Tesco is introducing new protective screens at hundreds of its Express stores and petrol station kiosks to protect colleagues from assault.
The toughened glass screens, which fully enclose the colleague side of the till and stand above head-height, put a defensive barrier between colleagues and potential attackers.
More than 110 screens have already been installed at Tesco sites, with more being rolled out to over 250 as part of a multi-million pound investment in colleague safety.
This comes as figures from the British Retail Consortium show violence and abuse towards retail workers have doubled in the last four years.
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Tesco UK CEO Jason Tarry said: “The rise in retail crime has been widely talked about in recent weeks, but the most troubling aspect is the surge in assaults and abuse we have seen against our colleagues in stores.
“This is something impacting the whole retail industry, and something too many of my colleagues have had to endure first-hand, with incidents of violence against our colleagues up by a third year-on-year.”
Last month, Tesco began offering store workers body cameras as physical assault cases on staff soared to more than 200 each month.
Tarry said that the safety of colleagues is the leading retailer’s “number one priority”, adding that measures such as body cameras and glass screens offer workers “additional peace of mind when they come into work each day”.
Tesco group CEO Ken Murphy has called for tougher laws and changes to policing, arguing that the rest of the UK should adopt the same system as Scotland that would classify abuse or violence towards shop workers as a specific offence.
He also wants store owners to have the right to know how cases against suspects are progressing, to “spot patterns and provide reassurance that justice is being done”.
