The mental health crisis behind rising retail violence and aggression
This article draws from insights shared during a recent webinar on Managing Occupational Violence and Aggression featuring Dr Kim Hamrosi, CEO, Corporate Mental Health Alliance; Angela Konstantopoulos, General Manager – Health, Safety & Wellbeing, Coles; Georgie Chapman, Partner, HR Legal; Keith Govias, Workplace Health & Safety Manager, Employers Mutual Limited; and Dr Leah Collins, Clinical & Health Psychologist, Transitioning Well.
The statistics are sobering: 87% of retail workers have experienced verbal abuse from customers, while 12.5% report physical violence. More troubling still, more than half of these workers face repeated aggression from the same customers. For an industry employing hundreds of thousands of Australians (many in their first jobs) these figures represent a crisis that demands urgent attention.
Recent data from a 2023 survey of more than 4,600 retail workers reveals a workplace violence epidemic that’s reshaping how major retailers approach staff safety. At Coles, which employs over 115,000 team members across more than 1,800 retail sites, incidents of customer violence and aggression have surged nationally, with Victoria showing the highest rates.
Angela Konstantopoulos, General Manager of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at Coles, explains that workplace violence in retail exists on a concerning spectrum. “A lot of what our team members face is that real daily incivility,” she notes. “Whether it’s the eye roll or the huffing and puffing, folding your arms, or passive aggressive comments towards our team. After a while that can build up and become quite distressing.”
This daily erosion of civility escalates through verbal aggression to abuse and can lead to physical assault.
Perfect Storm of Contributing Factors
Multiple factors have converged to create this crisis. The cost-of-living pressures are having a direct impact on customer behaviour, while the political spotlight on supermarkets has created a space that Konstantopoulos describes as giving “people permission sometimes to abuse our team members because of what they see on TV.”
Community reforms and broader social changes have also contributed to an environment where retail workers, often young people in their first jobs, face unprecedented levels of aggression and incivility.
Legal Landscape and Compliance
The regulatory environment is evolving rapidly. New psychosocial hazard management regulations have been implemented across all states and territories except Victoria, though Victoria will join later this year. These regulations require organisations to identify psychosocial hazards, understand associated risks, and implement control measures.
Georgie Chapman, Partner at HR Legal, emphasises that while workplace health and safety obligations have always covered both physical and psychological safety, the new regulations provide clearer guidance on compliance. “The reality is the obligations were already there, but the regulations are really explaining how we go about it,” she explains.
The legal risks are significant. Beyond workers’ compensation claims, organisations face potential prosecution for failing to meet safety obligations. A recent case involving a school where inadequate emergency response systems led to prosecution demonstrates the serious consequences of poorly implemented safety processes.
Coles’ Response Strategy
Coles has developed a sophisticated three-phase approach to tackling this issue: prevent, protect, and care. The prevention strategy focuses on “target hardening” that is, making stores more difficult for potential perpetrators to enter and exit quickly. This includes strategic product decisions, such as removing knives from sale to prevent weapons access.
The company has developed an advanced risk profiling tool that incorporates multiple data points: incident reports, demographics, proximity to transport and police stations, operating hours, and location. This system helps identify higher-risk stores for targeted interventions.
Where needed, some high-risk stores receive enhanced security measures including security guards, body-worn cameras for staff (activated when feeling unsafe), duress watches for isolated workers enabling immediate police response, alarms for overnight staff, store-wide headset systems for rapid team communication, and threatening situation toolkits for management.
However, staff feedback indicates that while security devices provide confidence, de-escalation training delivers the most value. “The training puts them in control, gives them those tools they can use,” Konstantopoulos explains. This training emphasises that staff safety takes priority over protecting stock, with clear messaging from the CEO down that “your life is worth more than protecting stock.”
“And I think that’s really important for a workplace culture to know that this is not OK,” Konstantopoulos says. “We support you in this, and we’re doing everything we can to stop it.”
Trauma-Informed Processes
Recognising that traditional incident investigation approaches can re-traumatise affected staff, Coles has implemented trauma-informed investigation processes. Their safety team has received specialised training to prevent repeated retelling of traumatic events while still gathering necessary information for making improvements to minimise further risk. The company has found that informal support — “sitting down with a work colleague or your line manager, having a cup of tea and really just being there for them”— often provides more immediate benefit than formal psychological intervention.
Young Workers
The impact on young workers entering retail as their first employment is particularly concerning. Many lack life experience to contextualise aggressive behaviour, and the cumulative effect of daily incivility can be overwhelming. There’s a real risk that fear of workplace violence could drive young people away from retail careers, creating long-term workforce sustainability issues.
Dr Leah Collins, clinical psychologist at Transitioning Well, notes that resilience to unpleasant events grows with exposure, but younger workers need additional support to develop these coping mechanisms safely.
Leading Indicators and Early Intervention
Keith Govias from EML emphasises the importance of monitoring leading indicators rather than waiting for serious incidents. Key metrics include:
- Training completion rates
- Employee Assistance Program usage
- Absenteeism patterns
- Customer service complaint trends
- Environmental factors like store temperature and noise levels
- Queue management effectiveness
Simple environmental improvements can significantly reduce customer friction and frustration. Govias notes that customers become more aggressive in excessively hot stores or when unable to hear staff due to noise levels.
Practical Strategies
For retailers looking to address workplace violence, experts recommend:
Start with Simple Reporting: Avoid complex investigation forms for minor incidents. Coles uses multiple reporting tools feeding into a single system, allowing pattern recognition from micro-aggressions through to serious assaults.
Consultation is Key: Regular staff consultation every three months helps organisations stay ahead of evolving risks. Team members can quickly identify what works and what doesn’t.
Risk-Scaled Responses: Apply appropriate investigation levels based on incident severity. Minor incivility doesn’t require the same response as serious assault, but both need capturing for trend analysis.
Regular Review: Avoid “set and forget” approaches. Regular monitoring, revision, and adaptation ensure controls remain effective as circumstances change.
Industry-Wide Mental Health Implications
The retail violence crisis extends beyond individual companies. With 30% of Australian workers reporting ongoing mental health conditions and particularly high rates in food services (19%) and retail (17.1%), the industry faces a significant challenge in maintaining workforce wellbeing.
The emergence of new phenomena like “swarming events”— where groups coordinate to overwhelm stores and steal high-value items — demonstrates how quickly threats can evolve, requiring constant vigilance and adaptation.
As the regulatory environment tightens and community expectations around workplace safety increase, retailers must view violence prevention as a business necessity. The cost of inaction, in terms of staff turnover, workers’ compensation claims, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage, far exceeds investing in prevention.
Successful retailers will be those that embrace comprehensive approaches combining technology, training, environmental design, and genuine care for staff wellbeing.
Download your free webinar and resource
Interested in more insights? You can access our webinar: Managing Occupational Violence and Aggression and receive Transitioning Well’s free Occupational Violence and Aggression resource.
