BOZP for retail and stores — goods, racking and casual workers

Government Regulation No. 281/2006 Coll. on minimum safety and health requirements for the manual handling of loads requires the employer to avoid manual handling wherever possible — and where it cannot be avoided, to reduce the risk through work organisation, aids and training. The indicative weight values under the annex to the regulation take account of sex, frequency and working posture.

• Pallet and handling trucks — the basic aid of any store; a low-lift pallet truck does not require a forklift licence card, a powered forklift truck does (§ 16 of Act No. 124/2006 Coll.).
• Placement of goods — heavy items at waist height, light ones at the top and the bottom; oversized goods in pairs or with a trolley.
• Physical load of women and adolescents — stricter limits apply to women and adolescents; an adolescent must not be assigned work disproportionate to their physical development (§ 175 of the Labour Code).
• Checkout ergonomics — alternating sitting and standing, reach distances and breaks reduce the load on the spine and shoulders during scanning.

Retail is the largest employer of casual workers — and it is exactly here that most formal errors arise. Every casual worker on a work agreement and every agency employee undergoes BOZP familiarisation on starting work, with a record and signature; the shortened version "we showed them around the store" does not stand up to inspection.

• Adolescents (under 18) — must not work overtime or at night and cannot be ordered to be on stand-by (§ 174 of the Labour Code); they must not perform work disproportionate to their physical and mental development (§ 175).
• Medical examinations of adolescents — before transfer to other work and regularly at least once a year (§ 176 of the Labour Code).
• Night work of adults — work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. (§ 98) is taken into account in the categorisation of work and in preventive medical examinations.
• Records — a list of adolescent employees with their dates of birth is a statutory obligation of the employer (§ 171 ods. 2 of the Labour Code).

Alongside BOZP, a food store also deals with food hygiene: the HACCP system under Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, the temperature chains of refrigeration equipment and a sanitation programme. From the occupational safety point of view, this adds work in the cold at frozen-food sections, slicers and delicatessen machines with protective features, and anti-slip floors in the back-of-house areas. We prepare HACCP documentation together with BOZP — so the store has both agendas from a single source and without contradictions.

A store is a space with public movement — people who do not know the escape routes and who rely on the staff in the event of a fire. Fire-protection obligations are laid down in § 4 and § 5 of Act No. 314/2001 Coll., and documentation and training in Decree No. 121/2002 Coll. The staff must know where the fire extinguishers are, how to open the emergency exits and how to direct customers out.

• Escape routes and exits — permanently clear and marked; pallets and cardboard "just for a moment" by the emergency exit are the most frequent finding of every inspection.
• Fire extinguishers — inspected at least once every 24 months under § 9 of Decree No. 347/2022 Coll., accessible and in their brackets.
• Stockrooms and cardboard — packaging and cardboard represent a high fire load; store them away from escape routes and heat sources.
• Fire-protection training — all employees including casual workers; the OPP documentation is kept by a fire protection technician.

• Electrical equipment — the store's electrical installation, lighting, checkout zones; inspections under standards STN 33 1600 and STN 33 1610.
• Lifting equipment — goods lifts and lifting platforms in the back-of-house areas are VTZ under Decree No. 508/2009 Coll.; the tail lifts of delivery vehicles belong to group B (Annex No. 1 II. časť písm. d) bod 4).
• Gas equipment — gas heating and appliances; for larger refrigeration systems, check the regime of the refrigeration plant room — we will assess what is subject to professional inspections.
• Racking — not VTZ, but work equipment: checks in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, marked load capacity, records of damage after truck impacts.

The occupational health service is mandatory from the first employee (§ 30 of Act No. 355/2007 Coll.). Work in retail generally falls into category 1 or 2 — physical load during handling, work in the cold at frozen-food sections and night work are the factors that determine the classification under § 31 and Decree No. 448/2007 Coll. For categories 1 and 2 we provide the PZS on a contracted basis under § 30aa — categorisation, risk assessment reports and coordination of medical examinations.

The Labour Inspectorate may, under § 19 of Act No. 125/2006 Coll., impose a fine of up to 100,000 euros; for an occupational accident with serious bodily harm at least 20,000 euros and for a fatal accident at least 33,000 euros. The Regional Public Health Authority imposes fines from 150 to 20,000 euros (§ 57 ods. 43 písm. a) of Act No. 355/2007 Coll.) — in retail most often for missing categorisation of work and PZS. Breaches involving adolescents are particularly sensitive — night work by a casual worker under 18 is a breach that an inspection judges strictly.

Alpha Safety s.r.o. is an external provider of comprehensive safety services for stores, retail chains, wholesalers and e-shops throughout Slovakia — from a single operation to a network of dozens of branches with unified documentation.

• BOZP — risk assessment of the sales floor, stockroom and ramp, directives for handling and work at height, accident investigation and representation during inspections.
• OPP — fire-protection documentation, escape routes, staff training including casual workers.
• PZS — categorisation of work, risk assessment reports, preventive medical examinations (categories 1 and 2 on a contracted basis).
• VTZ inspections — electrical installations, lifts, tail lifts, gas equipment.
• Training — familiarisation of employees and casual workers, first aid, operation of handling equipment.
• HACCP — for food stores, food hygiene documentation from a single source.

In stores we most commonly encounter three things: obstructed emergency exits in the stockroom, casual workers with no record of familiarisation, and ladders or steps in a condition no one would want to use — and yet they are used daily. In retail chains the problem tends to be "desk-made" documentation from headquarters that does not fit the specific operation.

Repeated findings from inspections: missing categorisation of work and PZS, night restocking work left unaddressed, and racking without marked load capacity and with visible damage from truck impacts. All of these are shortcomings we can remove within weeks — and the store then passes inspections without stress and without sanctions.