1. Chapter 9: Safety and Property Security

2. Personal Safety: Legal Liability & Guest Safety
Protection of an individual’s physical well-being and health
Security
Protection of an individual or of business’ property or assets
Hotels are not required to ensure guest safety.
However, must exercise reasonable care for guest and employee safety.
Hotel may be held wholly or partially liable for resulting loss or injury if it is found that a hotel has exhibited an absence of reasonable care for guest safety.
Differentiate the meaning between safety and security.
Emphasize that laws do not hold hotels responsible for everything that happens to guests during their stay as long as the hotel has exhibited a legal standard of “reasonable care” for guest safety.
Explain the meaning of “reasonable care” (a legal concept identifying the amount of care a reasonably prudent person would exercise in a specific situation) and liability (being legally bound to compensate for loss or injury)
Hotels are not required to ensure guest safety.
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

3. Personal Safety: Staffing for Security
Operation of Safety & Security Committee
Reinforces that:
Guest safety and hotel security is the responsibility of every manager, supervisor, & employee of the hotel.
Employee safety training
Training employees to 1) ensure guest safety, 2) work safely, and 3) assist hotel’s security efforts.
Employee safety training is an ongoing process
Safety and Security Committee is an interdepartmental task force comprising hotel managers, supervisors, and hourly employees charged with monitoring and refining a hotel’s safety and security efforts.
Question 2 in “Issues at Work” (Chapter 9) reinforces that all of the hotel’s employees should share concern for guest safety. This question further asks who should be responsible to ensure whether activities for guest safety are implemented successfully or not, depending on the size of hotel.
Local law enforcement
Facility Engineering & Maintenance
Local law enforcement officials can provide no-cost safety and security training for employees.
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

4. Personal Safety: Safety Resources
Recodable locks
Reduce chance for guests to be victimized in their rooms by someone who had rented the same room on a prior night
Help reduce the incident of employee theft from rooms
Surveillance systems
Use of VCR
- Recording activity at front desk, in parking areas, and near cashiers
* Quality recodable locks consist of electronic door locks that “stand-alone”, meaning that there is no need to wire the locks back to a central computer.
Use of CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television)
In a multiple-entry property where management desires to monitor
activity outside each entrance
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

5. Personal Safety: Safety Resources
Alarm systems
Internal alarms
Serve to deter criminal or mischief activity
Notify an area within the hotel if alarm is activated
Protect storage areas, hotel facilities (pools, spa, and exercise areas), and hotel and perimeter
Contact alarms
Notify (contact) an external entity such as fire or police departments if alarm is activated
When the E&M department implements a “replace as needed” program, it means a parts or equipment replacement plan that delays installing a new, substitute part until the original part fails or is in near failure; on the other hand, a “total replacement” program involves a parts or equipment replacement plan that involves installing new or substitute parts based on a predetermined schedule.
Question 1 in “Issues at Work” (Chapter 11) asks students to discuss factors influencing the decision between “replace as need” approach and systematic “total replacement”.
Both federal law and local building codes mandate hotel fire alarms
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

6. Personal Safety: Safety Resources
Emergency Plans: the identification of a threat to the safety and security of the hotel & hotel’s planned response to the threat
Response to events in most hotels’ emergency plans
Fire / power outages / severely inclement weather / robbery / death or injury to a guest or employee / bomb threat / intense negative publicity by the media
An emergency plan must be a written document, including:
Type of crisis
Who should be told when the crisis occurs
What should be done and who should do it in the crisis
Who should be informed of the results or impact of the crisis when it is over
When safety and security emergencies occur in the hotel, hotel management and employees must deal with those emergent situations quickly and appropriately. To do so, the G.M. together with appropriate managers need to plan ahead for foreseeable crises such as severe weather storms. The emergency plan can be used to prepare the hotel for a crisis.
Emergency plan is a document describing a hotel’s predetermined, intended response to a safety/security threat.
Question 3 in “Issues at Work” (Chapter 9) asks a student’ opinion on whether he or she would include “fire drill” that involve clearing the hotel of all guests as a way of practicing the final plan’s implementation, if he or she were a G.M.?
Where practical, hotels should practice implementation of their plan !
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

7. Personal Safety: Special Safety Issues
Swimming pools
Figure 9.1 lists ten key practices for swimming pool safety
Spas
Figure 9.2 lists ten key practices for spa safety
Parking lots
Figure 9.3 lists ten key practices for parking lot safety
* Discuss the first case study at “Managers at Work” relating to the safety issues in swimming pools.
Always remember how to improve guest safety and minimize the legal liability of the hotel!
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

8. Personal Safety: Documenting Safety Efforts
All hotels should document their safety and security related efforts!
Prepare & complete MOD checklists for each critical area of hotel
Appropriate frequency, content and number of checklist
should be determined
Incident reports listing the “who, what, where, and how” should be filed and maintained
MOD (Manager on Duty) is the individual on the hotel property responsible for making any management decisions required during the period he or she is MOD.
Refer to Figure 9.4 to view the sample of the MOD checklist for parking areas. If wished, extend the discussion by creating one more MOD checklist example in the area of swimming pools and/or spas.
Incident report documents details of an accident, injury, or disturbance, and the hotel’s response to it.
Emphasize that the hotel’s documenting efforts relating to the safety and security of guests can be useful to prove that hotel has exercised reasonable care toward protecting guest safety/security.
Document minutes from safety and security committee meetings, general staff meeting’s notes relevant to safety issues, records of employee training related to safety and security, and safety seminars attended by employees
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

9. Personal Safety: Occupational Safety & Health Administration
OSHA regulations ensure businesses:
Provide a safe workplace for employees by complying with OSHA safety and health standards
Provide workers with only tools and equipment that meet OSHA specifications for health and safety
Establish training programs for employees who operate dangerous equipment
Report to OSHA within 48 hrs of any worksite accident that results in fatality or requires hospitalization of five or more employees
Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is a written statement describing the potential hazards of, and best ways to handle, a chemical or toxic substance. An MSDS is provided by the manufacturer of the chemical or toxic substance to the buyer of the product and must be posted and made available where it is easily accessible to those who will actually use the product.
Maintain the “OSHA Log 200” (an on-site record of work- related injuries or illness) and submit it to OSHA once per year
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

10. Personal Safety: The Occupational Safety & Health Administration
OSHA regulations ensure businesses (continued…)
Display OSHA notices regarding employee rights and safety in prominent places within the hotel
Provide all employees access to the Material Safety Data Sheets that provide information about the dangerous chemicals they may be handling during work
Offer no-cost hepatitis B vaccinations for employees who may have come into contact with blood or body fluids
Compliance with OSHA standards
Results in
Fewer accidents
lower insurance costs
healthier workforce
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

11. Property Security: Threats to Asset Security - Internal Threats
Hotels bond those employees in a position to embezzle funds
Methods of fraud related to cashiering
Charging guests for items not purchased, then keeping the overcharge
Changing totals on credit card charges after the guest has left or
imprinting additional credit card charges and pocketing the cash
difference
Misadding legitimate charges to create a higher-than-appropriate total with the intent of keeping the overcharge
Revisit the terms of safety and security here again. Safety-related hotel programs are designed to keep people safe from harm, whereas security-related efforts are directed toward protecting property from theft or damage.
Embezzlement is the theft of a company’s financial assets by an employee.
Bond(ing) means purchasing an insurance policy against the possibility that an employee will steal.
Voiding legitimate sales as “mistakes” and keeping the cash amount of the legitimate sale
Facility Engineering & Maintenance 9
Charging higher-than-appropriate prices for hotel goods or services, recording the proper price, then keeping the overcharge
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

12. Property Security: Threats to Asset Security - Internal Threats (continued….)
Three noncash assets most subject to employee theft:
Time
Should have strong controls in place regarding time cards.
Company property
Carefully screen employees prior to hiring
Reduce theft opportunities by using effective security
Treat all proven cases of similar theft in a similar manner
Current technology is available to assist a chief engineer determine what must be maintained and how frequently to schedule preventative maintenance program
Services
Monitor long-distance telephone bills generated by each administrative telephone extension number
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

13. Property Security: Threats to Asset Security - External Threats
Cash
Robbery is not the occasion to attempt the protection of cash assets.
Robbery is the time to protect staff !
During a robbery, complying with robber’s demands and observing the robber should be the employee’s sole concern.
If no contact alarm is installed in the cashier’s cash drawer, an employee who is robbed should, at the earliest safe opportunity, contact local law enforcement officials as well as others indicated in the robbery section of the hotel’s emergency plan.
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

14. Other assets: security-conscious manager:
Property Security: Threats to Asset Security External Threats (continued….)
Other assets: security-conscious manager:
Hang all artwork in lobbies & guest rooms with lock-down style hangers
Avoid placing valuable decorations & décor pieces in areas where they can be easily taken by guests
Train room attendants to alert management if excessive amounts of in-room items go missing from stay-over rooms
Bolt televisions securely to guestroom furniture
Train all employees to be alert regarding loss of hotel property & to report any suspicious activity
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

15. Property Security: Threats to Asset Security Department-Specific Threats to Asset Security
Front Office
Largest area of security concern is fraudulent selling of rooms
Use housekeeping discrepancy report to detect room revenue fraud
Housekeeping
Guest-theft of housekeeping supplies
Theft from guest rooms by room attendants or other employees
- best policy is to report the incident to local law enforcement
* Discrepancy report is a daily comparison between the status of rooms as listed by the PMS at the front office, and the status of rooms as listed by the housekeeping department.
The second case study at “Managers at work” provides a scenario of a guest complaint about theft of her necklace from her room while she was away, and she claims her loss against the hotel. The text presents four possibilities: 1) the guest is mistaken, and the necklace reported stolen has been misplaced, 2) the guest is attempting to defraud the hotel, 3) the theft was committed but by another guest, 4) a hotel employee, in fact, committed the theft. What sort of tools can help to determine such a scenario?
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

16. Maintenance & Engineering
Property Security: Threats to Asset Security Department-Specific Threats to Asset Security
Food & Beverage
Hotel suppliers such as silverware and glassware taken by guests
Employees accepting kickbacks from vendors or by purchasing, then stealing, food and beverage items intended for the hotel
Sales & Marketing
Misstating mileage traveled, clients entertained, or sales trips taken
Maintenance & Engineering
Employee theft of hand tools and supplies
Implementing a sign-in/sign-out program for tools
Hotel Operations Management, 1/e ©2004 Pearson Education Hayes/Ninemeier Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458