Across the United States of America, in states including Illinois, New York, New Jersey and, most recently, California, regulations are being passed to protect hotel workers from assault. Largely, perhaps, as a result of the #MeToo movement, housekeepers are being issued with panic buttons that they can use in the event of assault.
The technology behind these panic buttons takes different forms, including GPS that tracks the employee as they move around, wi-fi enabled fobs and mobile phone applications, which can be integrated with a physical panic button.
One of the biggest costs associated with the hospitality business is employee turnover. Ensuring a safe workplace for your employees is vital and issuing panic buttons can be an effective way for a housekeeper to know that they are protected should an unpleasant situation arise. Being able to alert staff of an incident with just the push of a button allows housekeepers to be more comfortable working alone in quiet places and feel in control of their own safety.
Whilst there are many companies offering variations of a panic button, the general idea is as follows:
- If an unpleasant situation were to arise, the worker pushes the button on the device.
- The location of the worker is transmitted.
- Alerts are sent to hotel security or management via notification. The software identifies the precise location of where the button was pressed and provides data about the unfolding situation.
- Hotel staff are then sent to respond to the emergency.
This means that data is sent to the correct people to ensure that an emergency can be responded to as soon as possible. Some programmes allow for a video to be triggered by a certain event, for example, a doorway being breached out-of-hours. This allows users to watch a situation unfold and therefore respond appropriately quickly.
If your hotel is considering issuing panic buttons to your workers, call us on +44 203 034 2244 or +1 323 984 8908. Alternately, you can contact us online. We will connect your panic buttons to Wi-Fi and integrate them into your systems so your workers can have peace of mind that they are protected. We have engineering bases in the United Kingdom, Europe and Southern California and our group of highly experienced engineers are available 24/7 to assist and ensure your business’ IT infrastructure is running seamlessly.
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