2 Foolproof Steps to Reduce Shopping Injuries

A term that all too many grocery store owners and managers know is “shopping injuries,” which refers to injuries that occur when someone is shopping in a grocery store, shopping center or retail outlet. One of the most common types of shopping injuries, and certainly one of the most serious, are slip and fall accidents, which can happen for a variety of reasons, but very often are the result of wet floors.

Along with injuries, slip and fall accidents are expensive. According to the National Floor Safety Institute, the nation’s grocery store industry spends approximately $500 million annually to defend slip and fall claims. 

Fortunately, many of these accidents and a lot of the money to address them can be reduced if grocery store owners and managers develop a floor safety program. While there are several components of such a program, two tactics that can have the most impact to reduce these accidents follow below.

The Walkway Audit Walkway audits, which are the most common in industrial-type facilities, are designed to take a proactive approach to floor safety by looking for ways to prevent slip and fall accidents before they happen.  This is not a reactive approach, which is when investigators are called in to find out why the accident occurred after the fact; the goal is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

The first part of a walkway audit is just to walk the floors. Look for floor areas that are uneven or where lighting is poor, areas where moisture has or might build up, torn or folded floor mats, unexpected steps up or down, and cords (including cords covered with tape) covering the floor. Any one of these can and do cause slip and fall accidents.

While the walkthrough is very important and should frequently be conducted, another step to take regularly is to obtain the floor’s static coefficient of friction (SCOF) readings. Different manufacturers produce equipment that can determine these readings, and they can be easily performed by store staff. The readings' results will be in numbers and typically fall into three categories: low, medium or high traction. Any floor area receiving low or medium traction means the slip resistance properties of the floor are unsafe or have diminished. If so, remediation is necessary.

We should note that these readings should be documented and stored. They can come in handy should a grocery store need to defend itself if an accident occurs.

The Spill Response The walkway audit is designed to prevent slip and fall accidents. But what to do if an incident, such as a spill, occurs during the day? When this happens, a floor safety program needs to have a spill response strategy in place to quickly and easily clean up the spill.

These procedures must be taught to all staffers. There is no time for one worker to look for someone else to attend to the incident, which opens the door to accidents. A spill response strategy would include the following:

Walkaway audits and clearly defined spill response procedures are two key steps that can be taken to reduce the number of slip and fall accidents in a grocery store. In fact, a major U.S. discount retailer follows the spill response strategy outlined above for the very same reason any grocery store owner/manager would: to put a dent in shoppers' injuries, and in doing so, helping to reduce liabilities and related costs.

Robert Kravitz is a frequent writer for the professional cleaning industry.