Cashiers have been probed, prodded and studied in supermarkets. And why not? They seem to be the most visible people working in a supermarket. They generally are the most efficient and friendly people in the store as they have become he de facto face of the supermarket. If the cashier does a good job taking care of customers then the chances of a return visit by that customer go way up.

[Image courtesy of Mark Warner of Flickr via a Creative Commons license]Managers and supervisors should be aware of risks that all employees across all departments face. A recent survey found that employees in a supermarket are 17 times more likely to have a physical problem than have an actual injury.

Cashiers, for being so visible, have actually been studied quite extensively for workplace safety, and their documented workplace injuries have been established in great detail. So much so, in fact, that in many supermarkets now, cashiers are required (or at least strongly encouraged) to wear wrist braces on their hands during shifts to cut down the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome and other joint or muscle problems associated with being a cashier or a member of the service department (which does include courtesy clerks or baggers). But you know what has been very much under-studied? The other employees and/or departments of a supermarket, such as the bakery, deli and produce departments. And yet when you consider the makeup of a supermarket, there are far more employees in the other departments of the market than in the service department, so there are potentially plenty more opportunities for injury and disorder prevention that has not been widely revealed.

However, the trend has changed in recent years, and one fairly comprehensive study of injuries in a supermarket setting really did provide a snapshot of all departments and seemed to reveal some interesting tidbits – there seems to be an indication that workers tend to “play with pain,” as it were, and the prevalent injuries in a supermarket seem to be wholly dependent on the work performed in each department.

A study conducted in Canada a few years ago studied actual injury reports across all 57 supermarkets in a particular chain and self-reported questionnaires filled out by employees at four sample stores. The goals of the study was to determine the incidence rate across supermarkets, and types of injuries and problems that occur in the workplace and if there is a trend among supermarket workers for a company to focus safety resources. What was found was interesting and, admittedly, a little alarming.

First of all, in the study it was found that only about a third of the 57 supermarkets had an active occupational health and safety committee, which is in and of itself a bit disturbing. And when one considers that the research revealed that supermarket employees were six times more likely to have a muscle or bone problem (ongoing or chronic aches and pains) than an actual reportable injury, and that these types of musculoskeletal injuries make up nearly two-thirds of all reportable injuries in a supermarket setting, there is something to be said for looking past cashiers and paying attention to all workers.

It is very little surprise that the No. 1 injury or problem involves the lower back, but the No. 2 is not even close in general and is actually more specific to the type of department in which the employees work. For example, behind the lower back, in the grocery department the second-most problematic region of the body was the knees, while about four in seven in the bakery department reported the upper back. What was also found was that when all employees were extrapolated into full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, the service department was not the area that had the highest incidence of injuries – it was actually the deli department (91 injuries per 1,000 FTE employees) followed by the grocery department (87 per 1,000 FTE). The service department (front-of-store, excepting cashiers) tied for fifth (49 per 1,000 FTE) with the bakery department.

And there is another issue that was revealed by the research – about five in six employees across all departments in a supermarket reported having a musculoskeletal problem (not so much an injury) in at least one part of their body over the previous 12 months, with about a third of those people reporting their problem was serious enough to adversely affect  their work – though the study did not detail whether the adverse impact meant time off or how long the adverse impact was felt.  Two-thirds of the problems reported were focused on the lower back, with 30 percent in the upper back and 25 percent in the knees or neck.

Overall, the rate of such problems per 1,000 FTE is 17.6 times that of reportable injuries. To put it another way, every FTE employee had 1.06 musculoskeletal problems, while only 6 of every 100 had a reportable injury. The bottom line? For all those managing or supervising a supermarket, pay attention to your workers. Get out of your office and engage them during their shifts. Hear what they are saying in regards to their ability to do their job and any issues they are having. There is a pretty good chance that your employees are working through pain, and that could be a problem. If they are doing that, they could be putting themselves at risk for more injuries later, so for the sake of your workforce, make sure to interact with your staff and give it tools and resources to make its shifts more comfortable and as risk-averse as possible.