Health and safety law extends to all enterprises, no matter how small they are. You are responsible for the health and safety of your retail store.

It is necessary to take proper precautions to reduce the dangers of occupational accidents and have a safe working atmosphere. All that’s required for many retail stores is a simple set of tasks. This article will walk you through the steps and help you make sure you’ve done everything you can.

Dealing with Wet Floors and Spillages

Wet floors may cause injuries, and your business could be liable by law. So, ensure that you keep your business clean.

Enforce a thorough cleaning programme with well-trained cleaners to minimise accidents. A lack of awareness leads to improper shortcuts.

Here are steps you should include in your cleaning programme:

• Spillages should be quickly wiped, and the surface kept dry.
• Use wet floor signs always.
• Use the required cleaning products.
• Carry out regular maintenance on all cleaning machines.
• Use a dry mop to reduce the time needed to dry the floor.
• Create a log for cleaning activities.

Practice Safe Manual Lifting and Handling

While manual handling is almost always included when offering basic training to workers, retailers need to make sure workers follow best practices when performing manual lifting and handling.

This includes ensuring that staff thoroughly understand the risks involved with bad practices and immediately correct them when they make mistakes.

Provide Continuous Training

Continuous training is another important aspect of ensuring that your retail store meets health and safety standards. The same way training enhances an employee’s knowledge of your products, health and safety training can also be leveraged.

A significant proportion of retailers will typically use a learning management system (LMS) to house all the resources to cover the required training. Consider adding in-person training to make it more effective.

Have Clear Fire Protection and Evacuation Procedures

Although fire is not a problem exclusive to retail stores alone, due to the large number of people coming in and going out, it is particularly problematic for retailers.

Fire safety training is vital and must be put in place to ensure that employees and customers are given an early warning when there is a fire outbreak and guided to leave the property in a safe and quick manner.

How can Retailers Minimise all These Risks?

Firstly, it is vital that you have a comprehensive public liability insurance policy. Having this policy will ensure your business is protected if there is ever an issue for your business where someone gets hurt, or someone else’s property gets damaged as a result of your business and its operations.

Also, ensure your store has appropriate procedures and instructions to eliminate risks in the workplace and comply with federal and state health legislation.

If there is going to be customers or members of the public in and around your businesses and your areas of operation, it is vital that you have some sort of insurance coverage and some plans in place for dealing with any conflicts. Having this sorted earlier rather than later is going to save you a lot of o trouble down the line.