Content Warning: This blog post contains strong language related to workplace abuse from customers.
Adam Johnson of Creating Dynamic coaches a professional woman who regularly faces extreme verbal abuse from customers she interacts with on behalf of a number of large clients who employ her employer’s services.
During the past couple of years, she has been called degrading names such as “whore” and “slut” by multiple individuals calling in to deal with their accounts. Some customers have even told her they hope she “dies” or “gets cancer.” Hearing “**** off” has become a routine part of her work.
Despite working in a challenging environment, her employer discourages employees from documenting these incidents within clients’ records, effectively silencing their experiences rather than addressing them.
Without proper support from managers and leaders, employees like her are left to navigate this relentless abuse alone, placing their mental health and well-being at severe risk. Often or not, it is frontline employees who support each other at difficult times.
In many non-face-to-face customer-facing roles, employees encounter challenging interactions daily. However, there is a stark difference between managing a demanding customer and enduring regular verbal abuse without support from an employer. When organisations fail to protect their employees from such abuse, the consequences can be severe—not just for individuals but for the company as a whole, potentially leading to decreased productivity, increased turnover, and damaged reputation.
The Mental Health Risks of Workplace Abuse
When employees face abusive customers with no protection or support from their employers, the toll on their mental health can be significant. Exposure to demeaning language, threats, or other forms of mistreatment can lead to:
- Increased Stress and Anxiety: Constant exposure to abuse triggers chronic stress, which can result in heightened anxiety levels and difficulty coping with daily tasks.
- Depression and Low Self-Esteem: Being insulted, degraded, and verbally attacked can lead employees to internalise these messages, affecting their confidence and sense of self-worth.
- Burnout and Emotional Exhaustion: Repeated exposure to hostility can drain employees emotionally, leading to disengagement, fatigue, and, ultimately, burnout.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms: Some employees develop symptoms similar to PTSD, such as heightened vigilance, trouble sleeping, and emotional detachment.
- Physical Health Decline: Mental stress often manifests physically in the form of headaches, digestive issues, high blood pressure, and weakened immune function.
The Impact on Organisational Culture and the Crucial Role of Psychological SafetyBeyond individual consequences, an organisation that neglects to protect employees from abusive customers creates a toxic work culture.
Employees who feel unprotected and unsupported may experience:
- A Loss of Trust in Leadership: Employees may feel abandoned when management fails to acknowledge or address verbal abuse, resulting in decreased morale and loyalty.
- Higher Turnover Rates: Talented employees will not indefinitely tolerate ongoing abuse without support. Retention suffers when a company does not provide protection or mental health resources.
- Reduced Productivity and Engagement: Employees who feel unsafe and undervalued are less likely to be motivated or invested in their work, which can affect overall performance.
- A Culture of Fear and Silence: If employees are discouraged from reporting abuse or documenting incidents, a culture of fear develops where team members suffer in silence rather than seek help.
- Reputational Damage: If the workplace is known for allowing customer abuse without intervention, word spreads, affecting recruitment efforts and brand reputation.
Where the Company is Failing
The organisation in question demonstrates several critical failures:
- No Recording of Abuse: By discouraging employees from documenting abusive incidents, the company erases the problem rather than addressing it.
- Lack of Support Structures: No coaching, counselling, or mental health resources exist to help employees cope with ongoing verbal abuse.
- Failure to Set Boundaries with Customers: Without clear policies on acceptable behaviour, customers are emboldened to continue their abusive conduct.
- Absence of Leadership Accountability: When management fails to take a stand against abuse, they indirectly condone it, making the workplace unsafe.
Safety Measures Employers Can Implement
To foster a healthier, more supportive work environment, leadership teams must take proactive steps to protect their employees:
- Establish Clear Zero-Tolerance Policies: Implement and enforce policies that explicitly state that abuse from customers will not be tolerated in any way whatsoever.
- Enable Incident Reporting and Documentation: Create a formal process for employees to report abusive interactions and ensure management takes them seriously.
- Provide Training on Handling Difficult Customers: Equip employees with de-escalation techniques and empower them to end abusive interactions when necessary.
- Offer Mental Health Support: Provide access to counselling, coaching, and mental health resources to help employees cope with the emotional toll of their work.
- Encourage Management Intervention: Train leaders to step in and address abusive behaviour rather than placing the burden solely on frontline staff.
- Use Technology to Protect Employees: Implement systems such as call monitoring and AI-based abuse detection to flag concerning behaviour and protect workers.
- Recognise and Validate Employee Struggles: Acknowledge the difficulties employees face and offer them support rather than dismissing their concerns.
- Create Psychological Safety: Encourage and develop an environment where employees feel comfortable speaking up about the abuse they receive and know that leadership will take action to reduce and eliminate this.
Reflective Questions for Leaders and Managers
To ensure leadership teams remain aware of the challenges employees face, directors and managers should regularly ask themselves:
- Would I feel safe and supported if I were in my employees’ position?
- Do we have clear and communicated policies and systems in place that empower employees to refuse abusive interactions?
- What mechanisms exist for employees to report abuse, and do we act on these reports?
- Are we providing employees with the emotional and psychological support they need to thrive?
- How can we better reinforce a culture of respect, both internally and externally?
Building Resilience and Emotional Distancing
Through her coaching with Creating Dynamic, this individual has worked to develop resilience strategies to cope with the verbal abuse she faces. One key focus area has been helping her create an emotional barrier between herself and the hurtful comments directed at her. By reframing the abuse as a reflection of the customer’s behaviour and values rather than her own self-worth, she has been able to detach from the personal impact of these insults. Techniques such as controlled breathing, mindfulness, and shifting focus to positive affirmations have allowed her to regain control over her emotional responses and prevent the negativity from affecting her self-esteem.
Additionally, role-playing exercises have prepared her for future interactions, enabling her to respond composedly and professionally while minimising emotional distress. Creating Dynamic has also worked with her on setting mental boundaries, recognising when an interaction crosses the line, and reinforcing her right to workplace respect and dignity.
More Needs To Be Done
In 2025, no employee should have to tolerate abuse as part of their job. Regardless of industry or sector, organisations that fail to protect their team members risk increased absence rates, poor performance, low morale, higher employee turnover, and their long-term reputation tarnished and success threatened.
Over the past few years, face-to-face public-facing companies and organisations, from retailers to public transport providers, have done a lot in terms of putting documented policies and procedures in place to protect their workforce from abusive customers; for example, notices and stickers are visible at the point of interaction stating the consequences of verbal abuse. Even football games are halted when fans are chanting abuse at a player. However, there are still many companies and organisations where customer interactions are managed remotely, especially over the phone, that need to do more to protect their frontline staff from abuse.
Does Your Company Review Verbal Abuse Aimed At Your Team Members?
It’s time for directors and leadership teams, of companies that do not have robust policies and systems in place when such instances where abuse towards their employees happen, to take firm action. Action to create workplace environments where their employees are protected by implemented measures, allowing them to feel safe, valued, and empowered. For those customers who are abusive, like the real life example detailed in this article, companies need to explore what measures can be put in place to challenge and penalise such behaviour, especially those companies that act as an intermediary between the customer and the provider of services. This so now than ever as new legislation is currently going through Parliament.
Employment Rights Bill
At the time of writing this article, the Employment Rights Bill is at the ‘second reading’ part of the process, prior to going to the ‘committee stage’ with the House of Lords.
Section 20, under the Protection from Harassment heading, states,
“In section 40 of the Equality Act 2010 (employees and applicants: harassment), after subsection (1) insert –
“(1A) An employer (A) must not permit a third party to harass a person (B) who is an employee of A.
(1B) For the purposes of subsection (1A), A permits a third party to harass B only if—
(a) the third party harasses B in the course of B’s employment by A, and
(b) A failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the third party from doing so.
(1C) In this section “third party” means a person other than—
(a) A, or
(b) an employee of A.”
For many companies and organisations, third parties will generally include customers and suppliers, however, for other organisations this may include members of the public, for example, council workers out in the community and emergency services personnel going about their duties.
How Creating Dynamic Can Help
At Creating Dynamic, we specialise in culture development and psychological safety workshops designed to create supportive and protective work environments.
If your organisation struggles to safeguard employees from customer abuse, we can help develop strategies prioritising mental health, engagement, and resilience.
For more information on how we can support your management and leadership teams, visit creatingdynamic.com or, contact us through the ‘Let’s Talk’ button on our website.
