Tackling Violence and Abuse at Work: Issue 8 - January 2025 | Accord Magazine

Julie Hicks was assaulted by a customer in her branch. Now she’s insistent that LBG and the government must do more to keep workers safe.

On 24 October 2022, Julie, a Halifax Banking Consultant in the central Belfast branch, was in a side room dealing with a customer with additional needs when she heard a commotion outside. The customer was becoming distressed by the noise, so Julie went to see what was happening and found a man shouting at her colleague at a cashier desk.

Julie stepped in to speak to the man, who said a direct debit had incorrectly left his account. “It happens every day,” she says of this kind of customer behaviour, and she dealt with it as normal, asking him to calm down, inviting him to sit down in an interview room and assuring him that she was going to make a call and get his issue resolved.

But when he continued behaving abusively, Julie made clear she wouldn’t tolerate being spoken to that way. The situation continued to escalate and the man became physically aggressive, at which point she called 999. The police agreed to send officers right away—the severity of the situation was clear—but as soon as Julie put down the phone the man lunged across the table and physically assaulted her.

“I managed to free myself,” she says in a conversation with MyAccord. “And I just left the room. I just got out of there. I met the police and I told them what happened.”

Julie believes that there was a long series of failures by the business to respond to what had happened appropriately, or to give her the support she needed. It was left to her to follow up with the police, who brought forward a charge and ultimately secured a conviction. When she had to give testimony in court, she wasn’t accompanied by anyone from the bank.

“It was me that had to remain strong and say no, I’m not going to let somebody get away with that. With regards to the company and how it helped me? It didn’t. Full stop.”

For Julie, this all came at significant cost. She experienced severe anxiety after the incident and was forced to take five months off. When she came back to work, she had to move to a new branch. And that year, the bank reduced her bonus because of her period of sickness absence, though it has since committed to repaying the lost income and changed its policy in the light of Julie’s experience.

Strengthening the Law

In the King’s Speech in July, the Government announced new protections for retail workers affected by customer violence and harassment. This follows many years of campaigning by Usdaw, the shopworkers’ union. Their members, like ours, have been on the frontlines of rising levels of customer abuse.

The new law will create a specific crime of assaulting a shopworker, and Accord is working to ensure that the new protections extend to our members. Discussing the changes in her speech to Labour Party conference in September, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

“Respect is the very foundation of our democracy. Those Labour values are at the heart of all we do, and they are at the heart of our mission for safer streets too. Starting in towns and cities across the country where rising street crime has driven people from our high streets, corroding the fabric of our communities.”

“Stand Up for Yourself”

Julie supports the changes in the law, saying that she wouldn’t want any of her colleagues to go through what she’s endured in the last two years. But she also wants to see changes in the bank’s response - including more signage in branches warning against violence and abuse, more branch security and greater attention to safety features like panic buttons.

She also argues that managers should be taking a more compassionate approach, centred on the individual affected and what they need. She points out that in training, colleagues are told that “when customers raise complaints, we have to act. So apologise, have compassion, take it seriously. This is what we do for our customers. But we don’t do it for our staff? That doesn’t sit well with me.”

Still, Julie’s advice to colleagues who find themselves dealing with abusive or violent customers is that they should draw clear boundaries.

“There’s normal customer service things,” she says. “Tell them how you’re going to put right what’s wrong. Talk in a calm manner to them. But also, don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself and say no, I am not going to tolerate this. And don’t be afraid to challenge the company either because they got it wrong in my case and they can get it wrong again. Stand up for yourself. Don’t let people treat you like that.”

No one should have to face violent or threatening behaviour at work. If you do experience abuse or violence, you should always report it. This allows unions and the employers to understand the scale of the problem and respond appropriately. If you need support, you can contact Accord anytime.

In another development, Accord’s President Carol Knowles has been invited to a roundtable event on worker protection organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for customer service in February.

The event will be a discussion about collaboration between multiple trade unions, trade bodies, businesses, and cross-party parliamentarians to discuss the urgent need to continue protecting all customer service front-line workers from abuse and hostility whilst at work.

It will explore:

What more Government could do to protect customer service workers across the economy and the country.
How to change societal perceptions that abuse of customer service workers is acceptable.
How businesses, organisations and trade bodies together can support workers to report incidents of abuse and hostility more effectively and support workers through these incidents.
How to change perceptions to ensure that victims see the benefit in reporting an incident.

The King’s Speech where the Government committed to delivering a Crime and Policing Bill, which will include a standalone offence for abuse towards shopworkers, however more action is required to significantly reduce the abuse being suffered by all frontline staff. Service workers include retail staff, hospitality workers, call centre agents, infrastructure installers, delivery drivers, as well as parliamentary assistants and staffers, and many others who interact with the public on a daily basis and are vital members of their community.

The Prime Minister previously stated at the TUC Conference that he understood the need to go further than just introducing a standalone offence for those committing retail crime. The roundtable event will discuss the importance of going further than this very worthy policy reform to look at protecting customer service workers across the economy and how such protections should look in practice.

Carol Knowles, who was a victim of an assault by a customer in the Halifax in Bolton said:

As a branch colleague with 40 years of experience, I’ve noticed a significant increase in both verbal and physical threats to colleagues. This is not something that we, as customer service colleagues, should have to tolerate. It’s shocking and unacceptable that a simple transaction could escalate into an attack on myself. It’s not something I’d wish upon anyone. No one should face abuse at work, and it’s time both the government and employers take decisive action to protect us."