How can warehouses and retail shops enforce social distancing?

In warehouses, depots, factories and retail stores, key workers have continued to do their jobs during the current restrictions. The onus is on business owners to ensure the safety of their staff by making changes to the setup of the workplace, reducing staff numbers where possible and providing appropriate PPE. For those businesses that have stayed open and those preparing to go back to work, we look at what measures businesses can put into place to ensure that employees are able to keep to social distancing guidelines.

Floor signs

Use adhesive floor signs to indicate where people should stand, how far apart they should be from the nearest person and the direction of travel. Feet floor signals create clear one-way walkways and help encourage appropriate spacing in queues. Arrows and stop signs are also effective for managing foot traffic. Floor signals are designed to stay in place even with high footfall.

Hazard warning tape

Use high-visibility, hazard warning tape to divide aisles every two metres in order to mark out safe work areas for staff and indicate clearly to workers or customers how far apart they should be from their colleagues or fellow shoppers. This is also an effective way to separate specific work areas so that employees can be allocated to a zone within the workplace to prevent people congregating in one area. Line marking paint would also work for a long-term solution.

Barrier systems

In order to prevent overcrowding, you need to implement an effective queue barrier. Crowd fences are an easy way to manage queues at the entrance to a store. They are quick and easy to deploy, can be used outside and are designed to be hard to knock over. Belt barrier posts also allow you to cordon off spaces quickly, direct people and build efficient queuing systems. The benefit of a belt barrier is that you can use it to close off the entrance completely and then open it easily to allow people to enter one by one or as appropriate. Both of these solutions also work well inside a manufacturing facility or warehouse to separate work areas. Perspex screens should be used at checkouts, counters and between work areas where people come into closer contact.

Personal protective equipment

Of course, all of the above should go hand in hand with providing staff with appropriate PPE such as gloves, face masks and face shields if appropriate.

AJ Products intends the above as general advice and recommends always following the latest government guidelines.