Armed Hold-Up: The 90 Seconds Your Staff Need to Have Rehearsed

Most armed robberies at a service station are over in under two minutes. What happens in that time is decided almost entirely by what the person behind the counter has been told beforehand, and at most independent sites the honest answer is nothing: no written procedure, no training, and a new casual working the night shift on their second week. The money is insured. The person is not. This is the procedure to have on paper and rehearsed before it is needed.

The rule that overrides every other rule

Hand it over. Every police service in the country gives retail staff the same instruction: do exactly what the offender says, and nothing more. Cash, cigarettes, the till drawer itself; none of it is worth an injury, and a hold-up that ends with an injured staff member is a different kind of event for the business, the family, and the insurer. Your procedure should say this in the first line, and you should say it out loud to every new starter, because a good staff member’s instinct is to protect the shop. Tell them the shop wants them to protect themselves.

During: the six behaviours

Keep the list short enough to remember under stress.

1. Stay as calm as you can and keep your hands where the offender can see them.
2. Do what you are told. Don’t argue, don’t stall, and don’t hand over anything that wasn’t asked for.
3. Say what you are about to do before you do it (“I’m opening the till now”). Sudden movements are what get people hurt.
4. Speak only when spoken to. Conversation prolongs the incident.
5. Avoid eye contact and keep your distance where you can.
6. Notice what you can without staring: height against the door marker, clothing, voice, which hand held the weapon, and the vehicle if one is visible.

The hold-up alarm, if you have one, is for when it is safe to press, which is usually after the offender has left.

After: the first ten minutes

The offender leaves. Do not follow, do not go outside to get a plate, do not chase. Lock the doors, put a sign on the door, and let nobody in except emergency services. Call 000 and give the location, what happened, whether anyone is hurt, the weapon, and the direction the offender went. Look after anyone who is hurt or in shock, customers included. Don’t touch the counter, the door, or anything the offender handled, and keep people out of the areas they stood in. Then get everyone who was present to write down what they remember, separately, before they compare notes: descriptions blur fast and blend together once people talk.

Ring the owner or manager next, not first. Police and first aid come before the phone call to the boss.

The days after

An armed hold-up is a workplace injury even when nobody has a scratch. The staff member involved should be sent home for the day with someone to get them there, told in writing they can take time off, and offered counselling; if you do not have an employee assistance program, your workers compensation insurer or your state’s victims of crime service can point you to one. Most states run a victims of crime financial assistance scheme that covers counselling and lost earnings for people affected by violent crime, and staff are entitled to know it exists. Do not put the same person back on a solo night shift the following week without asking them, and accept the answer.

Report the incident to your workers compensation insurer regardless of injury, notify your state WHS regulator if the incident meets the notifiable threshold, and record it in the site’s incident register. Then review: what the offender saw that made the site look worth it, what worked, and what the staff member wished they had known.

Making the site a worse target

None of this stops a hold-up, but the sites that get hit are usually the ones that look easy from the driveway.

Keep the visible cash low. A time-delay drop safe that staff cannot open, with a sign on the door saying so, removes the reason for most opportunistic hold-ups. Clear the till to the safe on a schedule, not when it feels full. Keep the shop lit and the windows clear of posters so the counter can be seen from the road; an offender wants privacy, and a bright counter denies it. Put a height marker on the door frame. Make sure the CCTV actually records, covers the counter and the driveway, and that someone knows how to pull footage the same night. Greet everyone who walks in: it is good service, and it tells a person casing the site that they have been seen.

Write it, sign it, walk it through

The procedure needs to be a single page on the wall behind the counter and in the induction pack, signed by every staff member, with the during and after lists exactly as above. Walk each new starter through it on their first shift, not their first solo shift. Once a year, run through it with everyone, because the staff member who has said the words out loud is the one who will do them under pressure.

Where ServoPro fits

ServoSkills, our online training platform for service station employees, includes an armed robbery unit that takes staff through exactly this: what to do during, what to do after, and why handing it over is the rule. Members can enrol every new starter before their first solo shift, and it counts as the training record if a regulator ever asks. Alongside it, we have a one-page armed hold-up procedure and a matching staff acknowledgment written for independent service stations. If your site does not have one, or the one you have dates from a previous owner, get in touch and we will send it through, along with the incident register template that goes with it.

As at 14 September 2026. Guidance drawn from state police robbery-response advice; check your state’s WHS notification requirements for your site.