Guide

Risk assessment in a shop or supermarket

Retail has three constant hazards: manual handling, slips and falls, and the traffic between the stockroom and the sales floor.

Confirm the hazard class first

The depth of the assessment and the renewal interval follow from the workplace's hazard class. The class depends on the activity code and is not guessed; read it from the hazard class query tool on this site.

Manual handling

Stocking shelves, carrying boxes and emptying pallets take up most of the day. Lifting height, trunk rotation and repetition matter as much as the weight. Arranging heavy products by shelf height is usually the cheapest and most effective control.

Slips and falls

Wet floors, condensation around chilled aisles, drying time after cleaning, and narrow gaps between full boxes. A warning sign is not a control; it completes one.

Stockroom traffic

Where pallet trucks or forklifts share an aisle with people on foot, the separation must be physical. Falling-product risk is assessed together with rack fixing and load limits.

Shifts and lone working

In a store run by few people on an evening shift, the time it takes for an accident to be noticed grows. Lone working is recorded as a hazard in its own right.

In Optifora

The risk assessment module gives this setting's hazard list as a starting point; you correct it with what you see on site, score it, and tie the control to a task with an owner. When the renewal date approaches, the reminder arrives on its own.

  1. Set the class and scopeConfirm the hazard class from the activity code and write down the areas to be assessed.
  2. Walk the siteWalk every area at the hour the work is done; ask the workers what they struggle with.
  3. Record the hazardsRecord every hazard you see, with its location and the number of people affected.
  4. ScoreScore with the method you chose; write down diverging views with their reasoning.
  5. Tie controls to tasksGive every control an owner and a date; re-score the residual risk once it is in place.
  6. Put renewal in the calendarEnter the interval the class requires; if there is an accident or a change, renew without waiting.

Manage this in Optifora

Optifora is not a single program but a compliance platform assembled from modules. The catalogue states which module is ready today and which is on the roadmap.

See what Optifora is