Part 2
Encountering aggressive clients, people, animals
Public-facing and field roles expose workers to aggression, whether from customers/clients, members of the public, co-workers, and animals. In the UK, A recent report revealed a sharp rise in violence against lone workers, with physical attacks increasing by 132% in the last three years.
Lone workers face heightened risk due to delayed assistance and limited ability to summon help.Beyond the immediate harm, these incidents are deeply traumatic, often leading to anxiety, sleep disruption, reduced confidence at work, and longer-term mental health impacts.
Example cases:
Convenience shop incidents
A one-person staffing model has coincided with more abuse and threats from offenders, raising duty-of-care concerns for lone retail workers. At a local store in the UK, staff reported being left alone on shifts and threatened with violence, including knives, amid rising shoplifting.
Social worker
A man received a hospital order for the attempted murder of a social worker, leaving her with lasting physical and psychological harm. This underscores the heightened risks frontline social care staff can face when undertaking visits or casework alone.
Mitigation strategies:
Establish a zero-tolerance, clear policy: Written, enforced rules covering employees, clients, visitors; explicit consequences for threats, harassment, or violence.
Run a violence prevention programme: Management commitment; risk assessment by task/site/time; controls; incident reporting; record-keeping. Tailor for robbery procedures, patient/visitor management, and public-facing conflict.
Harden the environment (engineering controls): Secure entry, lighting, CCTV, monitored alarms/panic buttons/duress codes; cash-handling minimisation and time-locks; protective barriers where warranted; safe rooms/escape routes. For animals: fenced delivery zones, warning signage, PPE (e.g., bite-resistant gloves, gaiters).
Set administrative controls and staffing: Avoid single-staffing at high-risk times/locations; itinerary sharing; check-in schedules; escalation pathways; no-cash signage; refuse-service protocols. Encourage early reporting without retaliation.
Train & practice: De-escalation, situational awareness, recognising red flags, safe disengagement/escape, robbery survival basics (“comply, observe, preserve evidence”), post-incident actions. Include harassment/bullying prevention and bystander intervention.
Implement lone-worker protections: GPS/SOS devices or apps with man-down/impact detection, timed check-ins, and two-way comms (mobile/satellite); code words; rapid dispatch procedures; pre-visit risk screens for home calls (people and pets).
Provide post-incident support & learning: Immediate medical/psychological care (EAP/trauma counselling), debriefs, law-enforcement liaison, and corrective actions from root-cause reviews to prevent recurrence.
