Case Analysis COVID-19 Classics

Classics is a store selling new and used books, vintage vinyl, classic CDs, DVDs, movie posters and assorted collectibles. The store is located at the center of a busy retail area within a large municipality. The store is surrounded by boutique shops, cool bars and international restaurants, catering to a very diverse urban population. There is, usually, a constant level of people movement outside the store and customer foot traffic into the store is high. In pre- pandemic days, the store was open from 10am to midnight, seven days a week, serving both regular clientele and a consistently high rate of drop-in customers.

Drop-in or walk-in customers spend at least 20 minutes browsing through the three levels of the store. Dedicated, regular customers, including those looking for specific items, spend an average of an hour or more browsing through the various collections. Given the location of the bookstore, there are significant numbers of people in the area who are vagrants or live on the street. The store is used often as a place for this sector of the population to get off the street for some temporary shelter, to use the washrooms (with staff permission) or to get warm. There is no customer time limit in place. All who come into the store are served and are supposed to be made welcome. There are typical retail-setting security concerns such as constant product theft along with a higher-than-average rate of staff needing to deal with disruptive or drunk customers during the night shifts, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.

The store overflows with product and has a crowded layout. There are wall-to-wall bookshelves and tables and bins stacked with books, records and gift items. It is a very high touch environment; both customers and staff are constantly in contact with all of the products. The spacing between the shelving and tables is narrow: no more than two people can pass each

other or fit in some of the spacing areas together at one time. The products themselves are laid out neatly in their designated display areas. Staff are constantly tidying up product piles and cleaning up after customers.

Classics employs two store managers (day and night shift); three book and product buyers; and a total of eighteen general staff members. The store owner is the employer and has oversight for all store functions. The day to day running of the store is left to the two store managers. There are three shifts in a typical workday; during a shift, staff can be assigned to a designated floor for direct customer service, to work on the cash, or to move product in and out of display areas.

There is no Joint Health and Safety Committee in place at Classics. There is one Health and Safety representative, Sam. Sam was appointed to the role by the store owner and has received minimal training on what that involves. Most of the staff usually ignore any safety rules even though they are posted from time to time in the staff eating area.

Since the start of the pandemic, the store has opened and closed in compliance with local emergency orders. When the store was closed, staff were laid-off in compliance with legislated Infectious Diseases Do Emergency Leave provisions. The first time the store re-opened, staff were provided with individual face masks, gloves, hand-sanitizer and disinfecting wipes to use as needed. Customer access was limited to 10 people in the store at a time. Hand-sanitizer and wipes were located at the store entrance for customers to use. The store re-opening was chaotic and rushed. Not all staff were scheduled to return to work and some staff chose to quit, citing pandemic-related health concerns. Even though staff were provided with protective equipment, a few staff did not want to use the gloves and some brought in their own masks to use because they did not like the feel of the masks provide by the store. The store was closed for a second time due to a provincial lock-down order and now, the store is planning to re-open once the current lock-down order is lifted and retail services can re-commence.

Even though the province has given the green light to open, staff feel unsafe about returning to work at Classics.

The staff are unclear about the legislated health and safety protections that the employer must have in place to ensure that both the workplace and they, the workers, are safe. This includes wanting to know if they have the legal right to implement a work refusal and what Sams role is as the Health and Safety Representative.

Questions to be answered:

1. Identify at least three issues Classics is facing as an organization (10 marks) (1 page)

2. How would you use the key takeaways from human resource management functions to

   resolve the issues? (20 marks) (2 pages)

3. Sam has contacted you with this scenario. Your task is to research and prepare advice to

   give to Sam as the Health and Safety Representative. Outline your action plan and

   support your answer. (10 marks) (1 page)

4. You are responsible for a training program design to mitigate the issues at Classics.

   Outline your training design and justify your choices. (10 marks) (1 pages, double spaced)