Hi

I have been asked for advice by a friend who has recently established her own beauty business including nail treatments.  She is self-employed and works from home.  Having recently been approached by a man requiring a nail treatment she is concerned, rightly or wrongly, that men pose a greater risk to her personal safety than women would do in the same circumstances.  To mitigate the risk I have suggested:

1. Someone else be on the premises - no-one available.
2. Use CCTV - expensive for a new starter and will only record any misbehaviour rather than prevent it.
3. Personal alarm - no-one about to respond.

Given her unease and that the heirarchy of control measures places elimination of the risk above all else, would it be reasonable for her to refuse to deal with this customer on safety grounds?  By ensuring he own safety, however, she may run the risk of gender discrimination, or on the grounds of sexuality, for refusing to treat men in general when offering a service.

Unfortunately, HSE guidance on matters specific to the self-employed working at home and running the risk of violence seems rather non-existant so any thoughts, advice or signposting would be welcome.

I'm trying to get my head around the concept of men going to beauty therapists, but I'm probably old school.

CCTV - Have a laptop or phone recording...you must tell everyone that is happening which will also act as a deterent...you can just say it is being recorded....contact the local police community safety team they will be happy to help and may even provide the other end of the panic alarm response for you...or give you ther tips...

This could almost exactly describe my wifes business. It's not so odd that a man may visit since she also deals with minor ailments like persistent athletes foot, fungal nail etc. (yeah, I know, pretty grim!).

Whilst I can see the point of those that are offended by concerns over male visitors it's a concern that occasionally comes up with my wife although probably only once or twice in 10 years or so of running her treatment room from our house.

Usually its in the form of someone not coming across particularly well when they make a telephone appointment - obviously if anyone was directly threatening or unpleasant my wife would just decline to make an appointment but on a couple of occasions she has picked up on something that makes her slightly wary. In these instances she has just given me the appointment start and end times and asked me to call to check all is well. In all cases so far all has been well.

Of course this could be applied to female clients as well. It just hasn't so far in our case.

I wouldn't belittle these concerns or suggest that if you have them you shouldn't do this type of work, it is not such a difficult scenario to come up with a control measure for - even if that provides more reassurance than anything else.

For those who fel they have had thier gender offended....I am male and although rather unfortunate my chemistry it seems means I am more prone to violence than a woman (there is a study that says 14-16 year old teens are just slightly ahead on the violence stakes at this stage but not in later life)....https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/experiments-in-philosophy/201202/why-are-men-so-violent

So your beauty therapist is right to guard against that risk, however not at the exclusion of all other risks to that persons safety. :)