The safety and wellbeing of our colleagues, and those who work and shop with us, is paramount.
New research by the Retail Trust revealed attacks on shop workers are worsening amidst rising levels of in-store crime, with nearly half (47%) of shop workers surveyed feeling unsafe at work. We know feeling unsafe at work can have a negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of our colleagues. Every 8 weeks, our National Make it better together team (an elected body of colleague representatives), meet with our CEO and Chief Retail & Technology Officer, together with our crime and security team to discuss what further plans we have to keep our colleagues safe.
Industry partnership to crack down on crime
We’re proud to be partnering with the police, and other UK leading retailers, to develop a dedicated team to tackle Organised Retail Crime. This team will combine police powers with industry knowledge to identify and target the most serious, and harmful organised crime gangs operating in the UK. This new project, backed by the Policing Minister and the Home Office, will build an intelligence picture to help target and dismantle the gangs. There are 14 major retailers (such as Co-op, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Boots), who are funding this this team for two years to establish and maintain a single version of risk from criminals targeting retailers.
Read more about the Retail Crime Action Plan
To further support our teams, we continue to invest heavily in Colleague Worn cameras and have 8,600 across our estate. We provide extensive guidance on how to report and respond to crime incidents and other situations which increase the risk to colleague safety. Furthermore, our ‘Keeping Colleagues Safe’ training module equips colleagues with personal safety skills and knowledge to keep themselves, their colleagues, and our customers safe should a confrontational situation occur.
Where colleagues are impacted by an incident of this kind, our ‘Support for colleagues following an incident’ guide details the help available to support their mental health and wellbeing, and if appropriate we may provide an additional layer of critical incident support which is provided through our Employee Assistance Programme provider.
In October 2023, we held a Crime and Security Focus Week on how we can all work together to make stores safer for everyone, build relationships with local police and community teams, and share best practice on incident reporting.