In the hospitality industry, your management team expects their business to be safe for guests, employees and vendors. If you are responsible for safety in a hospitality business, then you are charged with meeting those expectations.
Staying competitive requires more than just complying with safety and regulatory requirements. Today's demanding markets require:
Reducing accidents and their loss costs;
improving operations;
recognition as an "Employer of Choice" to attract the most qualified job candidates;
enhancing the "Image" of your company, and increasing its franchise value (Branding).
To accomplish these objectives, you need two things:
A targeted process (plan) to gets specific results;
"Buy-in" and support of the stakeholders and partners within your company.
Answer: To improve profits. Compliance with codes and standards protects your organization from catastrophic incidents and liability based on negligence. But statistics show that losses in our industry do not always align with regulatory requirements and compliance. The reason to have management focus beyond compliance is to provide focus on the most important areas of safety to protect the company and to improve the bottom line.
Safety in the hospitality industry is ubiquitous. Some of your safety responsibilities may include: fire and life safety, fleet/transportation, security, Workers' Compensation, food & liquor safety, and protecting special venues (pools, exercise areas, scheduled events, and outside companies providing services). You are challenged to protect the public visiting your hotel, registered guests, vendors (providing you with goods and/ or services), your co-workers, and the company's assets (both tangible and intangible [the value and/or the perception of the value the company name represents]). Your actions affect both:
Company profitability (by reducing accidents), and
Operational efficiency (by providing a safe working environment).
The vast majority of the people on your site are not even aware of the possible hazards they may face. It is your task to make their time with you safe in a way that is transparent to them. They are focused on attending an event, relaxing on vacation or business trip, providing you with their goods and/or services. Many are not even aware of their surroundings (where they are, what is occurring in their area, or even how to summon assistance).
In Safety we focus on meeting OSHA standards. We look at prior OSHA visits to our industry and the citations that were generated as a way to assign importance to sections of our safety program. We feel that if we know what standards OSHA issues citations against, then we will know how we can pass their inspection. Table 1 shows a comparison between Federal OSHA and a state administered program and the citations that were generated after their inspections.