Peace of Mind - training & assessment for staff working alone

All C-Store operators and service stations employ staff who are required to work alone on certain shifts, such as weekends and evenings. Evenings especially can be high risk shifts for events such as smash & grabs and armed robberies.

Business owners and operators have a Duty of Care to ensure that they have taken all reasonable steps within their risk management practices to mitigate the incidents of armed hold up occurring and to ensure that all staff are aware of how to behave safely & appropriately during these traumatic events.

Large amounts of money can be spent in putting systems and engineering solutions (cameras, jump wires, enclosed consoles) in place to combat the growing threats experienced by operators. However, one area that isn't always fully covered is training and assessment of staff competence.

Everyone believes that they have informed their staff of what to do and how to do it when confronted with an armed offender. When crunch time comes though - and an event has occurred, often they find out that they forgot or neglected to train that particular employee. It is very important to verify and record that staff have gained the knowledge and can demonstrate the appropriate behaviours in these situations.

In today's OH & S environment and with relevant legislation from the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 reviews now including Physiological as well as Physical health for workers, operators need to be able to demonstrate that they have a comprehensive process for training, assessing performance competency & knowledge and supporting staff in areas of confrontation such as aggressive customers and armed robbery survival.

Another area of concern arises when a normal day time shift staff member is asked to cover for a sick colleague in the late evening. Have they been trained in armed robbery survival? Do they know what the night shift operation procedures for safety and security are? What happens if they are held up and don't do the right things and get injured or traumatised during the event?

Would the operator be held responsible? Under Duty of Care responsibilities - probably yes. They would need to be able to "show" when the training occurred and "show" the appropriate records of competency; and then follow up over time with refresher training.

atmp - training & Skill development recommends that ALL staff employed at service stations and C-Stores should complete a structured armed robbery induction training module and be assessed on their resulting knowledge and competency in this area. Documentation needs to be completed and kept in staff files to attest to the completion of the module and the level of competency displayed by the staff member.

However, the biggest issue that operators need to be aware of is staff complacency. Over time staff become less and less aware of the likelihood of an armed robbery occurring to them and they forget the simple prevention processes, including good cash controls they originally learned in induction. They may also forget the recommended behaviours for dealing with an armed hold up.

Operators should ensure that they plan to hold refresher training with all staff, every six months and document this accordingly.

atmp - training & Skill development have a number of packages and tools to assist C-Store operators in managing their training responsibilities - these focus on providing workplace based training and induction programs that include documented assessment and recording processes. Unfortunately, just training someone doesn't necessarily mean all your potential problems will disappear - on-going supervision and monitoring will always be required to maintain the awareness on how to behave in an event.

atmp have had some experience with console operators who have attended armed robbery survival training and then subsequently experienced an armed hold up. They had commented that they felt more in control and less traumatised from having had the opportunity to discuss what can happen, what to do and how to behave - and more importantly "what not to do".

 

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