The Hidden Cost of Retail Rage
Every day across Australia, retail staff are spat at, yelled at, threatened, or even assaulted – often while earning close to minimum wage. What was once dismissed as ‘part of the job’ is now being recognised as a serious workplace health and safety issue. The retail sector is Australia’s second-largest employment industry, and its frontline workers – including cashiers, shelf-stackers, and floor staff – are increasingly exposed to aggression, threats, and violence from customers. These incidents are reportedly rising, prompting urgent attention.
The Alarming Trends
The numbers paint a stark picture. A 2024 SDA survey revealed that nearly 9 in 10 retail and fast-food workers endured verbal abuse, while 1 in 8 faced physical violence in the past year alone. Crime data backs this up: Auror reported a 66% surge in retail incidents involving weapons, and the Australian Retailers Association noted that almost one in four retail crimes now involve violence or intimidation.
The national trend is just as troubling. Safe Work Australia recorded a 56% rise in serious workers’ compensation claims for assault or violence between 2017–18 and 2021–22, underscoring that the issue extends well beyond retail.
Retail workers, often interacting with the public under high-pressure conditions, are clearly bearing the brunt of escalating customer aggression.
Work-related violence is a workplace hazard
The prevailing narrative has often contended that dealing with violence and aggression in retail simply comes with the territory, that “it is what it is”. Well-meaning ‘interventions’ often include organisational wide de-escalation training and a focus on hiring ‘more resilient staff’.
But this just continues to place responsibility on the individual worker. This does not address the root cause of work-related violence. System factors (e.g. policies and procedures, working conditions, environmental design, reporting processes) often play a bigger role than individual worker behaviour in work-related violence incidents.
Violence and aggression are not “part of the job.” They are foreseeable workplace hazards. And employers have a legal obligation to prevent harm, not just react after the fact.
A systems approach
Systems thinking means seeing patterns, not just problems. It allows us to see the bigger picture and understand how decisions, people and processes are all connected, enabling a way of solving challenges at the source.
A sustainable approach to workplace violence involves coordinated actions at government, organisational, sector, and team levels. We need to:
1. Identify hazards
Recognise violence and aggression as foreseeable psychosocial risks rather than isolated incidents.
2. Redesign systems
Address staffing levels, security presence, store layout and design, job design (shift design, work demands), and ensure clear, user-friendly reporting processes.
3. Prevention beyond training
While de-escalation skills matter, they must be backed by consistent policies, follow-through, and immediate action for inappropriate customer behaviour.
4. Monitoring and accountability
Capturing data, publishing it transparently, and acting on trends at both organisational and sector levels.
A window of opportunity
Safe Work Australia’s position is clear: employers must take proactive steps to prevent harm, not just clean up the aftermath. Our retail workers turn up daily to serve communities. There is a clear opportunity to tackle this complex issue in a more holistic and strategic way.
Retail workers are entitled to be safe at work. This requires systems that protect people; organisations and leaders that prioritise psychological health and safety; and sector-wide accountability that ensures violence is no longer minimised or normalised as “part of the job”.
Connect with us
Learn more about how Mapien utilise psychological health and safety frameworks to help organisations understand and address the impact of workplace violence and aggression here. Should you have any questions, please reach out to our team below.
References
- Australian Retailers Association (2024). Australian retailers record huge spike in armed and violent retail crime. https://www.retail.org.au/media/australian-retailers-record-huge-spike-in-armed-and-violent-retail-crime
- Safe Work Australia (2023). Work-related violence. safeworkaustralia.gov.au
- Safe Work Australia (2024). Work-related violence and aggression: Insights report. Retrieved from: https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-08/Work-related-violence-and-aggression_Report_August2024.pdf
- SDA (Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association) (2023). Survey findings on retail and fast-food worker abuse and violence. Reported in Courier Mail, 2024.
- Sheppard, D. M., Newnam, S., St. Louis, R. M., & Perrett, M. S. (2023). Factors contributing to work-related violence: A systematic review and systems perspective. Safety Science, 167, 106223.
- Work Health and Safety Regulations (Psychosocial Hazards), Queensland Government (2023).