The holidays, particularly from October to November, are a crazy time of year for retail stores and their employees. With Black Friday and Christmas shopping underway, large and small retail businesses ramp up operations.
High storefront traffic usually leads to chaos, as workers are stressed out and customers are more demanding. So, practicing business storefront safety during the holiday season is critical to ensure that shoppers and employees avoid accidents and injuries.
Business Storefront Safety Tips for the Holidays
Many things can go wrong, from excessive strain due to restocking shelves to storefront overcrowding. Minimize potential hazards and ensure your commercial space, retail practices, and operations are up to par for the holiday rush. Here are five ways you can indirectly keep your workers and customers safe.
1. Keep Emergency Exits Clear
The first rule of storefront safety is keeping all emergency exits clear at all times. Train your employees not to stack boxes, merchandise, or ladders near exit doors. This would be a severe hazard if a fire or other emergency happened.
2. Use the Best Entry Hardware
Your commercial door hardware is the first physical contact between the building and your workers and customers. Ensure that your doors have commercial-grade fittings, locks, and hardware to stand up to the hundreds of people who come through your doors every month.
3. Create an Emergency Response Plan
Does your store have emergency response plans in place? The holidays pose a unique set of challenges that you may not face during the rest of the year. For example, if your storefront safety is compromised because of large crowds, make sure your employees know how to respond. Brief your workers on each emergency response plan that’s in place, and go through a practice run outside of opening hours.
4. Consider Automatic Door Operators
Isn’t it nice to walk up to a storefront and have the doors open for you? Automatic door operators give your business an inviting atmosphere, are ideal for disabled patrons, and remove entry and exit hassle. They work by using motion sensors to detect movement at the door and then open or close it accordingly.
5. Use Real-Time Threat Analysis System
It’s impossible to manually monitor every corner of your storefront during peak times. Having a security guard on site or simply training your employees to watch for mischief and theft is a sound practice. However, you may want to consider implementing an automatic real-time threat analysis system, such as the one from AlertMedia.
Stay Safe This Holiday Season
Secure your retail store by choosing the right door handles, door locks, and door safety hardware. Our team at Park Avenue Locks will help you explore all your options and find the hardware that is the best fit for your space, both functionally and aesthetically.
We frequently change our inventory to make room for the newest models and most exceptional pieces. So, call us at 332-600-4046 or contact us for personalized assistance today!
