Measuring and managing the safety of frontline workers

For many organisations, abuse of frontline staff has traditionally been treated as a welfare, HR or compliance issue. Today, it is much more strategic.

 

When employees are verbally abused, threatened or physically assaulted while doing their jobs, the consequences do not stop at the incident report. They undermine confidence, increase the likelihood of absence and turnover, and weaken the organisation’s reputation.

 

For any business that relies on staff interacting with the public, frontline safety has become a measurable performance factor.

 

 

Leadership sets the tone

The organisations making the most progress are not those buying more equipment, issuing stronger policy documents or adding another training module. They are the ones where leadership has visibly taken ownership. When a member of the board or C-suite speaks publicly about abuse, commits investment and keeps safety in executive conversation, the message changes. It tells frontline teams that the issue is not theirs to absorb and shows managers that tackling it matters. It tells the public that behaviour has boundaries.

 

The scale of the problem is now impossible to dismiss as sector specific. The British Retail Consortium’s latest crime reporting shows that violence and abuse against shopworkers remains at around 1,600 incidents a day. That is not a marginal workplace irritation. It is a daily operational reality.

 

The same pattern is visible beyond retail. Wherever employees deal directly with the public – from transport and hospitality to healthcare, civil enforcement and logistics – the same pattern is emerging. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives reported 22,536 incidents of violence, aggression and abuse against UK ambulance staff in 2024-25 - the highest level ever recorded, and equivalent to 62 incidents a day.

 

Even those figures should be treated as the floor, not the ceiling. Under-reporting remains one of the central problems in frontline safety. Many incidents are never formally recorded, either because staff have become used to abuse, because they don’t think anything will happen, or because different thresholds are applied for escalation. What is not reported is not measured; and what is not measured is much harder for leaders to act on.

 

Across sectors, workers describe more hostility, greater exposure and a feeling that frontline abuse is becoming normalised. Once abuse is treated as “part of the job”, the organisation has lost control of the issue.

 

 

Abuse is not business as usual

The immediate duty is to the staff, but the effect of frontline abuse reaches further. When aggression or violence happens in a public-facing setting, it changes the atmosphere for everyone present. Whether it takes place in a shop, in a reception area, on a doorstep or at an emergency response, it affects more than just the person targeted.

 

The legal context has also shifted. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduced a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker, which strengthens the message that abuse of frontline workers is unacceptable. But legislation alone will not create safer workplaces. It gives leaders a stronger platform from which to act, but it does not replace leadership.

 

That is why the public stance taken by senior leaders matters. Tesco is one of the clearest examples: Group CEO Ken Murphy spoke publicly about the abuse of colleagues and the need for stronger protections in 2023, and was followed by CEO Ashwin Prasad, who backed investment to protect delivery drivers, including body-worn cameras. Whatever sector you operate in, the lesson is not the specific technology; it’s the visibility of the commitment.

 

The shift goes beyond any one company. In 2025, more than 100 CEOs and business leaders backed the Institute of Customer Service’s call for stronger protection for public-facing workers. Ambulance service leaders have continued to call publicly for action through the #WorkWithoutFear campaign. Together, they mark a shift: protecting public-facing staff is becoming a mainstream leadership expectation, not a fringe concern.

 

 

Reporting is not the same as reducing

Most organisations already have the basics in place: a way to report incidents, staff training, and processes for escalating risk and supporting those affected. The gap is rarely about the existence of a tool, but rather about how clearly the organisation defines its use, how consistently managers reinforce it, and how effectively the board maintains visibility into what’s happening.

 

Leadership-led deployment has recognisable features. Senior leaders are talking about safety, visiting sites, and asking for data to make it clear that colleague safety is a business priority. Additionally, employees know when to escalate, record and report incidents, and what support they will receive afterwards. Training is treated as confidence-building rather than box-ticking, with managers prepared to set the tone after incidents occur.

 

Finally, the organisation has to measure what changes. That starts with improving reporting, not simply chasing a lower incident number. In many organisations, a rise in reported incidents may be seen as progress at first because it means people trust the process enough to record what is happening. Over time, leaders should ask better questions: Are repeat locations being monitored? Are serious incidents reducing? Are teams more confident? Are managers using data to intervene earlier?

 

The business case follows from that. Safer teams are more likely to follow process and deliver consistent service under pressure. Conversely, when abuse is left unmanaged, the cost rarely stays hidden for long; it shows up in absence, turnover, disruption and reputation.

 

This is why the next phase of frontline safety should be led from the top: it signals whether leadership and the organisation treat abuse as an unavoidable cost of doing business or as a problem they are determined to reduce.

 

For any executive team with a public-facing workforce, the next quarter is a good time to ask three simple questions: Where are our people most exposed? What are we visibly doing to protect them? How will we know whether it is working?

 

The organisations that can answer those questions clearly will make the greatest progress. They will also send an important message to their people: your safety is not a side issue. It is part of how this organisation performs, leads and earns trust.

 

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Alasdair Field is CEO of Reveal Media

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and AntonioGuillem