A Guide to Retail Worker Safety

Common Safety Risks for Retail Workers

Retail workers face multiple workplace safety risks and hazards such as the following:

1. Slips, Trips, and Falls: Wet floors, spills, uneven flooring, and cluttered aisles can lead to injuries ranging from minor bruises to serious fractures. According to the 2023 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, slips, trips, and falls cost employers $16.99 billion in 2022, making it one of the highest risks for retail workers today.
2. Psychosocial Hazards: Retail workers often face high emotional demands and role conflicts, but report lower levels of meaning in their work, support from supervisors, and role clarity compared to the average worker. Sub-sectors such as supermarkets, grocery stores, and liquor retailing can have particularly high emotional demands, leading to high psychosocial stress and burnout.
3. Equipment Usage and Breakage: Improper equipment maintenance practices, multiple moving parts, and lack of machine guarding can lead to employee harm. Properly managing these risks is essential for maintaining a safe working environment.
4. Violence and Aggression: More than a quarter of American retail workers report having experienced violence in the workplace, both from co-workers and customers. Some of the most common acts of aggression they experienced include verbal slurs, shootings, threats of sexual harassment, robberies, acts of racism, bullying, trespassing, and vandalism.
5. Musculoskeletal Disorders: Also known as “ergonomic injuries,” Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are a significant risk to retail worker safety, affecting muscles, nerves, blood vessels, ligaments, and tendons. These disorders occur when the body uses these tissues to perform tasks, often in awkward positions or with frequent repetitive activities, leading to pain and injury over time.
6. Lone Working: Working alone provides specific risks to retail workers, as it increases their exposure and vulnerability to different dangers, while having a more difficult time calling for assistance. Retailers should understand these threats and implement safeguards to protect their lone employees.
7. Fires: Retail establishments often have many flammable goods for sale, as well as electrical wirings, chemicals, and assets in use. Improper handling of these items can lead to fires, which can harm retail workers and consumers alike.

Guidelines Protecting Retail Workers

To safeguard retail worker from harm, different organizations worldwide have created their own retail worker safety guidelines and laws. Some of the most common ones include the following:

US

In the US, retail worker safety is ensured by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The General Duty Clause requires employers from all industries, including retail, to provide workers a safe working environment. There are also retail-specific guidelines in place for ensuring the following:

• Ergonomics and proper working posture for retail workers.
• Safe handling of customers and items that may be exposed to easily-transferrable diseases, such as COVID-19.
• Workplace safety for late-night retail workers.

There are also retail-specific guidelines in certain states to protect retail workers in addition to OSHA guidelines. One such example is the upcoming amended  Retail Worker Safety Act (RWSA) of New York, which aim to protect retail workers from workplace violence more comprehensively. This Act will require retail employers to create and implement a violence prevention plan in their establishments. It was based on existing workplace violence protection laws, while also using frameworks from other protective laws.

In addition to creating and adopting a violence prevention program, under the RWSA, employers with ten or more employees will be required to provide regular training for employees on how to effectively de-escalate violent acts, what emergency procedures to follow, and how to use different emergency items. Similarly, retail establishments with more than 500 employees statewide will now also be required to have panic buttons installed in accessible locations, or offer mobile or wearable panic button equivalents for all.

Australia

In Australia, retail workers are protected by the Model Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws. These require employers to do the following:

• Establish a hierarchy of controls to remove risk wherever possible, or at most, reduce them.
• Create and adopt a set of administrative controls for wherever risks cannot be reduced or controlled.
• Provide the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) specific to retail workers’ tasks.
• Implement a set of control measures for reducing workplace violence, ergonomic or manual handling risks, workplace fatigue, and slips, trips, and falls.
• Provide supervision for young workers and new employees.

International

Different countries have different cultures and needs to consider when creating and implementing retail worker safety laws. However, most countries follow guidelines set by these international organizations:

• International Labour Organization (ILO): The ILO provides multiple guidelines for ensuring retail worker safety as part of ensuring occupational safety and health in commerce settings.
• ISO 45001: This is an international safety standard based on ILO guidelines and the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001 (OHSAS 18001) that aims to ensure occupational health and safety of all industries, including retail.

How to Keep Retail Workers Safe

To ensure retail worker safety, employers can do the following:

• Implement a Risk Assessment Plan: Regularly conduct risk assessments to identify potential hazards before accidents occur. With digital inspection tools such as smart forms and checklists, employers can easily identify risks and create corrective actions for them.
• Prioritize Proper Ergonomics: Emphasize the importance of proper working conditions and postures with regular training and reminders. Assistive equipment should also be provided and considered.
• Provide Training: Regularly train employees on topics like hazard identification, proper lifting techniques, and emergency procedures. Training should be in a language and vocabulary workers can understand, as well as available in other formats, such as digital courses that are accessible anytime and anywhere.
• Conduct Regular Inspections: Establish a regular inspection and cleaning schedule of the retail establishment to identify, address, and correct any possible risks that may be spotted. Through digital solutions that help improve workplace safety, employers and employees alike can schedule inspections, monitor cleaning tasks, manage equipment usage and repair times, and analyze repeated issues to know how to best solve them all in one place, in real-time.
• Invest in Safety-First Technology: Employers can benefit from utilizing modern technology to improve safety procedures in retail establishments. An example is SafetyCulture, which provides mobile-first safety checklists, injury or incident forms, hazard assessment documents, and training tools, alongside lone working tools and panic buttons for retail workers around the world.