staff safety
Body Worn Cameras - an effective way to keep staff safe
The last two years have seen a significant and well documented increase in the number of abusive incidents suffered by retail workers. Naz Dossa, CEO, Peoplesafe highlights how body worn cameras can make a tangible difference in keeping staff safe.
The latest crime survey launched by the British Retail Consortium in May last year found that incidents of violence and abuse against staff rose to an enormous 455 incidents per day, which includes 114 daily incidents of violence. It is no surprise, therefore, that this is one of the most important issues being faced by retail managers today.
For any business, recruiting and retaining high calibre staff is the key to success, so making sure employees in public facing roles have proper safety protection and speedy access to back up if required is absolutely critical.
It may be small, but the body worn camera is certainly mighty when it comes to defusing a volatile situation. They have proven to reduce staff assaults by 47% partly due to the deliberately obvious design which deters potential aggressors from acting on impulse and causing harm; and partly because they can provide a high quality recording of an incident which is admissible as evidence in a court of law.
Better incident reporting
A maximum of only 30% of all retail crime is reported to the police and we know that repeat offenders make up the majority of incidents. However, without reporting these incidents with evidence to the police, how can we look to reduce theft and abusive behaviour in stores?
Technology can help to make incident reporting easier. Body worn cameras are able to capture high-quality video and audio footage of any incident and timestamp it. This provides impartial and empirical evidence to the police and simultaneously speeds up the process of filing a report.
Over the last year, retailers have invested £175 million in crime prevention. The top areas of investment have been in CCTV, security staff and intruder alarms. Switching focus to a body worn video solution can save retailers both time and money. Furthermore, it will help to make colleagues to feel safer, increasing staff retention.
Changes in legislation
At the end of last year, the House of Lords approved the government’s amendment to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill which will criminalise violent offences against retail staff. This is very welcome news for the retail sector and, once it has received royal assent, will enable the police to prosecute offenders.
However, no one wants to experience verbal or physical abuse at any time and certainly not in their place of work. Wearing an openly visible body worn camera, combined with this new legislation, should go some way towards providing peace of mind for retail workers - as well as fast access to support if required.
Using the body worn camera with the Peoplesafe Pro App
The body worn camera pairs with the Peoplesafe Pro App to provide a fully comprehensive, technology based safety solution. With BS 8484:2016 safety accreditation, the Peoplesafe Pro App can process SOS calls, use GPS to provide location information to emergency responders and provide one or two-way audio voice and listening capabilities.
At the press of a button in the app, the camera will start recording an incident whilst an SOS alarm is also raised, minimising the amount of manual interaction with the camera.
This enables the fully trained staff at Peoplesafe’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) to assess the situation and summon back up via the URN if required.
For more information about how Peoplesafe’s body worn camera can work for you, get in touch.
