Staff training in case of violence and threats by customers is necessary – and so is striking the right tone, delegates to the recent SITO conference heard from a personal safety trainer.
A personal safety trainer should not leave trainees feeling more fearful, nor should the trainees replace a healthy level of fear with an unhealthy complacency. It is possible to reduce incidents of violence and threats, and thereby make staff feel more valued and less ill, said trainer Gerry Ellis, of Executive and Security Services. We can spot ritualist behaviour – the ‘carpet under the arm’, and the glare – and give ourselves the time to call in support. Gerry said: ‘There’s no doubt about it – having on a regular basis to deal with difficult people, difficult situations, can induce stress.’
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Spot potential violence
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Staff can be trained to identify, and cope with, potentially violence behaviour. Gerry Ellis spoke of the average person only being able to wait 45 minutes before emotions such as anger build up – in a hospital, for example. Angry waiters give off signs – they ask what is going on, they walk up and down, tap their fingers. As aggression builds, staff need to interact with those people. Gerry Ellis called for a systematic approach to managing an incident – making the point that before police arrive, staff will have to deal with a situation. ‘A team control tactic may be necessary as a last resort’ – and staff restraining someone out of control will have to be able to explain and justify their actions afterwards, just as the police have to. Then Gerry Ellis quoted how in an armed robbery of a casino, the robbers may have a strategy of hurting people. While some of the gang are armed with a baseball bat, a machete or firearm, another will a pickaxe handle may seek to ‘soften up’ staff to show that the robbers mean business. Gerry Ellis quoted one case where a casino manager sought to tackle one of the robbers. Why ‘Gerry asked. Because men tend to feel guilty and want to save the day. Instead, Gerry warned against such ”have a go hero’ instincts, and favoured training staff to take in information about the robbers – such as distinguishing marks like tattoos. Training must also be geared to helping staff to work effectively – and remember to alert colleagues – even during an attack. ‘When the unplanned and unpredictable happens, it is more difficult to function well.’ When feeling fear or danger, a member of staff may be frozen into immobility. Gerry Ellis showed footage from a hospital reception area of men entering with the intention of striking at security and healthcare staff. Staff and the public have the dilemma of whether to get involved – and run the risk of choking the attacker – besides how to avoid lunges, punches and the like. Staff need training in how to break away from, for example, having hair grabbed. Equally, before police or the security team arrive, general staff need to know how to restrain someone, and work as a team, if a colleague is attacked. Hence an organisation must have guidelines on use of physical force – stating that use of force must be reasonable, lawful and necessary.
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How threats escalate
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In many cases, being switched-on, recognising threats and having the skills to defuse them, can do the trick. Gerry spoke of how threats escalate – from anxiety to loss of verbal control, to loss of physical control. He likened an incident to a fire that needs fuel and oxygen and a spark. If a security officer needs to guide someone, and touches the person, that may act as a trigger, to a woman as much as a man. Do so many members of security or other staff need to stand around a suspect – are they giving the suspect enough space’ If someone is showing aggressive bluster, Gerry Lewis suggested letting the person blow out.
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Tip of the iceberg
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He went on to discuss aggressive behaviour as the tip of the iceberg; not visible is the motive (a relative wants a doctor to see a patient before anybody else), the aggressive personality and possible mental impairment, maybe because of drugs. If someone comes with a complaint to a receptionist, who makes a contest of it (here Gerry Ellis showed footage of an employee telling a man with a grievance: ‘I won’t call the manager if you talk to me like that’) that means there will be a winner and a loser in the contest. However, someone emotionally charged with a complaint will not admit they are in the wrong. Therefore, staff should be trained in a strategy to defuse a situation. Gerry Ellis suggested the phrase ACT – Appeal, Consequences and Trigger – giving the example of a security officer and nuisance youths in a shopping centre. First the appeal – ‘you are causing a nuisance to other mall users’. Next the consequences – ‘if you don’t stop swearing I will have to ask you to leave’. Finally, the trigger – ‘is there anything I can do to get you to stop your behaviour”
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How threats escalate
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After the presentation, Petar Kacarevic, Senior Training Advisor at SITO, spoke of the lengths that some shoplifters will go to, to steal a bar of chocolate. If control and restraint techniques require a team of three security officers, and a store has only one, is the loss worth running the risk of using excessive force against a suspect’ Better to back off, note a description of the offender, and contact the police. Such incidents therefore have a health and safety dimension, which introduced nicely the next speaker, Dr John Hooper, Chief Executive of RoSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents). Visit www.sito.co.uk
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Violent assaults and threats are a fast-growing health and safety concern in the workplace, according to the TUC. In a trades union survey of 5,000 safety reps, three in ten report violence and threats as a workplace health and safety concern. TUC is hosting a conference on preventing violence at work at its London headquarters on December 2.
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TUC General Secretary John Monks said: ‘Stress is still the biggest health and safety problem facing workers, and RSI and back strain are major problems too. But the increase in worries about violence, which reflects actual increases in the number of assaults on workers, is especially troubling. Too many workers face the threat of violence when they go to work, and in some jobs, the only question is ‘when’ will you get attacked, not ‘whether’. Workers are facing a rising tide of violence and employers haven’t got to grips with the threat. Individual acts of violence are random, but violence itself is all too predictable in some jobs. That means the risk of violence can and should be assessed, managed and reduced.’
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Staff in Jobcentres, benefit offices and Jobcentre Plus offices fear violence more than any other workforce in the UK and only public transport workers are more worried about physical attack. Research from the union PCS found nearly half (49 per cent) of those responding to a survey of 5,000 Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) staff had experienced violence at work in the last year. This rose to threequarters (76 per cent) for staff working in constant contact with the public and 84 per cent of these workers had witnessed violence in their workplace. Some 43 per cent of DWP staff are worried about physical attack at work, rising to two-thirds for those in constant contact with the public.
