Verbal abuse, part of the job?

In a word, no! Any form of verbal abuse is capable of being equally as damaging to a worker's wellbeing as a physical attack and as such shouldn't be accepted. However, it isn't realistic for a single threashold of acceptability to be defined...the fact is we all have different levels of what is acceptable and what isn't.

I was present at some Identicom training last week at a train operating company. The management of the company had decided to implement Identicom because of genuine concerns over the risk of attack facing their many lone workers. What they hadn't been able to formally recognise though was the levels of verbal abuse that went on. When a room full of revenue inspectors were asked 'how often do you face verbal abuse' a unanimous show of hands signalling daily levels of abuse surprised those managers. Why? Because very few incidents were reported.

Reporting of verbal abuse has its challenges. Workers often know that their employer is powerless if it is a case of one person's word against another's. Workers also worry about repercussions if they report an issue, or they simply aren't able to indicate the severity of the incident when writing a report.

Discreet audio capture of verbal abuse can be very powerful. Identicom ensures a worker raises an alert in a discreet fashion thereby not increasing their level of risk. A clear audio recording is then captured, recorded and admissible as evidence.

In the week or so these train based revenue inspectors have been using the system a number of verbal assaults have been captured leading not only to action being taken but also leaving the workforce feeling empowered and fully supported.