Retail Drinks Australia (Retail Drinks) has launched a new online training course to help the country’s 75,000 retail liquor workers manage high-risk situations.
With retail crime, violent crime and assaults being increasingly prevalent, Retail Drinks has developed this new training course in partnership with consulting firm Kiah. The course has been added to Retail Drinks’ Industry Training Hub, building on the association’s Safe to Serve initiative.
Retail Drinks CEO, Michael Waters said high-risk situation training was fundamental to protecting workers and customers, and encouraged all liquor retailers, regardless of size or location, to take advantage of the new resource.
“Retail crime, particularly liquor theft, is on the rise across the country, back to or exceeding pre-pandemic levels, and is becoming more brazen and violent as it is often considered an easy target by criminals,” he said.
“This new High-Risk Situation Training course has been developed specifically for liquor retailing environments, complementing our Safe to Serve initiative and resources, which addresses retail liquor crime to improve store safety and security for staff and customers.
“This concise yet comprehensive course provides the critical know-how to deal with the most serious situations, like armed robbery and is available to not just members, but the entire retail liquor industry via our Industry Training Hub,” added Waters.
Kiah Director Shaun Rigby acknowledged the work of the retail liquor industry to target harden their businesses and said the training would augment this activity by specifically providing the tools to handle the worst situations.
“As we saw in the CCTV footage released at Retail Drinks’ launch of Safe to Serve, incidents are becoming more dangerous for retail liquor employees and customers,” Rigby said.
He added: “The new training course takes only 30 minutes and covers situations from dealing with an aggressive customer to controlling your panic with a weapon in your face. It covers the traditional and the new, such as swarming, and what to do once the robbery is over – a must-do for any retail worker in a high-risk role.”
To access the High-Risk Situation Training, visit https://training.retaildrinks.org.au/