Grocery stores often defend by saying they do all they can for floor safety. They tout their schedule for checking aisles every 15 minutes. They brag about a written policy that requires every employee to scan the floor as they move around the store. That sounds good on the surface, but it falls woefully short when you put it to the test.
Circumstances Matter
There’s no carpet in the aisles, so when things get on the floor it will be slick as ice. Given the volume of traffic, customers are going to fall hard and get hurt badly, if things aren’t cleaned up right away. Slick things will get on the floor often because of drink machines, ice machines, freezers, coolers, fruit, and vegetables. Customers who make messes can’t be relied upon to clean them up. Many won’t know they made a mess as they rush down aisles pushing carts, and some won’t care. Once the substance hits the floor, other customers won’t know about the hazard or see it. They’re looking up where the merchandise is placed, not down at their feet. Plus, the cart full of groceries they’re pushing blocks their view of the floor, should they try to look down.
Grocery stores know all of this like the back of their hand! They are the ones making money from a business where these dangerous conditions are going to exist if they don’t do what it takes to maintain a safe place.
If they don’t want to deal with it, don’t run a grocery store. Just like they have to pay rent, they have to pay attention, it’s part of the duty that comes with their business venture. They are the only ones who can keep their floors safe. If they don’t, they should be held accountable.
Exposing Their System As Inadequate
15 minutes between rounds is way too long. Prove it by timing merely 3 minutes with a clock or stopwatch. It will feel like an eternity. 15
minutes is 5 times that long! Ask their corporate rep, did you consider posting one person per two aisles to keep a constant watch? If they say “yes”, then they made a choice to not do the safer thing, because they didn’t want to spend a little more money. If they say “no”, then they don’t care enough to even think about it. Either answer, cheap or cavalier/ don’t care, is good for your case.
The alleged added policy protection of every employee being responsible for watching the floor is window dressing, just another way to paper over the problem. If everyone is accountable, no one is accountable. The stock boy who is trying to restock the cereal boxes before his shift ends, figures the assistant manager, who isn’t far behind, will scan the floor. The assistant manager, who is on a mission, assumes the stock boy will scan the floor. The result is that no one scans. That policy was written to protect the store, not the customers.
[These strategies may not deal with laws requiring specific notice, but they work extremely well with juries, or at mediation. It allows you to unmask defendants when they pretend to be vigilant superheroes.]