Identifying measures to prevent customer-on-staff work-related violence
Violence at the workplace is a common risk in the rail sector in Great Britain with more than 70% of rail staff experiencing verbal and physical threats and assaults in 2019/20. Exposure to violence has important implications for companies and staff in the industry, resulting in poor physical and mental health, sickness absence, employee disengagement and turnover.
In this context, RSSB commissioned Alma Economics to support the rail industry in Great Britain to establish effective policies for the prevention and management of workplace violence against frontline staff.
Members from the Alma Economics team in collaboration with Dr Kevin Teoh, an expert in organisational psychology, carried out a systematic review of published and grey literature to identify best practice in workplace violence policies in the rail and other sectors (mainly, healthcare, police, retail, and social care) in the UK and internationally. Our evidence review revealed that ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is not effective in managing the complex and multi-faceted nature of violence at the workplace. Comprehensive frameworks that pull together different types of interventions and take under consideration specific challenges across job roles and local settings are the optimal response to violence against frontline staff. Active leadership and management support, as well as employee involvement in policy design and implementation, are also key success factors.
These overarching lessons learned from our review, as well as more detailed findings on interventions identified as promising, were used to arrive at a set of actionable recommendations aiming to help the sector enhance its performance in tackling violence at the workplace. Our recommendations were developed drawing from our knowledge of the policy landscape in the rail sector in Great Britain which was gained through analysing data from SMIS and the British Transport Police and discussing with key stakeholders in the context of interviews and workshops. In summary, our recommendations focused on:
· Adopting a common language, terminology and indicators for workplace violence
· Using company-specific information from risk assessments and incident reporting systems to inform evidence-based policy decisions
· Promoting collaboration between senior management, health and safety representatives, staff and other key stakeholders in the development, implementation and evaluation of policies
· Using the tools our team developed to improve performance in this area.
Ιn particular, we created a workplace policy assessment framework which captures best practice across all stages of the workplace violence policy development and implementation process. Companies in the sector are encouraged to use our framework as a self-audit tool for monitoring their workplace violence policies and evaluate their alignment with best practice.
Ιn addition, we developed a step-by-step approach for the development of robust business cases exploring the rationale for investing in work-related violence training. Our guide can be used as a standalone tool or be incorporated in existing company systems. It aims to help decision-makers design training interventions tailored to company-specific needs and contributing to wider company commitments to protecting employee health and wellbeing through delivering substantial social and economic benefits.
Based on discussions with rail company representatives and other key stakeholders, we envisage that our work on providing an evidence base on workplace violence interventions, the recommendations flowing from this research and the suite of tools we developed with RSSB will contribute to a safer and healthier working environment for all rail staff.