Workplace accidents are a major concern to food stores’ managers and their workers. More often, accidents result from wet flows, spills, and sharp cutleries. In all grocers, managers and safety managers supervise safety responsibilities. They are supposed to ensure that the safety requirements of the employees and the clients are fulfilled.
As such, managers and safety managers ensure that appropriate systems are put in place to enable employees verify safety hazards. Similarly, these officials ensure that all safety measures are upheld. Based on the above responsibilities, this article seeks to highlight how Paul’s Grocer management team should organize its routine checkups and inspections, meet its inspection standards, and handle its spills.
In their inspection and spill programs, the grocer’s management team should identify regulations and recommendations that are applicable in their jurisdiction.
These requirements should aid the management team in coming up with the appropriate safety policies. Similarly, the organization’s safety manager should coordinate outside and internal inspections. When the government or regulatory agencies are conducting outside inspections, organization’s safety manager should accompany the inspectors to note down the violations and recommendations.
Similarly, during the inspections the safety manager should be ready to give explanations about any cases of dubious practices or equipments within the grocer’s premises. Thereafter, the safety manager should forward the necessary recommendations to the grocer’s management team. Equally, in the recommendations the safety manager should note down features pointed out by the inspectors that may require policy change.
Apart from the external inspections, Paul’s Grocer should put in place an efficient internal inspection team. The internal inspection team can comprise of the grocer’s staff members or members of a corporate entity.
Since the grocer’s safety manager cannot provide the safety of the whole business premises alone, he or she should disseminate responsibilities to the subordinates. Through this, he or she should harmonize all the employees’ efforts. To achieve this, the safety manager should set up a safety committee to oversee the implementation of these in initiatives.
Similarly, the safety committee should hold meetings with the safety manager once in a week. During the meetings, they should review the previous weeks’ inspection reports, new safety requirements, safety suggestions, accidents, and any other violations. Similarly, during the meetings the members should be allowed to discuss safety suggestions. In general, the safety committee will be required to forward their inspection reports, spill reports, and recommendations from their fellow employees.
Through the safety committee, the grocer’s management team should encourage all their employees to have control over their work area. As such, employees should ensure that their working place is kept organized, free from spills, and that supplies are kept on the right shelves. Usually, large retail shops announce their safety sweeps to its customers and employees in time to avoid the inconveniences.
However, for Paul’s Grocer, which operates for 24 hours, the announcements would not be necessary. Instead, the grocer should ensure that their cleaning staff conducts safety sweep once in a week. This operation should be conducted when the clients’ turnover is low between 8pm and 8am. To ensure regular spills are removed, the grocer’s management team should make sure their employees inspect the grocer’s pathways for spills and safety hazards every few minutes.
The grocer’s safety manager should note that a client or an employee requesting for a cleaning staff to clean spills is not appropriate. Therefore, every employee in the grocer should be trained to handle the spills while the cleaning staffs are being reached for help. Despite the fact that the grocer employs cleaning staffs, all the employees should be able to handle spills and other hazards, and should be ready to clean the spills when the cleaning agents are not available.
The number of individuals required to handle spills depends on the quantity of spills. Spills should be handled using appropriate equipments. When handling spills, employees should ensure that they wear protective clothing. In addition, the safety manager should ensure that spill station is set up within the grocer. The spill station should have the necessary cleaning equipments such as towels, mops, brooms, and cleaning solutions. Equally, the spill station should be accessible to all employees.
To be certain that all inspection and spill policies are met, safety manager should ensure that a log is maintained. A grocer’s log should indicate the intervals of internal inspections.
During the external inspections, a log will prove to the external inspectors that regular checkups, cleanups, handling spills, and other safety hazards are conducted in accordance with the safety requirements. Since all the employees would be required to handle spills occasionally, the grocer’s management should ensure that it trains its employees on inspection requirements and spill handling techniques.
The training programs should meet the standards set by the regulatory agencies. If the above proposals and policies are observed, Paul’s Grocer will not only be able to avoid accidents related to spills, but will also be able to meet safety standards required by the government and local authorities.