Treating employees with kindness
I'm proud to be an ambassador for The Retail Trust, and I recently attended one of their events where the conversation centred on research that should shame us all. The data reveals a workplace culture crisis that extends far beyond retail.
A worrying 77% of shop staff experienced intimidating behaviour in the past year. A quarter were physically assaulted. 98% faced verbal abuse. Perhaps most damning: 43% are being abused or attacked every week - a 10% increase from the previous year. The result of this is that 43% are considering leaving their jobs, and 45% feel unsafe at work.
These aren't just statistics. They're people. Teenagers in their first job. Parents working around childcare. Individuals who once loved what they did, now suffering PTSD and leaving the sector entirely.
No employee - in retail, hospitality, healthcare, or any sector - comes to work wanting to be the worst version of themselves. Everyone is trying to do the best they can, with the knowledge they have, in the conditions they find themselves in. Yet we're creating environments where abuse has become ‘part of the job.’ All of which leads to an increase in mental health issues and cultural decay.
It's easy to blame social norms or claim our circumstances justify our anger. They don't. When we lash out at someone simply doing their job, we're demonstrating a fundamental lack of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and emotional control. These aren't abstract concepts or ‘fluffy’ initiatives, they're the basic competencies required to function in a civilised society.
The issue isn't limited to public-facing abuse. Look inside your own organisation. How do colleagues treat each other when stressed? How do managers respond to mistakes? How do we behave when processes frustrate or pressure mounts? The same emotional incompetence that leads to public abuse manifests in toxic workplace dynamics, passive aggression, blame culture, and a complete absence of psychological safety.
This is a call to every employee, at every level: respect for other humans isn't optional. The person serving you, the colleague who made an error, the team member who's struggling, they're all trying to do the best they can with what they have. Your inability to manage your emotions doesn't give you licence to diminish another human being.
Organisations can implement all the training they want (almost a third of retail workers have received training on managing abuse), but culture change starts with individual accountability. Before you speak, before you react, ask yourself, ‘Am I demonstrating emotional intelligence right now, or am I about to become someone's reason for dreading work?’
The Retail Trust's ‘Let's Respect Retail’ campaign calls for simple acts - a hello, a thank you, a smile. But let's be honest: if we need a campaign to remind people to behave with basic decency, we've already failed.
Respect isn't a campaign. It's a daily choice we all make.
