Safety Tips to Teach Your Retail Employees

If you own or operate a retail store, you probably understand the importance of creating a safe environment for your employees — and your customers. You also recognize the need to take effective loss prevention steps to reduce shrinkage. What follows is some practical advice to improve health and safety in shops and other types of retail establishments, as well as a few useful loss prevention tips.

Injury Prevention Advice for Retail Establishments

With all the potential hazards retail employees face, efforts to ensure health and safety in retail stores should focus on preventing injuries. Retail safety tips for minimizing the likelihood of injuries include:

Teach them proper lifting techniques: Retail employees that handle stock must do a great deal of bending and lifting. Train them how to lift heavier items in a manner that minimizes the risk of back injury and to ask for help if the object is too heavy for one person.

Provide training on appropriate use of equipment: Larger retail operations such as grocery stores and mass merchandisers rely on equipment such as motorized pallet jacks and forklifts for material handling and loading. Make sure the use of this equipment is limited to personnel who have received adequate training on how to operate it safely.

Take steps to improve worker comfort: Retail employees spend a great deal of time on their feet, which can ultimately cause leg or back injuries and increase fatigue. Allow them to sit on stools whenever possible, and consider placing cushioned mats on floors in work areas such as stockrooms where employees must stand for extended periods.

Clean up spills immediately: Wet floors due to spills and broken packages is a common issue in many retail environments. Make sure your employees are trained to thoroughly mop up and dry spills as soon as they occur. Place signage to alert customers and employees of any areas that remain wet.

Retail Loss Prevention Tips

Shrinkage is the loss of merchandise due to activities such as employee theft, shoplifting and breakage. Loss prevention steps that can effectively reduce shrinkage include:

Employ well-trained loss prevention/security professionals and ensure they are highly visible on your sales floor
Train your employees on the types of suspicious behavior to watch for that could indicate criminal activity
Display high-value items in plain sight and limit the number that are on the sales floor to only a few
Keep a close watch on cash registers and other areas where transactions occur, such as customer service desks
Deter theft by deploying a robust security system with highly visible features such as security cameras and monitors
Make sure your security camera views cover high-risk areas such as stockrooms, loading docks and any hidden spots on your sales floor

Titan Alarm, Inc. Can Handle Your Retail Security Needs in Phoenix, AZ

Titan Alarm can design and install a comprehensive security system for virtually any type of retail establishment in the Phoenix, AZ area. Feel free to contact us for more helpful retail safety and loss prevention tips, and to schedule a no-obligation security consultation.

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Updated by Titan Alarm on November 2, 2018.