Protecting Employees From Violence
Whatever the statistics say, we must all take sensible precautions to protect ourselves from violence and the threat of violence. This applies to the workplace just as it does to our daily lives.
The British Crime Survey estimates that in 2002/3 there were 849,000 incidents of violence at work. There were 431,000 assaults and 418,000 threats of violence made.
Some jobs are obviously more in the line of fire than others but no employer can afford to be complacent when it comes to their employees’ safety.
Employers are required by law to provide a safe place of work and safe system of work for all employees. This means that employers must do all that is sensible to ensure that their employees remain safe from reasonably foreseeable dangers. If the employer does not do this, it can lead to all sorts of claims including constructive dismissal, and damages for injuries suffered.
Whether any particular danger is reasonably foreseeable depends on the facts. An employee who handles cash is clearly at risk if there is a robbery, a shopworker who works on her own at night in a convenience store is probably more at risk than if she works in the day.
The starting point for all employers is to consider what risks their employees might face. Health and Safety at Work laws require employers to carry out a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the health and safety risks that their employees are exposed to. That risk assessment must identify the action the employer will take to reduce any risks identified.
What does this mean in practice? Let’s go back to the woman working at night alone in the convenience store.
How big the risk is of her being robbed during the night depends on a variety of factors, such as; the location of the shop; how busy it normally is at night; and whether there have been robberies in the past. However, having identified that there is a risk, any sensible employer will take measures to reduce that risk.
In one case a shop assistant resigned and claimed constructive dismissal after two armed robberies. She had been threatened and had a knife held to her throat. After the first robbery, she complained to her District Manager who said that there was nothing that could be done. The shop had no telephone or panic alarm and the staff were all female. After the predictable second robbery, she left. The employment tribunal found that although no security measures could be 100 percent effective, the employer had fundamentally breached the employee’s contract in failing to take any protective measures at all, and that she was therefore entitled to compensation for unfair constructive dismissal.
Having identified that there is a significant risk of the night-time shop assistant being robbed, doing nothing is not an option. Reasonable measures must be put in place to protect her. Panic alarms, security screens, cameras and double staffing are just some of the options that a sensible employer will consider.
Employers who do not want to spend any money on improving their worker’s safety make a mistake in deciding there is no risk when there clearly is. The Health and Safety Executive state in one of its guides that employees whose job requires them to deal with the public can be at risk of violence and that most at risk are those who are engaged in giving a service, caring, education, cash transactions, delivery/collection, controlling or representing authority.
What does all of this mean for employers? Make sure that you carry out proper risk assessments and act to reduce any identified risks to your staff. Do not do nothing.
What does it mean for employees? If you feel exposed do not wait to be threatened or even attacked. Tell your employer what you fear and ask what will be done about it.
Published 27/09/2006.
