Welcome to the wacky world of Retail! We have a large acquisition programme at the minutes, and even though our shops are highly profitable there's an idea that we should only be spending money on our charitable aims, and not on e.g. making sure our shop-workers have safe and healthy environments. So, some top tips: Fire is a permanent bugbear, the biggest safety issue in our shops is control of space and basic housekeeping; if there's a fire exit they'll block it, if there's an 'empty' cupboard (albeit full of electricals) they'll fill it, usually with anything that burns. It's a cultural issue, and very persistent. We're looking at new ways of controlling stock-flow, which should help and will also help profitability, as it happens. Get involved in the acquisition process as early as you can. We now have an approved design, and a shopping list of minimum build standards, but we only got that be proving that it costs less to get these things (fire escapes, travel distances, welfare provision, trip hazards) right in the fit-out than it does to fix them once the shop is trading. Our head of property is a former LA H&S enforcer, which helps us, but he's needed pressure from us in the face of Directors looking only to cut costs. One thing we have done is ruled out certain types of premises from the word go; depending on the kind of retailing you're going in for this may be relevant to you. We will no longer contemplate a single-entrance lock-up high street shop, for example; it has to have at least two escape routes. Get a good and reliable asbestos service, some of your new shops will have ACMs and good advice is better than cheap bad advice. Keep pushing; it took us a year of frustration before our acquisition programme came good, and we had to challenge decisions at every stage. Now we have new shops which are, at root, healthy and safe. They still put bags of flammables in front of fire exits though.... And on that note, Fire & Rescue services are active in visiting shops before Xmas as they know that that's when huge amounts of stock come in, and that's when exits get blocked, John

The recent 27K for blocked escapes is small beer; I remember the Co-Op got £120K+ for offences inclluding blocked fire escapes. But try telling that to a Retail director in charge of a £40 million turnover business... Especially one that's never had to stand in the dock herself.... John

And on another tack; significant risks in retailing: Fire, and don't forget Arson (where are the bins?) Housekeeping, slips, trips and falls Lone working/stress/abuse; there's a very good HSE guide about lone-working in retail Handling, especially if you're selling things like furniture which can't easily be split into small packages, but don't forget to ask how stuff gets onto high shelves Tagging in clothes shops; we get a lot of minor injuries from the use of tagging guns, and without controls there's a risk of cross-infection Road risks for delivery drivers and roving managers etc Asbestos The rest is the usual FM type stuff, relatively low incidence but still need watching;; things like gas and electrical safety, property maintenance and so on, John

Daisy - you are entering into retail at a very interesting time and you may well be tested in the coming months - on the face of it you'd would think that will all the de-regulation we are seeing that retail would be quite - I see this completely differently. We've seen 3 day reportable got to 7. The wide introduction of Primary Authorities keeping regulators out of retail premises (under certain circumstances) The Gov introducing measures to classify shops an such premises as low risk and the subsequent reduction of LA inspections We have the proposal on the table for the removal from L73 the duty to report MOTP accidents - this is coming too. Despite what ever people think I can assure you managing safety in retail is not about people pushing shopping trolleys and presents much more of a risk that this government wants to believe. Or is being led to believe by their cronies in the big retailers (and I mean massive) who don’t want enforcers in - read the prosecutions its obvious who these people are. We are about to see IMO a backlash in the coming months and years from the regulators who are out there ( and still with us). The only time you'll see LA's in your premises will be via complaints from staff or the public - I ask you is this what we want enforcement to be?? Unions will drive up complaints and EHO will grasp the opportunity to get in and do their bit and you know what I don’t blame either of them one bit….. PM if you need anything specific?

If you want to action Ron Hunter's incisive observation : 'You have to start winning over hearts and minds, and be aware of the whole management structure'. include these amongst your priorities for the next 4 months: 1. make sure that Santa or someone else who cares for you gives you a copy of 'The Art of Woo. Using persuasion to sell your ideas', G Richard Shell & M Moussa, Capstone, 2008; 2. spend 55 minutes a week with your own coach to keep you on track in your efforts to 'win over hearts and minds': as Shell & Moussa explain to work out how to leverage your own influence on your M D, someone influencing you to achieve this end can meet the scale of your 'mammoth' task

Some really interesting insights into the retail sector. And it helps add some perspective into a recent post on the careers forum (http://forum.iosh.co.uk/default.aspx?g=posts&t=107524) in which the poster asserted "As a employee in the commercial sector ( our company lives or dies on our profitability, no bail out from the taxpayer), it always amazes me that those funded by the taxpayer can wiggle out of their statuary responsibilities by saying they are hard up. If we did that we would be accused of putting profit before lives" As if!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck DaisyMaisy

Pondering further the Header of this post, I was reminded of a recent motorway trip when I was passed at speed by a very hairy pachyderm travelling in the inside lane. It was a mammoth undertaking. Other candidates for worst joke of the decade are available.

ron hunter - Believe it or not, a friend of mine had a similar experience to you. However, it wasn't on a motorway, it was a dual lane TRUNK road! Another thought - if the mammoth in an inner lane was able to undertake you on the motorway, perhaps you were unnecessarily hogging an outer lane!!! :-)