Risk Management - Tesco Supermarket - Report Example

Risk Management Report Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Tortious risk involving the Company and s 3 Risk involving the Companyand staff 5 Risk management strategies that appear to be already in place to minimise risk 6 Further risk management strategies 7 Defences available to the Company if a customer took legal action for each of the identified areas of risk 7 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction Nový Smíchov is a shopping mall which located west of Prague in Czech Republic. It started its operation in 2001. It has a retail area of around 60,000 sq. ft. and has floor areas of around 6,50,000 sq. ft. It has total three floors and is one of the biggest shopping centres in the country. Tesco is located on the ground floor. To run any shopping mall, there are risks involved. Tortious law concerns civil law. It deals with circumstances where one has to suffer loss or harm. Such an action results in legal liability for an individual who conducts such tortious act. Such a person is called tortfeasor. In such cases crimes committed may not be criminal in nature since such an event may be the result of negligence which does not amount to criminal proceedings. Hence the victim in such cases can claim their loss through lawsuit in court. In shopping malls all the stores has to follow law which covers workplace, employees, work equipment, law for retailers, law for defective products and many others. This report will take a look at the various situations which Tesco can face when running its operations and what are the law which governs them. Discussion Tortious risk involving the Company and customers Tesco is a big multinational retailer with its operations spreading in many countries. Hence many customers visit its stores daily to do their conventional shopping. In the process of running their operations, there are many situations where customers can face risk when going for shopping. In case of any outbreak of fire, there can be loss to both the company and its customers. In case fire breaks out, many people may die including both employees and customers. It also causes loss to property of Tesco. Such act of fire outbreak is due to negligence on the part of employees, Tesco has to pay damage to the families of those who are affected. This comes under the Vicarious Liability clause where the employee is said to be the agent of the employer. In such cases, the employer is liable to pay the injured person money with respect to the claims made (Engel and McCann, 2009, p. 82). In another case slipping may occur in Tesco supermarket. A customer may slip due to some yoghurt lying on the shopping floor. The customer filed a suit for the injury received by him. The defendant saw such slippages occurred many times in a week. The staffs of Tesco were instructed that if they saw any such slippages then they must stay in their place and call somebody to clean it up. But apart from the general cleaning done, the shop floor was supposed to be brushed six times each day. But it when the customer fell on the floor, it was not evident whether the floor was brushed as per the expected time. During court proceedings it was seen that Tesco was at fault due to lack of cleaning of shopping floor. During the court proceedings the customer claimed that the liability to prove that the floor shop was cleaned fell on Tesco itself (Best and Barnes, 2007, p. 118). But Tesco argued that if there was no evidence to show that yogurt had been spilled, then they will be no case of negligence. But Court of Appeal held that it is the duty of Tesco to keep the floors without any spillages. It held that slippage of the customers would not have occurred had the employees of Tesco kept the floor free from spillages or had they dealt with it before the slipping occurred. Hence in such cases it the liability of Tesco to prove that accident occurred not due to negligence. The court held that Tesco can escape from liability if they can show that the accident would have occurred had they kept the floor clean. The court held that it is the secondary responsibility of the staffs in addition to primary responsibility to keep the shop floor clean and prevent such kind of accident from happening. But there no system put in place to detect spillages. Hence since it was negligence on part of employees of Tesco, and they being an agent of Tesco, they had to pay fine to the customer on the basis of Vicarious Liability. Obstruction on the floor is another case where a customer can get hurt due to the negligence on the part of Tesco. Suppose if a customer fell due to a moveable stool kept by the staffs which is used to gain access to high shelves. The customer said that when he walked down the same path minutes before there was no stool before but after a short period of time when he walked down the same path carrying some files in hand he tripped over and suffered injuries. The court held that it was due to the negligence on the part of the employee to keep the stool on path of customer (Madden, 2005, p. 56). Risk involving the Company and staff Nový Smíchov is the mall that has a huge number of staffs. The outlet of Tesco employs a huge number of support staff in the various departments that the store has. The store remains open from 7 am in the morning till midnight. Therefore there is an extended period of time during which the liabilities of the employee has to be borne by the company. The duties of the staffs are spread across all the floors of the store. It is part of the duty of the employer to care for the people they employ. Tesco has to ensure that the employees are provided with the workplace that is safe to work. The access to the workplace has to be safe for the employees and for this necessary training and supervision would 5be required by the employer. Since most of the staffs are engaged in the daily cleaning process they have to be provided with the necessary equipments (Edwards, Edwards and Wells, 2011, pp.473-541). Tesco has to ensure that the equipments that are provided to the employees are safe to use. If there is any problem with the equipments it may lead to physical damage to the inventory of the store as well as the employees of the store. Again for cleaning of the store space the staffs might have to come in contact with harmful chemicals. This might expose the employees with sufficient amount of physical risk. Thus it is a duty on part of the company to impart necessary training of using the equipments to the employees who would be using them. An organisation may face risks with the safety of the employees. A hazardous situation may arise if the employees slip from a height and face death while putting up an advertisement material or may face injury. This may lead to loss of one or multiple organs of the employees. However, there might be a possibility that the employee already had lost an organ before and was making false claims about this damage (Robinson, 1985, pp. 779-798). Tesco has to follow the principle of violent non fit injuria which means that the organisation has to assume that there might be cases where risk might arise for the employees of the organisation. In case of the incidents of burglary or theft Tesco would be exposed to a lot of financial risk. Along with that any kind of case of intruding by terrorists the employees would be exposed to the risk of getting injured if there is any use of arms in the case. There might be incidents of shooting. This might take the lives of the employees or may damage their organs in some way. The employees may trip on the mats or may fall down due to the slippery flooring. This is included in the Workplace Regulations Act, 1992. The employee may also fall down from a great height while tying any kind of promotion or advertisement medium like a banner or a flex. As an employer of these employees the company would come across a variety of risks. Risk management strategies that appear to be already in place to minimise risk The Tesco store in Nový Smíchov has already taken a variety of measures of combat the risks that may arise in the mall during the period of operation of the store as well as beyond. First of all in case of any incident of outbreak of fire in the store, there is enough provision in the premises for smoke alarms as well as fire extinguishers in the right places that would act as one of the most important tools for management of such adversities. There are sufficient numbers of emergency exit for the customers as well as the staffs to escape from the place of occurrence of such hazards. The style of flooring in the store is made in such a way that the staffs and the customers can move about comfortably (Weir, 2002, pp.41-97). The company has to ensure that there is enough room for the lights so that the employees or the staffs do not have any problem with their vision while in the store. The company has suitably trained the employees to deal with any situation where the employees would be asked to deal with any kind of unaccommodating customer or any situation of harassment. Further risk management strategies In order to ensure that there is no risk arising out of the wearing of the equipments, the ladders, and other equipments have to be changed from time to time. Along with that the security that is present at the various entrances and exits of the store has to be strengthened. In case of any terrorist invasion or the attacks by any intruder preparation for any preventive action has to be present. Since the employees are the liabilities of the company in case of any wrong action on part of the employee Tesco store has to take the responsibility. Thus the Vicarious liability lies on the store. Such risks have to be avoided by providing proper trainings to the employees for tackling customer or how to address the needs of the client. In addition to this the employees also have to be trained in the different types of skills that are essential for disaster management or providing first aid to any injured or sick customer. Defences available to the Company if a customer took legal action for each of the identified areas of risk Whenever a claim is made by a customer regarding the injury suffered by him at the mall, it is the liability of the defendant, in this case Tesco, to prove that they are innocent. There are ways in which a defendant can use law to protect itself from the legal action of the complainant. There are general time limits for a customer who wishes to bring claim to the court. If the customer fails to make the complaint in that time period, then the retailers like Tesco don’t need to worry about it. Tesco should try to avoid need of its employees to carry out any manual handling operations to limit the risk of being injured. According to Court, it is necessary for Tesco to engage a second worker to assists in helping out with secondary operations so that they don’t fall in such circumstances. Conclusion From the above analysis it is clear that for every organisation it is important to have proper protection for the various stakeholders like the employees or the customers who come to the store. The company should be able to protect itself by abiding by the different laws that should be followed for running a store. This would include safety and healthy working environment for the staffs that have to spend a considerable time in the organisation and hence are exposed to a variety of risks. On the other hand the Company also has to take measures in such a way that the staffs or the customers do not take any undue advantage or make any false claim from the store. For this the basic legal protection on part of the Company needs to be taken and has to be reviewed from time to time. References Robinson, G.O., 1985. “Critical Issues in Tort Law Reform: A Search for Principles.” The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 14(3), pp. 779-798. Engel, D. and McCann, M. 2009. Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Best, A. and Barnes, D. W. 2007. Basic Tort Law: Cases, Statutes, and Problems. New York: Aspen Publishers Online. Madden, M. S. 2005. Exploring Tort Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, L., Edwards, J.S. and Wells, P., 2011. Tort Law. Mason: Cengage Learning. Weir, T., 2002. Tort Law. London: Oxford University Press. Read More