Used to work in a pretty sizable Sainsbury’s up until last year. I never dealt with physical abuse from a customer, but I did hear about a fair bit of it, especially from the female members of staff.

Customers would come in and start being incredibly inappropriate to them. You’d hear that one customer had patted them on the bottom, or grabbed their hand. One customer would routinely come in and start trying to kiss my partner’s hand (we worked together). You report this behaviour to management and at best it’s laughed off.

Don’t even get me started on the behaviour some customers think they’re entitled to push on staff who are unfortunate enough to have to do reductions in the evening; grabbing, pushing, shouting, you name it, it’s done. Management are adamant it has to be done on the shop floor though, why? You tell me.

Ultimately what I’m trying to say is that a lot of these sort of things might be less prominent if management came out and backed their colleagues when a customer was showing signs of being a t*at. Fitting them with cameras makes it look like another profit protection measure.

Fitting them with cameras makes it look like another profit protection measure.

I was nodding along till here. Wouldn’t fitting employees with body cameras making it easier to prosecute the criminals? Lack of evidence is probably the issue in most cases.

Because in my experience (15 years of supermarket work) I’ve never seen anything get treated as importantly as they treat profit protection.

Sorry, I’m being dense this Sunday. How does this protect profit? Surely fitting employees with body cams eats into your profit as it is a cost?

Customers are significantly less likely to try and pocket something if there’s a risk of them being called up on it, or actually caught on camera.

Even if they never actually catch anyone, the fact that people can see the cameras would likely serve as a deterrent.

Is that not a good thing? Less chance of criminal activity, less chance of getting stabbed whilst stacking shelves?

Absolutely. I just find it a bit…much when they try to label this as a means to protect staff when everything they do signals that isn’t their main motive.

Gotcha. I understand your point of view, I just think maybe they can do both? Protect their liability against being sued for safety on the workplace and at the same time reduce the risk of their employees getting hurt.