How to protect your retail staff in the face of Christmas abuse

It’s that dreaded moment on the shop floor every summer retail worker can relate to. One moment you’re humming along to Michael Buble’s Christmas album, the next you’re confronted with a foul-mouthed tirade from an irate customer.

Now the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association is fighting back, with a new national advertising campaign urging customers to stop their shouting at shop staff.

Launched last week, the campaign will feature television, radio, digital and outdoor ads, all aimed at putting a stop to what it says is increasingly prevalence of verbal and physical abuse of workers in the fast food and retail sectors.

And it’s not just the big end of town that bears the brunt of frustrated customers; small business owners are all too familiar with the problem.

“Sometimes we put the customer up as a God. And some consumers believe they are more important as human beings than the staff. In the end, we’re all equally important,” says Council of Small Business Australia chief executive Peter Strong.

The Union’s own figures paint a rather unfestive picture, with nearly nine in 10 retail staff copping abuse at work, according to an online survey completed between December 2016 and February 2017.

“Nobody should be abusing anybody — be it employees, customers, employers, regulators. It just shouldn’t happen,” Strong says.

And yet in the height of the Christmas shopping season, it’s a problem as common as the tinsel in the shopfronts. Australian Retailers’ Association Russell Zimmerman puts it down to the stress of the festive season.

“There’s a week to go before Christmas and they’ve got to get their presents quickly. They get agro, [asking] why aren’t they serving me quickly?,” he says.