Article

Why psychosocial safety matters in retail

Rising aggression, violence, and organised retail crime are now common in retail. Psychosocial safety offers a proactive way to protect employees and build resilience.

Rising aggression, violence and organised retail crime have become an increasingly common feature of retail work. As organisations look beyond physical security measures, psychosocial safety can offer a proactive way to protect employees, reduce the risk of physical harm and strengthen workplace resilience within the wider context of health and safety and occupational safety and health.

Retail has always relied on people. Every day, employees navigate thousands of customer interactions and deliver service in busy, fast-paced and sometimes unpredictable environments. In recent years, however, the pressures facing both retailers and consumers have intensified, fundamentally changing what it means to work in the sector and increasing exposure to work related psychosocial risks and other workplace risks.

The rising cost of living, alongside persistently high levels of retail crime, has contributed to a sharp increase in customer aggression and abuse, with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) describing retail crime as "endemic". More than 14 million people across the UK have witnessed violence or abuse against retail workers in the past year, according to BRC research. Separate BRC data found retail workers experienced around 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse every day last year - more than three times the level seen before the pandemic.

While many retailers have invested in physical security measures to combat this, the effects of shoplifting, verbal threats or violent behaviour often extend beyond the incident itself and can affect employees’ confidence and anxiety levels, which in turn can impact performance and broader employee wellbeing.

This is where psychosocial safety becomes increasingly important, as it encourages organisations to move beyond reacting after incidents happen and instead create the conditions that help prevent harm in the first place through stronger psychosocial risk management and better control of psychosocial factors in the work environment.

Understanding psychosocial risk

Like many sectors, today’s retailers are trying to do more with less, placing greater pressure on employees, but not always providing sufficient tools, training or resources to deal with increasingly complex situations. But unlike many other workplaces, retail employees are constantly exposed to the public. They may be serving customers who are experiencing financial hardship or frustration, while also facing the threat of organised retail crime. Customer aggression and violence are becoming an all-too-common feature of the job particularly when dealing with difficult customers under rising work demands and job demands.

The psychological impact isn’t just limited to those directly involved. Employees who witness hostile or distressing events can also be badly affected, contributing over time to work-related stress, burnout and related health issues - resulting in higher absenteeism, turnover, reduced productivity and greater legal and reputational risk as well as lost productivity and weaker business performance.

A major challenge for employers here is operating in an increasingly crowded landscape of terminology. Psychological safety, psychosocial safety, stress, burnout, wellbeing and mental health are often used interchangeably, despite describing different aspects of workplace experience. Psychological safety is not the same as psychosocial safety: the former is about people feeling able to speak up, while the latter is the broader structural foundation for managing systemic risk.

Psychological safety is the outcome: employees feeling able to speak up and be themselves. Psychosocial safety focuses on the conditions that influence whether that outcome is achieved, including leadership, communication, workload, job design, safe systems of work and organisational support.

Many retailers provide employee assistance programmes (EAPs) which are of course valuable but tend to be reactive. A psychosocial approach shifts the emphasis towards preventing unnecessary psychosocial risks from developing altogether. That means evaluating how work is organised, conducting risk assessments, identifying workplace hazards and taking targeted action to prevent or limit them before they contribute to stress, burnout or poor performance.

The concept is gaining traction in Australia, where psychosocial hazards form part of workplace health and safety legislation. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is intensifying its focus on preventing work-related stress by encouraging employers to address the workplace factors that contribute to psychological harm.

The importance of managers

Leadership commitment is also critical to creating psychosocially safe workplaces, as policies and processes alone are unlikely to be effective unless organisations actively embed them through the way work is designed and managed.

For most employees, that starts with their line manager. Yet many managers are promoted because of operational expertise rather than leadership capability. Often referred to as “the squeezed middle,” managers can find themselves stuck in an awkward position between balancing commercial priorities, senior leadership expectations and the needs of their teams, becoming a pressure point while also being expected to support others’ wellbeing. That pressure can be intensified by organisational change, job insecurity and limited consultation.

Developing manager capability is therefore essential. Coaching, mentoring, communication and conflict management skills can help managers recognise psychosocial risks earlier, respond to challenging situations and better support their teams. Managers also need support themselves, particularly during periods of change or following difficult incidents.

Putting psychosocial safety into practice

While physical interventions like body-worn cameras can help employees feel safer, they’re only part of the picture. Organisations see the strongest results when these measures are supported by a proactive approach to managing psychosocial risks. That approach supports mental wellbeing, helps with managing stress and can reduce stress before problems escalate

Practical actions include:

Strengthen communication to build trust and ensure employees feel informed and supported
Develop manager capability through coaching, mentoring and conflict management training
Assess psychosocial risks by identifying workload, job control and other workplace pressure points
Provide confidential support through EAPs and post-incident support for employees
Address underlying causes, not just individual incidents, by gathering employee feedback and reviewing patterns, then making changes where risks persist.

People: the heart of customer experience

Retail will undoubtedly continue to evolve as customer expectations change and automation continues apace. But whatever the future looks like, people will remain at the heart of customer experience. Supporting employees to handle increasing pressure is now becoming a business imperative, not just a wellbeing concern with clear benefits for retention, absence reduction and service quality.

Organisations now have an opportunity to take a more proactive approach by designing work to protect mental health and reduce psychosocial risks before they escalate. This way, they can create better experiences for employees, strengthen their ability to attract and retain talent and ultimately build a workforce that is better equipped and prepared to meet the changing demands of an increasingly competitive retail market.

If you’d like to explore how your organisation can proactively manage psychosocial risks, reduce the impact of customer aggression and build a more resilient retail workforce, our specialists would be pleased to speak with you.

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