Insurer icare’s Respect & Resilience program has hit the ABC TV News headlines after staff training in de-escalation techniques and improving retail environments led to a 48% drop in customer misbehaviour incidents at KFC and The Reject Shop.
The pilot program, developed with the Griffiths University and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA), provided frontline employees with specialised training workshops and a program evaluation to complete, focusing on the lower levels of customer aggression – incivility and abuse. It also included in-store signage to increase customer awareness of the outlets’ zero-tolerance approach to bad behavior.
“We have been tackling this issue for the last 18 months with the SDA and the Rehabilitation Innovation Service Evaluation (RISE) team, a part of the Menzies Health Institute of Queensland at Griffith University,” said Andrew Ellery, head of community engagement at icare. “We wanted to find ways of better supporting and upskilling workers to reduce the physical and psychological impact of abuse and to de-escalate and reduce the number of incidents.”
Ellery said results showed how the combination of in-person training, organisational awareness, and policy and procedures to record and monitor customer misbehaviour can significantly reduce customer misbehavior.
icare said it plans to broaden the scope of its learnings to benefit other NSW businesses, and work with communities to reward good behaviour and raise awareness about the impact of bad behaviour.
