Health and Safety Regulations for SHRM in the Hospitality Sector

In order to thrive in the modern hospitality industry, a company should provide outstanding service to its clients, which is why most businesses focus on making their customers comfortable and satisfying most if not all of their needs and demands. While such a client-orientated attitude is good for the revenue, it often leads companies to forget about their employees who are forced to work long hours in unwholesome conditions. For instance, Sönmez et al. (2017) note that US firms in the accommodation sector try to reduce their costs at the expense of the safety of their immigrant workers, which results in employees’ exposure to unnecessary health risks at work. Meanwhile, the wellbeing and satisfaction of company workers are the key factors in creating a successful business strategy as the quality of rendered services is directly affected by the people who provide them. This essay will discuss the benefits of educating hotel managers about safety policies and evaluate the relevance of our class presentation on employees’ health and welfare to strategical human resource management in the domain of hospitality.

In recent years, more and more companies realize the importance of effective health and safety initiatives. It is now commonly recognized that the opportunity to work in a safe and healthy environment is a basic need of any person (Lee, Back & Chan 2015). Furthermore, the research has demonstrated that workers’ safety contributes to the perceived quality of work-life (Lee et al. 2015) and has a positive effect on job commitment and performance while decreasing work alienation (Kaynak et al. 2016). Therefore, to increase their productivity and minimize employee turnover, the companies in the hotel industry should invest their time and money in educating managers about occupational health threats and ways of dealing with work-related physical and psychological trauma. Our class presentation is a useful source of information about the key concepts in the field of occupational safety that can provide hotel managers with initial insight into techniques used to create an injury-free workplace environment.

One of the goals of our presentation was to raise awareness of health and safety issues at work. In today’s fast-paced and economically orientated world, it is easy to forget about the well-being of employees. Our short presentation of work-related health hazards can serve as a powerful tool for reminding hotel management about the importance of workers’ safety. Furthermore, according to Solnet, Kralj, and Baum (2015, p. 272), there is a “growing trend of HRM [human resource management] functions being moved away from HR professionals and toward line supervisors”, which means that hotel managers might not have the necessary knowledge and skills to introduce effective policies for protecting the health of employees. In such circumstances, our class presentation will help to familiarize employers in the hospitality industry with the basic concepts of workers’ health, safety, and welfare. Additionally, the information on the civil laws concerning safety management contained in the presentation could aid hotel managers in devising health policies that comply with official state requirements.

Our presentation dedicated special attention to the psychological well-being of employees that is often regarded as a secondary issue in the context of work. Nevertheless, a study by Paek et al. (2015) found that psychological capital significantly contributed to work engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Thus, to effectively function in their work environment, hotel workers need not only to be satisfied with the physical aspects of their workplace but also to feel self-efficient, optimistic, and resilient. Unfortunately, modern society applauds hard work, determination, and financial success, meaning that psychological well-being is commonly overlooked by both employers and employees. Our class presentation included excerpts of people’s discussions concerning the necessity of rest for healthy and sane lives, which, I hope, could remind hotel management to include in company policies the procedures aimed at protecting and restoring the psychological health of hotel workers.

While some hotel businesses are already aware of the importance of creating a safe working environment for their employees, they sometimes fail to devise effective measures for protecting workers’ health. For example, when interviewing Latina housekeepers in the United States, Hsieh, Apostolopoulos, and Sönmez (2016) observed that despite hotels’ attempts at increasing workers’ safety, most employees reported feeling that their health was poorly protected. One of the reasons for this was the fact that hotel management did not consider such detail as English language proficiency when placing health and safety posters in the common areas. Additionally, the hotels from the study overlooked such effective techniques of injury prevention as accident investigation that could have helped to establish the reasons for a work-related trauma and avoid similar instances in the future. To guide strategic human resource management in their choice of safety measures for a hotel, the presentation included examples of injury prevention strategies used by a Hilton hotel and suggested effective ways of dealing with an occurred trauma.

Human resource management in the hospitality sector is slowly accepting the role of health and safety regulations in the successful development of hotel businesses. Our class presentation was devised as a short yet informative introduction to the issues of work-related injuries. With this presentation, we aimed to highlight the importance of a safe work environment, list the main threats to the safety of hotel workers, and offer possible ways of improving the physical and psychological well-being of employees in the hospitality industry. While our presentation did not cover all aspects of work-related safety, I believe that it gathered enough information to provide hotel management with basic knowledge for enhancing the work conditions of hotel personnel.

Reference List

Hsieh, YC, Apostolopoulos, Y & Sönmez, S 2016, ‘Work conditions and health and well-being of Latina hotel housekeepers’, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 568-581.

Kaynak, R, Toklu, AT, Elci, M & Toklu, IT 2016, ‘Effects of occupational health and safety practices on organizational commitment, work alienation, and job performance: using the PLS-SEM approach’, International Journal of Business and Management, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 146.

Lee, JS, Back, KJ & Chan, ES 2015, ‘Quality of work life and job satisfaction among frontline hotel employees: a self-determination and need satisfaction theory approach’, International journal of contemporary hospitality management, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 768-789.

Sönmez, S, Apostolopoulos, Y, Lemke, MK, Hsieh, YCJ & Karwowski, W 2017, ‘Complexity of occupational health in the hospitality industry: dynamic simulation modeling to advance immigrant worker health’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 67, pp. 95-105.

Paek, S, Schuckert, M, Kim, TT & Lee, G 2015, ‘Why is hospitality employees’ psychological capital important? The effects of psychological capital on work engagement and employee morale’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 50, pp. 9-26.

Solnet, D, Kralj, A & Baum, T 2015, ‘360 degrees of pressure: The changing role of the HR professional in the hospitality industry’, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 271-292.