18.1   
The Importance
of Following the Health & Safety Regulations

First, we will discuss the importance of following
the correct health and safety regulations for your retail store and what you
need to do in order to show that you are complying with the laws.

The health and safety regulations were created in
order to provide a safer environment for both workers and customers and to reduce the chances
of an individual being hurt in some way.

Most of the legislation can be found in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, although there have been updates since then to take into account changes
in the workplace.

You must understand that the regulations apply to
any business no matter its size or how many individuals it employs. Your local
authority will often be the organisation that will enforce the laws and make sure that you have followed
everything that has been requested by the Health and Safety Executive. However, it is important that you do not see them as the enemy,
but work alongside them, because they are there to
make sure that you have done everything in your power to eliminate the possibility of somebody being hurt on
your premises and taking you to court.

These rules have been carefully thought out and
they are also easier to follow than you may be
expecting.

They are there for a number of reasons and the main ones are as follows.

 *To protect you and your business.

 *To protect
your staff from injury.

 *To protect
your customers from injury.

 *It is a legal requirement and necessary for insurance purposes.

 *To partly protect you from being sued as a result of an injury.

*In other words, the importance of being aware of these regulations and following them to the letter
is not something that is to be taken lightly.

18.2    The Consequences of Not Following
the Rules

One of the key things that you need to know about
the health and safety regulations is that they are strictly enforced and the
Executive responsible for them is only too willing to take action when their
advice, or the law, is not being followed.

This is not intended to scare anybody,
but as the retail manager it is clear that you must understand the laws that apply to your store, and
also what will happen if you do not follow through on what you are supposed to
do.It is important to mention that the law does not
state that you are required to remove every single risk as that is seen as
being impossible.

You do, however, need to take steps to
eliminate the main causes for concern, or take steps to eliminate those areas where there is a clear and absolute
danger to your staff or the general public.

This is not something that you can ignore. A
failure to follow the rules and regulations as set out by the Executive can ultimately lead to a
criminal prosecution, which would result in a criminal record. You may also receive a fine and this can often be crippling, especially for a small
retail store.

Furthermore, it has been known for companies to be
found guilty of corporate manslaughter after an individual, whether it be a member of staff or customer, has
been killed, when clear that not enough had been done to eliminate the risk and danger factor.
This may be rare, but it does show the extent
to which things can go wrong if you do not follow the rules.

In other words, it could spell the end of your store.

Before going into detail regarding
the key rules that you need to implement within your store, we must mention that rules dedicated
to produce and food,
which will follow in the next part of the module.

This is because there are more specific regulations
that must be adhered to when you are dealing
with food as opposed to clothes or anything else that is not edible.

However, before we go into details on the rules and regulations that must be followed, it is
important to mention that the Executive itself states that there is a need for
you to conduct a risk assessment in
your store to know and understand the different rules that have to be applied
in your situation.

Another key thing that you must do is to choose an
individual that works in your store who you believe
is competent enough to help you with the duties that come with following the
regulations. However, please note
that if you are a relatively small store, this will be more than enough help
and there will be no need to spend
the money bringing in another company who will basically do everything that you
are able to do for free by yourself.

Keeping that in mind, these are the basic things that you need to do.

Produce your own health and safety policy

The aim of this policy is to make sure that you and
your staff are aware of the health and safety
regulations for your retail store and also who is going to be
responsible for which duties. You are legally
required to have this policy if you have more than five members of staff.
However, it is still advisable to
have a written version no matter the size of your store.

This policy does not have to be complex and indeed
the Executive even provides templates for you to follow on their website. In
one example, it shows how you can produce a list of people and the roles that they play in enforcing
the rules and regulations. In addition, it also states where the accident
log book is kept and where the first aid equipment is stored so that everybody
is aware at all times.

Conduct your risk assesment

We mentioned earlier
the need for you to carry out a risk assessment and often this is something that puts a lot of fear into
companies. However, that fear is due to them over-thinking the situation and believing that when every risk has to be assessed that it has to be taken to the extreme.
That is not the case, although
there are minimum
levels that you need to adhere to.

The Executive has produced templates for risk
assessments that you can download from their
website as well as examples of what a finished one should look like.
They have also made it easy by breaking
down the examples into certain types of shops, so find the one closest to what
you do and follow it to the letter.

Generally speaking you need to walk your way
through your store from beginning to end and looking for things that may cause
a problem, or a risk, to any individual.

As you do so, think about asking yourself questions
along these lines:

 *Are there any trip hazards entering
or leaving your store?

*Are displays
and the shelving secure?

*Is the floor clear enough?

*Are there any parts of your store low in height where people could hit their head?

*Do you have the correct signs for when there is a spillage?

*Does your staff know what to do when there is a spillage?

*Do you have an evacuation procedure
in place if required?

*Do you require any warning signs?

*Is the exit sign easy to spot?

These are rather general questions as it will vary
from store to store depending upon what it is that you are selling. However, they do give you an idea as to what to
expect. As we mentioned above, you should seek to
download the relevant template from the Health and Safety Executive to make
life easier for yourself.

Staff training

Staff must always be trained on what to do in the
event of an emergency and also how to report an incident in the correct legal way. This does not have to be
complex training, although it is still worth
your while adding it into their training record and also having them
sign a form to confirm that they have understood what they have been taught.
By doing this,
it provides your store with an extra layer of security.

Dealing with welfare as well as health and safety

 Depending on the size of your store, there will
often be a need for you to provide toilets and a place for people to wash their hands. This should be an absolute
minimum for the staff quarters, even if there
is no legal requirement for you to do it for the public. Furthermore, there
should always be provisions made for
people who are disabled and there are specific guidelines in place to help you with this.

Also for staff, you should provide them with a
place that they can rest for their break and have a meal.

When it comes to the health aspect, then there must
be good ventilation in the store and the temperature
within the store itself should not drop below 16C unless there are specific
reasons for it to be lower. Aside
from that, you should have adequate lighting, adequate space for people to move around,
and also a place for them to dispose of rubbish in a safe manner.

An individual must hold a relevant first aid
certificate and everybody should be aware of who that is and where the
equipment is stored. Any time the first aider is required to assist somebody,
the incident should be written down
in an incident book with full details of what happened and what the outcome
was.

The reporting of the incident can be of more importance
than you realise, because if there is any kind
of a claim against you, then your insurance company will want to see your
account of what happened.

Display the notice

It is a legal requirement to display the notice
that you are following the Executive rules and that you are complying with what they state. Your local authority
will often tell you where the notice should
be displayed as it should be visible to everybody that comes into your store.

As you can see, there are different aspects to
think about when it comes to these regulations, but there are other areas that are more specific
depending on what it is that you are stocking or selling and we will look at one such example next.

FACT

 31.2 million working days lost in 2016/2017
due to work-related illness and workplace injury

Source: hse.gov.uk

18.4    The Key Rules when Dealing
with Food or Produce

Whenever you are dealing with food or produce then there will be a stricter enforcement of regulations.

This in itself makes sense as there are a number of different ways in which things can go wrong and
as a
retail manager working
in this area, you must be in control from the beginning
or you run the risk of either being fined, or even closed down in some circumstances.

When food or produce is being sold or even prepared
in some way, there are certain key points that
need to be taken into consideration.

You must be aware of spills and trips

Clearly there is a higher risk of spills existing
when dealing with food so there needs to be appropriate
cleaning materials and warning signs in place so that any spillage can be dealt
with immediately.

Any chilled areas must be checked

Any chilled areas need to be checked so that they are safe to use and are working correctly. This is
an area that does overlap with environmental health so be aware of this.

There must be appropriate washing facilities if dealing with raw food

Once again this is partly covered by environmental
health, but it is important to make sure that
there are appropriate washing facilities when staff members are dealing
with raw food.

When food is involved, the key is mainly on the
issue of things breaking and liquid, or food, being left without being cleaned up to an adequate level. Other issues such
as food being out of date is not primarily
something that the Executive deals with, but it is clearly not something that
should be ignored. Each member of staff must be able to act when there
is a spillage and to know where
all of the relevant equipment is stored. In addition,
regularly checking of how food is stored is also something that you as the manager should do, and any equipment
that has to be used in order to run the
store must also be checked on a regular basis. Any member of staff that is
using this equipment must be adequately trained
to do so, with this being noted in their training in case of any issues.