OSHA guidance highlights slip, trip and fall risks at Big Lots stores

The highest-risk moments are the ordinary ones

At Big Lots, safety is not an abstract compliance issue. It lives in the moments when someone reaches for a top shelf, wheels a heavy pallet into place, bends to clear a spill, or moves too quickly through a crowded aisle to finish a reset before customers arrive.

That is exactly why OSHA’s walking-working-surfaces rules matter here. The agency says falls from heights and on the same level are among the leading causes of serious work-related injuries and deaths, and its updated rule added clearer standards along with training and inspection requirements. In a store environment built around fast turnover, shifting displays, and constant movement between the stockroom and the sales floor, those rules map directly onto daily work.

Why Big Lots is exposed to these risks

Big Lots said in a 2024 SEC filing that it operated 1,392 stores in 48 states and an e-commerce platform as of May 4, 2024. The company has described itself as a home discount retailer, which matters because the product mix often includes bulky home goods, awkwardly shaped merchandise, and displays that change frequently.

Big Lots also said it had implemented comprehensive safety protocols in its stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices. That breadth is important because the hazards are not limited to one department or one type of worker. They show up at the register, in receiving, in back-of-house storage, during freight flow, and during the kind of rushed recovery work that often happens after a busy rush or a promotion change.

The company’s later disclosure that it and other subsidiaries filed voluntary chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions on September 9, 2024 adds another layer of pressure. When a business is under operational stress, training consistency, staffing levels, and floor discipline can get harder to maintain, which makes the basics of safe work even more important.

The tasks that create the risk

The most useful way to read OSHA guidance in a Big Lots setting is task by task. Associates may be lifting, bending, climbing, pushing, carrying, and navigating crowded aisles during peak periods. Those are not edge cases. They are the job.

OSHA’s warehousing guidance is a strong fit because it identifies hazards that look a lot like a busy store back room: powered industrial trucks, ergonomics, material handling, hazardous chemicals, slip/trip/falls, and robotics. It also says the most common warehouse injuries are musculoskeletal disorders from overexertion in lifting and lowering, along with struck-by incidents involving powered industrial trucks and other materials-handling equipment. In other words, the danger is not only a fall from a ladder. It is also the strain of moving heavy product and the collision risk that comes with moving equipment in tight spaces.

OSHA’s retail-grocery ergonomics guidance is relevant too because it was written for retail grocery stores and combined full-line supermarkets and discount merchandisers, including warehouse retail establishments. That makes the lesson especially practical for a Big Lots floor: a retail store can carry warehouse-like risks even when it does not look like a warehouse.

What OSHA expects stores to have in place

OSHA’s Small Business Safety and Health Handbook lays out a basic playbook that works well in retail. It calls for safety and health programs, workplace self-inspections, hazard documentation, and attention to ergonomics, emergency planning, housekeeping, electrical safety, and recordkeeping. Those are not bureaucratic extras. They are the systems that catch a broken floor mat, a loose fixture, a spilled liquid, or a damaged extension ladder before someone gets hurt.

The walking-working-surfaces rule also focuses on the details that matter in a store. OSHA’s ladder standard says ladders must be inspected before initial use in each work shift, and ladders must be used only for the purposes for which they were designed. The standard also says portable-ladder rungs, steps, and cleats must be parallel, level, and uniformly spaced, and that ladder surfaces must be free of puncture and laceration hazards. Wooden ladders may not be coated with material that hides structural defects.

That is the kind of language that sounds technical until you translate it into a shift. If a team member grabs a ladder for a quick top-stock pull, the inspection has to happen before the climb. If a ladder is being used as a platform, a step stool, or a makeshift perch, it is being used wrong. The rule is designed to stop the kind of shortcut that feels small in the moment and becomes a fall report later.

Where prevention really happens on the floor

The most effective safety habits at Big Lots are simple, but they have to be repeated every shift.

• Inspect ladders before use, not after the first climb.

• Keep walkways, stockroom paths, and back-of-house areas clear of boxes, straps, and shrink wrap.

• Report spills, damaged fixtures, and uneven surfaces immediately.

• Use proper lifting technique and team lifts for bulky or awkward home goods.

• Slow down during crowd flow changes, especially during promotions, seasonal resets, and recovery work.

• Check that carts, ladders, and material-handling equipment are in good shape before moving product.

Those habits matter because retail injuries often happen during transition moments, not during calm ones. A crowded aisle, a rushed restock, a ladder grab between customer interactions, or a quick trip from receiving to the floor can be enough to turn a normal task into a same-level fall or a strain injury.

Why the national injury numbers should get your attention

The broader injury picture explains why OSHA keeps circling back to slips, trips, falls, and lifting. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 2,488,400 total recordable nonfatal cases in private industry in 2024, including 888,100 cases involving days away from work. It also reported 479,480 days-away-from-work cases involving falls, slips, and trips.

The fatal side is just as stark. BLS reported 5,070 fatal work injuries in 2024, including 844 fatalities from falls, slips, and trips. It also reported an incidence rate of 2.3 total recordable cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers in private industry. Those numbers show that the risks OSHA flags are not minor annoyances. They are among the most persistent causes of serious injury across the economy.

What safe work looks like at Big Lots

For a Big Lots shift, prevention is not one single policy. It is a chain of small decisions that has to hold up under pressure. A clean aisle, a properly inspected ladder, a controlled receiving area, and a crew that does not rush through recovery work can make the difference between a normal close and a reportable injury.

That is the real takeaway from OSHA’s guidance: retail safety is not generic compliance. It is the management of repeat high-risk moments, the ones that happen when the store is busy, the freight is heavy, and the work has to get done anyway. At Big Lots, the safest shifts are the ones where those moments are treated like the core of the job, not the exception.