Reference no: EM133041420

As the new HR manager you visit several stores to talk to employees and learn about their jobs. In one store, you speak to an employee, Ann, who has a cast on her leg. She mentions that she broke her leg when she fell off a ladder while trying to stack boxes of inventory in the back room of the store. You ask her to show you the back room and you observe 15 foot tall stacks of boxes that are leaning and do not look particularly stable. The employee says she was looking through boxes for a particular item for a customer when she fell. You ask if she completed an incident report and she sheepishly says, "No, I didn't want to get in trouble or lose my job". You also notice that there are boxes blocking the emergency fire exit and the fire extinguisher. When you visit other stores you find similar conditions in the backrooms. A few employees made quiet comments that a sales clerk, Joe, was considering calling OSHA to address the safety concerns.

1. What are you going to do first to address this situation?

2. How will you improve the backroom storage situation to increase the safety of the employees?

3. How will your plan address the issues identified in your safety audit (ie ladder usage, exits, fire extinguisher access, etc)?

4. You decide it would be best to meet with Joe. What do you say to him?