Ways To Have Your Grocery Store Staff Manage Your Refrigerator Night Covers

If you own a grocery store, even if it's small, you've made a significant investment in commercial refrigeration. You'll definitely want to make one more investment that can pay off in a number of ways: buying night covers for your open refrigerators. These covers operate much in the same manner as blinds. They mount to the top of each refrigerator, and a staff member can pull them down to cover the opening at night. This means that the machines will have to run less, because the covers are keeping their cool air in, rather than letting it escape into the store. As a result, you can turn down your units to save money. Here are some ways to have your employees manage these covers.

Begin To Pull Them Down Before Closing Time

You'll want to get the night covers pulled down as soon as possible at the end of the day, as every minute that they're down, you'll be saving money. There's no harm in having some of your employees begin to pull these covers down shortly before your grocery store closes. Many stores adopt this policy, and it's minimally disruptive. Any customer who needs something that is behind one of the covers, can either push the cover aside or ask for assistance. You'll know how busy your store is before it closes. For example, if it closes at 10 p.m., it might be fairly empty after about 9:45 p.m.,  making this a good time to start closing the covers.

Make Closing Them A Top Priority After You Close

Whether or not you have your employees close your refrigerator night covers before the store actually closes, you should make this a top priority once you no longer allow customers in. Enact a policy that assigns this task to a handful of staff members as soon as the store closes. Make them aware that this task is a money-saver; just a few minutes after the store closes, you should be able to circulate and see that all of the refrigerator night covers are down.

Open Them Right Before The Store Opens

When your grocery store employees begin reporting to work in the morning before the store opens, you should make it clear that the night covers need to be up before customers begin to enter. However, you don't want your staff members doing this job too early. It's better to happen immediately before the store opens, as you'll be saving money right up to that point. For example, if your grocery store opens at 8 a.m., but employees arrive at 7 a.m., you might want to have them quickly open the covers at about 7:55 a.m.