anna.yhshihBusiness events should allow people to enjoy themselves, but huge disasters can occur if preparations are not made. What can we learn from it when working for events or retail?
People were gathering together for a festival after 3-year isolation from Covid-19, but an accident happened. 156 people died from the suffocation of human crush in a small valley in Itaewon in South Korea, on the weekend of Halloween. Most of them were in their 20s and had just gone in a few minutes.
This tragedy reminds us how life is uncertain and fragile, well again after the Covid-19 outbreak. And also the importance of public security. Also, when I saw news of the crush, it reminded me of a memory of working in retail in London.
When I worked during the Black Friday sales in 2017, all staff were supposed to embrace the huge sales because the vibe of Black Friday sales festivals became popular in the UK that year. So we well-prepared all the stock and good offers for customers on exactly Black Friday.
However, some chaos outside the store and one of our ex-staff passed by and came inside to warn us something might happen near Oxford Circus.
Where the location was close to the end of Regent Street and our store was opposite it. She heard some gunfire rumours near the tube station, and people were asked to evacuate inside the flagship stores like H&M nearby by police and armed counter-terrorism officers.
While she described the situation, we saw people running on the street like fleeing, and some of them even ran inside our store. The scenario was like a disaster film; even a shoe was left on the shop floor. The store manager immediately took her key and locked the door from the inside. We all hid behind the door or downstairs, with dozens of people we didn’t know who they were, and we were not even sure if one of them had a gun or weapon. It was the year when Manchester Arean Bombing happened in March, so we were just freaking out.
Eventually, according to the media, there was no terrorist attack but an altercation between two men in the tube station, so it was a false alarm, luckily. However, it was one of the most impressive and scary things when I worked in London. The New West End Company, which organised retail and promotions around Regent Street and Oxford Circus, also held public security training to instruct staff working in this area to prevent any unexpected situation before Black Friday next year.
Luckily I never had any chance to take these actions from this learning. But the crush in Seoul reminds us how preparation is important to prevent this kind of tragedies happens again.
So here are some training and advice for staff training in the store besides basic sales training.
1. Show your staff where the exit doors are and going through them in person.
2. Telling them where the meeting point is when people have to evacuate outside. In this case, you can easily manage the staff situation after the crisis.
3. The location of the emergency and first aid procedures and aid boxes.
4. Always keep the store and stockroom clean and tidy for any unexpected evacuation.
Here are also more useful tips for retailers. Hopefully, we don’t need to use them, but they may help reduce the risk to our employees and customers’ safety during an emergency.
www.workplace-rm.com/health-safety-fire-safety-for-retail-stores/
www.hse.gov.uk/retail/index.htm
RIP to the people who passed away in South Korea.
Everything is very open with a very clear description of the challenges. It was definitely informative. Your site is very useful. Thanks for sharing!