TFS - Quality Training with a Winning Edge


I never expected to spend a day with a bunch of people who willingly were abused shoved and generally shouted at - all in the name of training... writes Licensee and Morning Advertiser reporter Melissa Cole. It is never easy to cope with irrational aggressive people and those in the licensed trade have to face them more than most. Until now there has been very little choice of training to deal with potentially volatile situations and certainly no interactive role playing which puts a licensee in a very difficult real-life situation. TFS is a company providing non-contact training courses for the trade where people can learn how to address and diffuse situations, which could potentially escalate into assaults or even fatalities. Directors Rob McHarg and Ian Kirke devised the programme after observing the difficulties faced on a day-to-day basis by licensees. The company currently works with Whitbread, and the course has taken off to such an extent that clients include retail staff from supermarket-giants such as Waitrose and in-store security guards. The core elements of the course are designed to reduce the risk to personal safety, to increase awareness in a situation and stress management. Far from being a pen and paper course it is wholly interactive and held in realistic surroundings with a bar and an aggressive character to boot. Rob McHarg talked about what the training tries to achieve. He said: "The course is designed to stop licensees who are dealing with aggressive people putting themselves in danger and give them confidence to tackle difficult situations. "We feel very strongly that this is an excellent course and we have had very good feedback from those who have attended and from the pub companies that have asked us to put their licensees on it."	The course uses a variety of role players for the day to inject realism into the task, often as unpleasant, aggressive beer thieves and bottle-wielding drunks wanting an after-hours drink. The change in the attendees throughout the day was marked as confidence grew and the understanding of how to deal with hostile situations through the use of body language and speech grew. One of the definite success stories of the day was licensee Jackie Jobling of the Rose and Crown in Slough high street. Jackie was mugged for £2000 worth of takings a month before going on the course and was, by her own admission, suffering from an extreme lack of confidence. She had been unable to do any banking and had trouble sleeping since the incident. She said: "These people just don't realise what they do. They take your life away. It made me unable to do my job properly and I've been on tranquillisers which nobody would ever believe of me." Jackie found the initial role play where the aggressor actually touched her extremely disturbing but by the end of the day had learnt how to keep her distance and use a "distract and withdraw" method to ensure a swift and safe escape for herself when the situation became too threatening. Speaking after the course she said: "I feel so much more confident. I was able to go to the bank the other day and although we don't get much trouble in here I know that I will be able to cope with it now." "When I first got mugged people couldn't believe how much I changed, but when I came back from the course everybody noticed that I was much happier and I was full of it all - I couldn't stop talking about it." She added: "It hasn't stopped me being totally frightened, but if somebody had talked to me like Paul the aggressor did in my pub before the course I probably would have burst into tears."