Handling the behaviour of some of our clients and stakeholders can often be the hardest part of your job. You will at times speak with people who are angry or frustrated with the department’s actions and decisions, sometimes with good reason. You may be speaking with people who are vulnerable and distressed. You may come across people who will not listen to your advice. Occasionally – hopefully not often – you may meet people who abuse or threaten you.
On this page
Managing challenging and unreasonable client behaviour
How do you prevent this behaviour getting in the way of doing your job and providing good service?
And if you are a manager, how do you look after your staff and make sure time and resources are used wisely?
Our policy, procedure and fact sheets (which are adapted from the Victorian Ombudsman Dealing with Challenging Behaviour good practice guide) provides practical, common sense advice about how to deal with challenging and unreasonable behaviour.
The key things to remember are:
- You are not alone and all of us can be challenged by people’s behaviour at times.
- There are ways to prevent and respond to challenging behaviour and you will get better at dealing with situations with practice.
- Unreasonable behaviour (abuse, threats or violence) is never acceptable.
Our policy documents cover external clients and stakeholders. The Respectful Workplace Behaviour Policy outlines our expectations around respectful behaviour in the workplace and actions you can take when you experience or witness inappropriate behaviour. Having said that, some of the fact sheets below may provide useful and practical tips when working with internal clients.