When it comes to injuries in your stores, prevention is the best medicine. But when you can’t prevent them, it’s important to know how to respond. Susan Guest, a Corporate Account Manager at Ontario Service Safety Alliance (OSSA), says the best place to begin planning prevention measures is at the top. She says retail management must look at all store operations and ensure they comply with provincial safety standards. More than that, retailers must make safety an integral part of the work routine.

"The idea is not to have a separate health and safety binder over in the corner. You want to implement it. When you do the job, you do the job safely," says Guest.

Retailers who want to make safety a hallmark of their company’s culture must integrate safety concerns into performance reviews, train employees on safety and make management accountable for store safety. Preventing accidents requires a serious plan and attention to detail.

This Retailer’s Guide describes how to prevent injuries and offers some ideas of how to respond to accidents. It’s as starting point for crafting your own injury response plan.

In this article, you'll learn about:

• The case of the customer who slipped
• What to tell the public after an incident
• Dealing with accidents
• Preventing customer accidents
• Additional resources