Ever notice that most cashiers/checkers you see in this country are standing? They almost never have any form of seating, choose the most comfortable shoes they can find… and way too often have issues with varicose veins and muscle aches. Ask grocery store designers why swivel or other kinds of chairs are not made available. If they can even venture an answer, they might tell you that standing checkers are more productive and more responsive to customers. Really? We just don’t do that here! Why?
There are supermarkets all over the planet these days, and if you have visited a such a grocery store in Europe… and have the slightest memory of that experience… you just might remember that almost all the cashiers all have chairs. We have visions of French or Italian shoppers wending their way through massive open air farmers’ markets or local specialty shops – like boulangeries or charcuteries – but the convenience of big supermarkets is exceptionally common even there. The above photograph of a caissière de supermarché (supermarket cashier) was taken at a French grocery store. Notice that red thing in the background? We call that a “chair.”
We always think that when it comes to business, retailing included, America does it best. This commercial arrogance has been with us a long time. As President Calvin Coolidge said almost a century ago, “The business of America is business.” The notion stuck; we tend to think that if we do it, that has to be the best business way to do it. But even in simple things like seating or standing cashiers, we just might not have it right. Writing for the January 19th FastCompany.com, Talib Visram explored this American assumption about seated cashiers:
“While researching for a chapter of a book on low-wage work, Françoise Carré, research director at the Center for Social Policy at UMass Boston, had invited European colleagues to her city to observe at a Target store. When the visitors came to the cashiers standing at their registers, the guests, Carré says, ‘kept saying: ‘Why are they standing?’’
“Meanwhile, Chris Tilly, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, noticed the same was true of the reverse. Showing photo slides of seated European cashiers to an American audience once prompted laughter. ‘It’s like, what’s wrong with this picture?’
“In America, cashiers stand. That’s due to managerial expectations of customer service and buying into myths about productivity—and customers who have never seen anything else simply accepting it. But in Europe and the U.K., though responsibilities somewhat differ, cashiers are seated, and productivity is often higher. In recent years, U.S. cashiers have filed lawsuits citing age-old ‘right to sit’ laws, with mixed results. But grocery companies continue to fight hard against such regulations, and there’s a lack of union strength to counter it.
“Together, Carré and Tilly were part of a research team for a 2012 study that compared cashier work models in the U.S. and France, considering aspects like pay, productivity, and physical working position, using interviews and observations at various grocery chains. They found the main reason American managers prefer the seated position is job function: Because American cashiers tend to bag items. Standing is thought to provide more flexibility, to swivel and pivot from the till to the customer and to the bags. In Europe, bagging is the customer’s responsibility.
“Managers also claimed standing leads to better productivity, given the greater freedom of movement to do more tasks. But the researchers found that the seated French cashiers scanned more items than their U.S. counterparts: The highest rates of scanning in the U.S. lined up with the lowest in France. (Partly, this was because the clock stops when the American cashier starts to bag.)”
There are all kinds of efforts by American workers to create safer and more comfortable working conditions these days. Unions are focused heavily these days on organizing workers at Starbucks and Amazon. Indeed, in New York Amazon facilities there are recent charges that the workplace focus is “efficiency over safety.”
While standing vs sitting does not rise to the top of labor union targets, perhaps it should. “Culture may explain the bagging trend. Early in the 20th century, grocery stores functioned like ‘general stores,’ where a worker would fetch, bag, and ring up items. As supermarkets gradually emerged, followed by big-box stores, customers expected the service—versus in Europe, where the jump from corner stores to hypermarkets was comparatively sudden, allowing a reset of expectations. Retail labor is also cheaper in the U.S., and stores hire more part-time workers, making that added service more feasible.
“They also noted the seated French workers complained as the American cashiers did of the strain of repetitive motions. But health research has shown that standing for long periods can cause problems from back pain to leg swelling—and may even carry a higher risk of heart disease than among those who mainly sit. Extended sitting is bad, too, and can lead to risks like high blood pressure and diabetes. Ergonomic studies have shown that, like office workers, cashiers should ideally rotate between sitting and standing. ‘No country seems to have adopted that as a standard,’ Tilly says.
“But American workers are clearly feeling the strain of standing. Many have filed class-action lawsuits, citing century-old ‘right to sit’ laws, existing in almost every state, which guarantee the right to sit during employment when standing is not necessary. They emerged during the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century, largely driven by women workers in the labor movement—which explains why many of the laws are gendered: In 19 states, they still apply only to women.
“In California, lawsuits against CVS in 2016 and Walmart in 2018 were successful; the latter paid out $65 million to 100,000 workers. But there’s a loophole in the laws: Companies have to only show that workers are expected to do other tasks that require them to stand—for cashiers, that could be restocking or cleaning up. That has meant some more recent lawsuits to fail, including a recent one where the California court ruled that Ralph’s did not have to provide chairs to employees.” Visram. Hmmm. More than you wanted to know or an interest possibility for future efforts to make a workplace more comfortable, especially in an era of worker shortages.
I’m Peter Dekom, and what do we tell US grocery checkers with sore backs: if you can’t stand the job, get out of the store?
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