DEVELOPMENT OF A FIRE SAFETY TRAINING TOOL FOR STAFF IN RETAIL
STORES
Dmitry A Samochine, Jim Shields 2 , Karen Boyce 2
1
2
Academy of State Fire Service of Russia, Building 4, B. Galushkina Str, Moscow, 129366, Russia
FireSERT, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, N. Ireland
ABSTRACT
A novel approach to staff fire training for Marks and Spencer staff is presented and discussed
in this paper. The contextual backcloth is the current training techniques employed and the
requirements generally of Health and Safety Legislation in terms of duties imposed on staff,
particularly with respect to the safety of others. The training approach articulated in this paper is
rooted in the notions of occupancy where the responses, actions and behaviours of individuals in time
and space are a function of the environment in which they find themselves.
The concept of ‘occupancy’ was used to analyse video taped recordings of five unannounced
evacuations of Marks and Spencer stores. From these five different settings which imposed different
constraints and opportunities for staff were identified. A computer video presentation for each of the
settings for each of three cues, ie alarm, smoke and flame were presented to 172 Marks and Spencer
staff to whom a follow up questionnaire was administered. The results of the work are presented in
this paper. These results indicated that the percentage of staff who actually followed their current
training instruction was surprisingly low. The computer video presentation highlights the
inadequacies of the current training methods, exposes staff to real situations for a range of cues and
offers the possibility of realistic, useful staff training assessments.
INTRODUCTION
The past two decades have witnessed a global transition in developed countries from
prescriptive fire safety legislation to functional fire safety regulation based on actual performance of
building elements and people in fire, with fire safety engineering being accepted as a creditable design
profession.
Building fire evacuation studies have revealed that apart from the architectural design solutions and
engineering systems, the behaviours of staff in the event of an emergency can make a significant
contribution to the timely evacuation in the event of a fire emergency, and therefore the life safety
potential of occupants. The influence of staff on the evacuation of customers, both in terms of
initiating response and giving direction was particularly evident in five unannounced evacuations of
retail stores1. Further analysis of these evacuations2 indicated that almost 80% of staff had a direct
beneficial influence on customer behaviour. In contrast, analysis of fatal fires in retail stores 3,4
confirms that inappropriate staff behaviours can contribute to the loss of life.
Detailed analysis of the five evacuations of retail stores also indicated that the response of staff to the
alarm varied significantly with setting2. This is fully consistent with the theory of ‘occupancy’
defined as “the constraints on, conditions and possibilities of knowledge and action afforded by the
social, organisational and physical locations occupied by people over time” developed at FireSERT
and articulated in 5. In this context, the building is considered as an information system, as a social
organisational system of communications. Occupants differ, not in the sense of the physical
environment, but because of the knowledge afforded by different locations occupied depending on
their activities. This manifests itself such that building characterisation as ‘occupancy type’ e.g.
hospital, retail store, office building is insufficient and a further level of specification such as settings
is needed. Settings in this sense are a cumulative indicator of the micro activity of a person, and give
us a context for the search for greater understanding of human behaviour in fire.
However, the behaviour of staff to a greater or lesser extent is a manifestation of the organisational
training environment which in turn is influenced by legislative requirements.
Current legislation with regard to Health and Safety at Work6,7 establishes general duties and
responsibilities for both the employer and employees. In essence the health and safety requirements
are that staff work in health and safe environments, that they do not put themselves of work
colleagues at risk and that they are trained in the performance of their duties with respect to health and
safety at work. Health and Safety legislation however does not expressly require staff to put out fires
or to manage the evacuation of the premises in the event of fire. Consequently, fire safety design
solutions, incorporating fire safety management as an essential component, require much more than
mere compliance with health and safety legislation. Another contextual consideration, is the shift in
continuing control mechanisms from an annual fire certification process for premises administered by
UK fire brigades to a risk assessment process undertaken by owner/occupiers. This also has serious
consequential training issues.
The changing environment which influences fire safety management is the contextual setting for this
paper, which presents the findings of a programme of research which set out to use the concept of
occupancy to understand the behaviour of staff in fire evacuation of Marks and Spencer stores. The
development and application of the Computer Video Interview Technique (CVIT) which was used to
determine the response behaviours of staff in different settings to various fire cues is discussed,. The
development of this technique as a training tool which can meet the demands of the changing
environment influencing fire safety management in the UK today is proposed.
METHODOLOGY
It is recognized that retail stores can be complex environments and that in understanding
behaviour, the setting, the person and the fire must be considered together, ie, not as separate
elements. Traditional human behaviour research methods such as unannounced evacuations or
interviewing survivors of real fires were therefore not considered sufficient in that one or more of the
essential factors, eg fire, details of setting were not readily available, it was considered necessary
therefore to develop a simulation method that could capture the entirety of the process.
It was also considered prudent to determine staff behaviors3 in response to different fire cues and
settings. For the purposes of this study, three fire cues were chosen ie fire alarm, flame and smoke.
Video analysis of previous evacuations of Marks and Spencer stores suggested that staff behaviours in
response to the alarm vary between settings, eg:





changing rooms; staff members have clear responsibilities for customers in the changing
rooms and in this respect they and customers may be constrained by the setting,
coffee shop; staff are serving customers and may be constrained by the setting. Previous fire
investigations have revealed the occurrence of longer customer pre-movement times in this
setting resulting from different staff behaviour3,4,
customer service desk where staff are serving customers and may be constrained by the
setting and often have additional fire duties,
shop floor; staff have less well defined responsibilities, i.e. they have freedom to move and
are not in direct contact with customers, and
till banks; cashiers have responsibility for money and may be reluctant to cease customer
servicing; in this respect they may be constrained by setting.
Figure 1. Video clip contents
A
C
Outside view->inside view
->staff taking position
->start to serve customers
Staff still serving customers. Customers
in adjoining area and after some time,
fire starts to develop there. Fire develops
until staff members recognizes the fire
cue and decides on their first actions.
Serving customers, staff also see
adjoining area, where are some
customers
B
D
Outside view->inside view
->staff taking position -> serving
customers -> fire alarm sounds until staff
member recognizes fire cue and decides on
their first action
Video presentations were therefore developed for each setting (changing room, coffee shop, customer
service desk, shop floor and tills) with each cue (alarm, fire and smoke).
The generic content of the presentations were video clips showing the retail store environment with
the fire cue introduced at a certain time intervals. Staff were tested individually and were asked to
watch the video presentation, and to imagine that they were the member of staff in the workplace.
In an attempt to introduce the environment to the participant and to make the participants imagine
themselves as staff within the particular settings, several film clips were produced and compiled
together. First, the staff member was presented with an outside view of the store, then a general
inside view followed by a clip showing a staff member taking up position in one of the above settings,
and finally the staff member working in the setting, Fig 1A. These video clips were recorded in
Marks and Spencer, Belfast store on an ordinary weekday, with customers and staff present. In all
presentations a second clip was introduced to the screen showing an area which would be visible to
the staff member from their workplace, Fig. 1B. After an initial period of time, the fire or smoke cues
emerged in this clip, Fig. 1C. The fire and smoke clips comprised real video footage of flames and
smoke emerging from behind sales goods which were filmed in the Belfast store at night when no
customers or staff were present. In the case of the fire alarm cue, the fire alarm was simply
superimposed on the original sequence of clips, Fig. 1D.
The required video components were recorded and processed (MPEG 1 standard). Two computer
applications MVSetup and MultiVid were developed within Borland Delphi 5 environment. MVSetup
was developed to establish the precise locations and time instances of the clips appearing and
disappearing. The objective of MultiVid program is to play the clips with determined characteristics
by the MVSetup on the computer’s screen and record some experimental parameters i.e. decision
making time. In total, 15 presentations were created (three fire cues for five settings). The duration of
each was approximately 1.5 - 2 min. In order to ensure that participants responded appropriately
within the experimental settings a familiarisation film was also developed in which fire cues were
substituted by non fire related cues to which the staff member would be expected to respond.
As noted previously, the generic content of the presentations were video clips showing the retail store
environment with the fire cues introduced at a specific time. Each participant was asked to imagine
themselves in the role of the member of staff in the film and press a red bar on the keyboard, if they
felt they had a decision to make about anything unusual that they saw or heard on the screen.
Having indicated that they had a decision to make, the staff member was then asked what he/she
would do in response to the cue. Their subsequent actions until they decided to evacuate the building
were also elicited. Staff actions were categorized into generic behaviours distilled from previous
research.8.9,10,11,12,13 namely, continue with activity, wait for information, alert, investigate, fight the
fire, guard the fire, prepare to evacuate, request help, evacuate customers, check the area, direct/assist
staff, evacuate self. Profiles of staff members in terms of age, gender, job title, time employed in the
store, nature and details of the training received, particular fire duties as well as their views on the
experience were also elicited. Other pertinent factors indicating their awareness of fire were also
elicited, eg, did they have fire alarms in their houses, had they installed them. Had they ever
experienced a real fire emergency, etc.
SAMPLE
One hundred and seventy two staff from eleven Marks and Spencer stores across Ireland and
Wales participated in the study. The sample represented on average 20% of the sales floor staff of
each store, and in terms of gender (80%female) and time employed in the Marks and Spencer (59%
employed between 1 and 10 years) they are representative of the Marks and Spencer general staff
profile10.
A breakdown of staff exposed to each fire cue and setting is given in Table 1.
Table 1 Breakdown of participants across fire cues and settings
Settings
Changing room
Coffee shop
Customer
service
Shop floor
Till
Total
Experimental cue
Total
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
Alarm
13
27.7%
30.2%
3
23.1%
7.0%
4
26.7%
9.3%
Flame
18
38.3%
27.3%
5
38.5%
7.6%
6
40.0%
9.1%
Smoke
16
34.0%
25.4%
5
38.5%
7.9%
5
33.3%
7.9%
47
100.0%
27.3%
13
100.0%
7.6%
15
100.0%
8.7%
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
Frequency
% from settings
% from fire cue
11
23.9%
25.6%
12
23.5%
27.9%
43
25.0%
100.0%
17
37.0%
25.8%
20
39.2%
30.3%
66
38.4%
100.0%
18
39.1%
28.6%
19
37.3%
30.2%
63
36.6%
100.0%
46
100.0%
26.7%
51
100.0%
29.7%
172
100.0%
100.0%
RESULTS
A comparison of the response behaviours of staff across the three fire cues, regardless of
their sequence and setting is given in Table 2
Table 2 Summary of staff responses for different fire cues
% of staff
Action
Alert
Evacuate customers
Investigate situation
Fight fire
Wait
Request help
I don’t know
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
9.3
95.3
48.8
0
7.0
0
0
95.2
84.9
13.6
28.8
7.6
4.5
1.5
97.0
84.1
27.0
4.8
7.9
3.2
3.2
From Table 2 it can be see that the response of staff will vary with cue. For example, it would appear
that a lesser percentage of staff faced with real fire manifestation (flame or smoke) would engage in
customers’ evacuation in comparison with staff exposed to the fire alarm. It is also evident and
perhaps surprising, that a large percentage (48.8%) of staff, on hearing the fire alarm, would
investigate the situation; this is rather more that those who responded to other fire cues i.e. 27.0% for
smoke and 13.6% for flame. A possible explanation is that the alarm is actually an ambiguous fire
cue for staff, because they consider that it might be a false alarm etc. In contrast, flame and smoke are
obvious manifestations of fire, with the greater percentage of staff investigating the situation with
smoke than with flame being explained by the fact that smoke is a perhaps a more ambiguous cue
than flame. Also of interest from Table 2 is that the percentage of staff who would fight the fire in
case of flame is five times greater than for smoke. This again may imply that the staff do not consider
smoke as a fire manifestation to the extent that they do the flame.
Detailed analysis of the responses of individuals to each of the fire cues by settings is presented in 2.
This analysis indicated that the majority of staff would perform four or five actions, while others
(mostly managers) would perform as many as eight. Due to the complex nature of the data, it is not
possible to present the detailed results in this paper
However, the analysis of the data indicates clear differences in the response of staff in different
settings to different cues. The analysis clearly shows that the staff in the changing room and at the
tills reacted similarly and in contrast to shop floor staff for each fire cue. Shop floor staff were more
likely to take active actions (i.e. evacuate customers, in the case of the fire alarm, or actively
investigate the situation and alert about it in case of flame and smoke cues). Shop floor staff response
was not necessarily the most appropriate, but certainly the most active. It indicates that the absence of
customer servicing duties and absence of bounded space induces different response. It was also found
that staff across all settings did not respond as appropriately to smoke as they did to the flame cue,
e.g. more staff across all settings investigated the situation in the smoke conditions in contrast to
flame (in general twice as many staff), also more staff requested help, didn’t know what to do, and
less staff phoned the fire brigade.
IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAINING
The analysis of the data obtained in this study clearly indicated wide variability in staff
response to the various fire cues. It was evident that some staff would not perform the actions
required of them (ie evacuate customers in event of alarm, or activate fire alarm, evacuate customers
in event of fire cue), that some staff would perform the required actions but in the wrong order and
that some staff would perform additional, unnecessary actions such as waiting for information,
investigate, double alerting.
A comparison of the actions of individuals in response to the various fire cues with the actions
required of them with respect to their current training was made. The main criteria for action
evaluation was performance of the required actions in an appropriate order. The percentage of staff
across all settings and cues who followed the training requirements was surprisingly low ie only
37.2%. A breakdown of the percentage of staff who followed training by fire cue is given in Table 3.
Table 3. Percentage of staff who followed training procedures by fire cue
Cue
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
Followed Training
(%)
44.2
39.4
30.2
From Table. 3 it can be seen, that the percentage of staff who followed training varied with cue. The
most appropriate responses were by staff who were exposed to the fire alarm with a less appropriate
response to the flame, and the least appropriate to smoke. This may be explained by the fact that staff
are trained to respond to the fire alarm through drills, and rarely trained to respond to flame and
smoke. The more inferior response to smoke than for flame is perhaps again related to the fact that
smoke is more ambiguous than flame.
It also suggests given the results of the fire , unannounced evacuations of Marks & Spencer stores that
only a relatively small number of staff may be required to ensure a successful evacuation1.
A breakdown of the percentage of staff who followed training as a response to the fire cues within the
settings is given in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Percentage of staff who followed training by fire cue and setting.
SETTINGS
Changing room
Till/counter
44.7
Shop floor
39.2
26.1
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
61.5
44.4
31.3
42.1
38.7
37.9
27.3
35.3
16.7
From Fig. 2, it can be seen that the percentage of staff who would follow training is similar for the
changing room and staff at tills/counter settings but is dramatically lower for shop floor settings.
Analysis of the actual responses of staff indicates, that this is due to the fact that most shop floor staff
would investigate the situation e.g. try to find a manager. The reason for the relatively low percentage
of staff at tills/counter who would follow training is that these staff in contrast to other settings are
more likely to wait for further instructions and to be passive. The higher rate of appropriate staff
response in the changing room can be explained by the fact that they have well defined
responsibilities for customers in the changing room for whom they took responsibility but also have
freedom to move.
Further, from Fig. 2 we can see that, with the exception of shop floor staff, staff response to the fire
alarm is better than for smoke and flame and staff response to flame is better than response to smoke
for any given setting. The situation with shop floor staff is slightly different – the best staff response is
for flame, the worst for smoke. This could be explained again from the position that the alarm and
smoke may be ambiguous compared to flame and, due to the absence of a constrained setting and
customers to be served, shop floor staff put a lot of effort into investigating the situation.
A FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTEGRATED MARKS AND
SPENCER STAF FIRE SAFETY TRAINING PROGRAMME
The current contextual setting for fire safety management of retail premises within the United
Kingdom is illustrated in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Contextual framework for Marks & Spencer Staff Fire Safety Training Programmes
Fire Safety
Engineering
Design
Health and
Safety
Legislation
Fire Safety
Management
Hazard/Risk
Assessment
The prescriptive/deemed to satisfy fire safety design regulations assume good fire safety management.
However, in performance based fire safety design fire safety management must be included in the
overall design philosophy. It must be; transparent, comprehensive, meet organizational needs,
demonstratable and auditable.
In the United Kingdom the requirements of health and safety legislation are a major consideration.
However, health and safety regulation does not expressly impose a duty on staff to put out fires or
manage the evacuation of premises in the event of fire. In addition the burden for continuing control
of fire safety in buildings in the United Kingdom is shifting from a certification process administered
by the fire brigades to a risk assessment process undertaken by the owners/occupiers of premises. The
foregoing briefly sets out the changing contextual environment which influences the fire safety
management of fire engineering premises in the United Kingdom.
Against this backcloth a framework for the development of an integrated staff fire safety training
programme for Marks and Spencer Plc is proposed, Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Schematic of proposed fire safety training concept of Marks and Spencer
Marks and Spencer organisational fire safety needs assessment
Staff fire emergency actions : task analysis
Fire Safety Workshop for all senior and Health & Safety staff
Fire Safety Training Workshop for training instructors
Fire Safety Instructor evaluation/qualification
Selection of core staff for fire safety emergencies/premises
Core staff fire safety training by qualified training instructors
Fire staff training evaluation
Store accreditation
Auditing of schemes
Underpinning this framework new teaching and learning materials will be produced and used in all of
the fire safety workshops. Eight fire safety modules would be delivered supported by experiments,
demonstrations, discussions and practical exercises. A New fire safety awareness video would be
developed based on a large scale replication of a typical Marks and Spencer department, Fig. 5 in
which real fire scenarios would be demonstrated. As part of the framework the computer based
training tool discussed in this paper would be further developed. Over 90% of the staff who used the
prototype found it very useful in that in confronted them with a better reality than any training tool
they had used before.
A major attribute of this enhanced computer based training tool is that it will facilitate measurement
of staff reliability in the performance of the necessary fire safety actions should an emergency occur.
An outline of the approach being developed is given in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Fire action preparedness level for a retail store
L
Alarm
0.94
L
L
0.62
L
L
0.035
SETTINGS
Changing room
Till/counter
Shop floor
0.06
0.46
0.48
Probability of being in these settings (estimate)
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
FIRE
FIRE
FIRE CUES
CUES
CUES
Flame
Smoke Alarm
Flame
Smoke
Alarm
Flame
Smoke
0.03
0.03
0.54
0.23
0.23
0.52
0.24
0.24
Probability of being exposed to the fire cue (estimate)
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
0.44
0.31
0.42
0.39
0.38
0.27
0.35
0.17
Probability of being followed training (experimental
data)
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
0.001
0.001
0.104
0.041
0.040
0.067
0.040
0.020
Probability of being followed training (with its weight)
Coefficient of FAPL
0.349
If the computed coefficient of staff fire awareness preparedness level, FAPL, is too low then
appropriate action can be taken particularly in areas where refresher training is required. Thus, for the
first time a measure of staff reliability with respect to fire safety training etc can be generated and
incorporated in a fire safety engineering design, safety case and risk assessment.
CONCLUSIONS
1.
Analysis of case studies, literature review and examination of the video tape of unannounced
evacuations of retail stores clearly indicates the primary and essential role of staff in
overcoming customer evacuation inertia.
2.
Video tapes of five unannounced evacuation of Marks and Spencer retail premises were
reanalyzed as part of this work. The mean staff pre-movement time across all settings was
17.2 secs. The shortest mean pre-movement time was for shop floor staff (5.6 secs), the
longest for tills/counters staff (22.0 secs).
3.
A prototype Computer Video Interview Technique (CVIT) was developed and successfully
applied in this research.
4.
Staff response varied with fire cue. The most likely response to the alarm was to investigate
the situation (46.5%), indicating that even with the training provided staff need confirmation
to respond.
5.
Staff exposed to the smoke cue were twice as likely as staff exposed to the flame cue to
investigate the situation, indicating that even with the training provided staff need
confirmation to respond.
6.
Staff exposed to the smoke cue were twice as likely as staff exposed to the flame cue to
investigate the situation, indicating that smoke is a more ambiguous cue than flame.
7.
The research findings confirm the concept of occupancy proposed by Sime, ie, staff response
to a particular cue varies with setting. For example, staff in the changing room are more
likely to investigate the situation and fight the fire in contract to tills/counters staff, but are
less active than shop floor staff. Staff within till/counter settings are more likely to wait
(because they are in direct contact with customers) and more likely to alert mostly because
they are constrained by their setting. Shop floor staff are more likely to take active actions ie,
evacuate customers in the case of the fire alarm siren, or actively investigate the situation and
alert about the fire in the case of flame and smoke cues.
8.
A comparison of the data in relation to staff response obtained with the computer video
presentation (CVP) and obtained from the videotapes of unannounced evacuation of Marks
and Spencer stores indicates that the CVP used in this study as a data collection tool retrieves
the required data with a reasonable degree of reliability for the given experimental settings.
9.
Only 37.2% of staff who participated in the experiments were deemed to have followed
training requirements, ie, perform prescribed actions in prescribed order.
10.
The large majority of staff said that the computer video presentation was useful as a training
tool since it represented realistic situational scenarios. All staff said that they would welcome
such a computer video presentation as a training tool in the future.
11.
Traditional building characterization such as “building type” or “type of occupancy” used in
fire safety engineering is nowadays insufficient for building characterization because as it has
been confirmed in this thesis building occupant in different buildings settings are involved in
different activities that might result in differences in response.
12.
A simple to use SFALP (Staff fire Action Preparedness Level) technique was developed using
data generated using the CVIT. The CVIT together with the SFALP offer the potential to
evaluate the effectiveness of Marks and Spencer fire safety training programmes at
international, national, regional and individual store level.
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