name of keeping their jobs. In a landmark report, the National Retail Association (NRA) examined the impact this pandemic has had on retail’s essential workers – and the results aren’t pretty. While hysteria and health warnings to stay home were at their peak, retail workers carried on working and, unfortunately, took the brunt of Australia’s frustration. According to the report, some retailers reported an increase of customer aggression and abuse of up to 400 per cent during the pandemic. And, according to NRA chief executive Dominique Lamb, this just isn’t good enough. “We need to get everybody on board – government, police, employees, consumers – and make a stand and say we’re not going to treat our workers this way anymore,” Lamb told Inside Retail. “We need to change community attitudes. It’s completely inappropriate for people to be taking their frustrations out on workers, retail or not. It’s about training other people with common decency.” The report, which also found that retail workers are generally more likely to make unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking and eating poorly, argues that law enforcement must be allocated dedicated funds and resources to address retail related crimes. Eight-five per cent of retail workers are verbally abused while attempting to prevent theft, while 41 per cent are abused physically. “In many situations, it’s really only the police that can enforce the laws or fines, and retailers have only a few actions they can take. It’s the police that really need to get involved here,” Lamb said. “For many years, retail crime hasn’t been seen as a focus for any of our governments, but ultimately we’re losing billions of dollars and our young workers are the ones dealing with it on a day-to-day basis.” Lamb also said that, within the industry, training should be provided to frontline workers to ensure they are capable of handling these situations when they inevitably occur. There are some retailers that already provide training to their staff in this way, such as Bunnings, which recently saw several of its staff abused in a widely circulated video of a woman taking issue with needing to wear a mask in public. “While the vast majority of our customers are great to work with and respectful, our teams do receive training on how to manage difficult situations, and our leaders have the authority to ask customers to leave our stores if required,” Bunnings’ human resources director Jacqui Coombes told Inside Retail. “We also have a number of support initiatives available, including free counselling service, paid domestic family violence leave, and other paid types of leave.” Accent Group, which runs several businesses such as Pivot, The Trybe, Athletes Foot, Hype DC and Sketchers, said they have taken the approach during Covid-19 that it is impossible to over-communicate with staff. “Accent Group has implemented a number of safety protocols [during the pandemic],”Accent Group head of people Adam Rudzki told Inside Retail. “We’ve implemented our Wellness Program, which invites all team members to participate in physical and mental wellbeing events [and] we’re also about to roll out mental health first aid training to managers across the business.” According to Rudzki, employees across the group’s stable of brands have accessed free counseling sessions, which have helped them start conversations about both personal and professional challenges. “This has made a huge difference to not just our team members accessing the [Employee Assistance] program, but also our management teams who may not have been experienced in supporting team members with mental health issues,” Rudzki said. This story appeared in the August 2020 issue of Inside Retail Magazine. To receive a print copy, click here.