COVID safe plan in place, there are masks readily available and everything is sanitised to the extent that you might get a buzz from the amount of hand wash wafting through the office. You’re looking forward to seeing your team back together, however, there are still a few that won’t show up. Why?

There is a growing dilemma among businesses that despite everything that’s being put in place to ensure their safety, staff still don’t feel safe to come back to work.  

Many are still afraid of getting sick or many are afraid their family will get sick. Whilst you have done everything in your power to alleviate this fear, there is still one outlier that you cannot control and this covers your customers coming in not complying with your safety provisions. 

These are the customers that aren’t wearing a mask, they aren’t socially distancing or perhaps don’t believe the pandemic is real. 

As an employer what can you do to protect yourself and your staff from those who don't want to comply and what can you do in the event that when your staff ask someone to comply; they experience an explosion of unwarranted abuse?

Let’s deal with the first issue upfront; the law in Australia enables private landowners or occupiers to take reasonable steps to protect themselves, their employees and people on their property. So it would be reasonable and legal to request people to sanitise their hands or even wear a mask on their property prior to receiving any sort of service.

This provision is not new, nightclubs have dress codes that dictate what you can wear before you access their property and airlines can scan you or check your bags prior to crossing into a particular section of the airport or boarding the plane. Employers have a duty of care under the workplace health and safety act to ensure staff are not exposed to risks to their health.

During this time of pandemic, it is reasonable that businesses will ask those customers seeking their services to follow processes they have been put in place to protect their staff and other customers.

So what happens if a customer is dismissive, or even becomes aggressive or abusive towards your staff when asked to sanitise their hands, socially distance or wear a mask?

This can be particularly tricky in social situations where there may be alcohol involved and your staff feel like the fun police. Dismissive behaviour can be dealt with relatively easily, by escalating the issue to the business owner or someone who will be ultimately responsible for copping any fine that might be incurred by failing to comply with COVID safe plans.

Aggressive or abusive behaviour is where things get a bit more serious.

In the extreme, these behaviours can constitute workplace violence and they fall under the same risk to employee health and safety as the potential to contract COVID 19. Employers have the same responsibility to ensure staff are not exposed to this type of behaviour. Of course this is particularly hard to manage as customers are outside of an employer's direct control.

The mantra that 'no one deserves a serve' was coined in 2017 in response to time poor, stressed and rude people being aggressive towards retail and food services staff in Australia.

In the COVID era, this behaviour is once again making headlines. In addition to drawing community attention to the plight of staff simply doing their jobs and copping abuse as has been the case in Woolworths and Bunnings in the recent past, employers can give their staff the tools required to handle it.

All workplaces should have procedures in place about how to manage angry customers. Making sure all staff are trained in your processes is paramount to maintaining staff wellbeing. Implementing control measures such as signage about your safety measures, or posters outlining why processes may take additional time all help reduce the anxiety that may result in aggressive outbursts.

Have you thought about how you protect your staff against any potentially angry customer?

Contact Ceri, our HR specialist, for a free consultation on risk management and how to deal with aggression or abuse in the workplace