We’ve been updating our approach to how we work to maintain fairness and respect when working with customers who are displaying challenging behaviour.

We don’t often come across behaviour that is challenging, but when we do, our team members feel more comfortable in helping in the best way when they have guidelines to help them to do so.

Our expectations from both team members and customers are that courtesy, respect and fairness is used at all times.

We understand that occasionally customers may feel upset, angry or anxious. So adjustments to communication barriers may be needed, or that language is acceptable to one person and not another. We have clarified our approach to unacceptable behaviour by setting out the types of behaviour that we do not consider appropriate for our team members to experience.

The themes we agreed upon are:

• Aggressive, violent or abusive behaviour
• Harassment
• Unreasonable demands or levels of contact
• Failure to cooperate

Our team members are trained on how to de-escalate this type of behaviour where possible. But there are times when different approaches will be needed. We’ll ensure that any risks are minimised where possible whilst still ensuring that we maintain essential service provision.

You can find out more on our Communicating Together page.

We’ve created this information leaflet below to explain our approach in more detail.