Learn Hotel Housekeeping Safety

Hello, and thank you for watching VisiHow. This tutorial on hotel housekeeping safety for slips, trips & falls. This tutorial may also be applicable to many other industries because slips, trips & falls are a common source of injuries on the job in many professions. Today we will discuss some common causes as well as some tips for injury prevention.

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   To begin, some common causes of slips, trips & falls include

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   A wet or oily surface, spills (if we have some food or drink that has been spilled in a restaurant or hallway), damaged or uneven flooring (this may take the form of a broken tile, bunched carpet, or an uneven walking surface), poor lighting, objects in the way (if the path has been obstructed by a stack of chairs, set of tables, or some boxes), as well as weather hazards, especially if we live in an area where we receive a lot of rain, sleet, hail, snow or ice. Those are some of the common causes.

   

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   Now, some injury prevention techniques include using proper signage (the yellow caution signs that say "Caution

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   Wet floor"). We need to make sure that we are using those, especially if we have a wet or oily surface or a spill, until several minutes after that spill is cleared.

   

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   We need to make sure that the staff is wearing rubber soled shoes, especially close toed, which will prevent the tips of the toes from becoming more injured and the rubber soles are good for many different types of surfaces, especially marble flooring or another surface which may become a little bit slippery for a fancier dress shoe

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   If we're working in housekeeping, as a bellman, as an engineer or in the kitchen, we need to make sure that our staff is wearing the correct footwear.

   

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   We should also use an appropriate walking pace, nothing that's too fast, so that if we do hit an area where the floor becomes uneven, we can help ensure that we're not going to injure ourselves

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   We cannot completely prevent it, but we can reduce our chances of becoming injured if we're walking at an appropriate pace.

   

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   If there is debris on the floor, an object in the way, or a wet or oily surface, we need to make sure that it gets cleaned up relatively quickly and that we're using the proper signage until the spill has been cleaned and the floor has dried

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   We need to maintain the quality of the flooring

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   If our carpets are bunched, we need to make sure we're looking at those. We need to make sure that any type of nail isn't poking out of the floor and the carpets are laying evenly so that the guests and staff don't trip over the carpets. We also need to make sure that our tiles are not broken.

   

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   We need to keep our areas well lit, especially in high traffic areas

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   Make sure that we are regularly checking and changing all of the lightbulbs.

   

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   We also need to clear any clutter

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   Objects in the way such as boxes, stacks of chairs, rows of tables could all be a hazard for people that are walking so we need to make sure that the walking path is kept clear and any open drawers are closed.

   

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   This concludes the tutorial on hotel housekeeping safety for slips, trips & falls

   .

   If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them in the space below.

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Hello, and thank you for watching VisiHow. Today's tutorial is on hotel housekeeping safety for injury & strain prevention. This tutorial may also be applicable to many other types of jobs since the same movements that may cause injuries to a hotel housekeeper are very common and can cause injury to an employee in a variety of jobs. Today we will discuss possible movements that may cause injury to a hotel housekeeper, as well as some tips and techniques to prevent those types of injuries.

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   A hotel housekeeper may become injured from any of the following movements

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   Lifting, Bending, Kneeling, Twisting & Reaching. All of these are very common movements that are used throughout the cleaning process. Since a hotel room should be cleaned in an average of 25 minutes, these movements may be done a little bit quicker, trying to make sure that the room gets turned over which actually increases the risk of injury during the time the housekeeper is trying to prepare the room. In addition, the beds in a hotel have heavy mattresses and the housekeeper may be changing the sheets on those beds alone, needing to lift up the mattress in order to properly make the bed. We need to make sure that we are doing all of these movements carefully and properly to minimize our risk of injury.

   

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   In addition, Repetitive Muscle Use or Repetitive Strain Injury is quite common for an administrator or receptionist

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   I found in my own time as a hotel receptionist for about 10 years, I did actually give myself a muscular injury that was related to the use the same set of muscles over and over again. Especially with issuing a guest's room key, I would use the same arm to give the key to every guest. In a 300 room hotel, I could hand a key out several hundred times if we have a lot of check-ins, people that have lost or forgotten their key, as well as people with keys that have stopped working. We will find ourselves making the same movements several times per day and that can cause us to become slightly injured.

   

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   Fatigue can also directly cause an injury on the job because we are more likely to take a shortcut to get the job done

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   When we're trying to take a shortcut, we might be less careful about doing the job, which increases the risk of becoming injured.

   

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   Finally, Improper Cart Use

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   Housekeepers are transporting all of the guest room amenities, which are towels, sheets, soaps, and shampoos on a housekeeping cart, so we want to make sure we're using that cart correctly to minimize the risk of injuring ourselves.

   

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   Some tips or techniques to prevent these types of injuries and strains include practicing proper lifting

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   We may have heard that we need to bend our knees and list using the strength of our legs and knees as opposed to bending over and lifting with our back. If we do bend over and lift with our back, we are more likely to throw our back out, which will cause us to be temporarily out of work since we can't do the job.

   

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   Proper Positioning, especially when we're bending, kneeling, twisting and reaching is also important

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   If we're reaching across a desk to clean the top of a picture frame, reaching over to wipe a mirror, across the shower, or up high, we might make a wrong movement or twist ourselves in a way to get an injury. We need to make sure that we're not straining in a way that may cause an injury. We may find that in order to clean the shower head and clean the walls of the shower, we might have to actually step inside of the shower to clean it.

   

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   Take proper rest time and breaks because housekeeping is a demanding job

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   We should have some proper time to rest in our schedule, especially if we find ourselves cleaning up to 15 rooms a day. We need to make sure that we're letting our muscles get some rest at some points throughout the day.

   

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   Don't overwork the muscles

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   In the sense of repetitive muscle use, we did discuss my position as a receptionist and how I was using the same arm to issue a guest key several times a day for everyone that came and asked for one. I could have avoided this injury by simply giving the key away with the other hand sometimes. Make sure that if we're doing a receptive movement, we try to use the other hand, other side, or other way to complete the movement, so that we don't overuse a muscle group and cause a strain.

   

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   Finally, we should make sure that housekeepers are pushing the carts and not pulling them

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   If the carts are pulled, the housekeeper may go backwards and fall, pull the cart onto their toes, and also strain their back and arms. It is much better for our body to make sure that we're pushing the cart instead of pulling it around.

   

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    This concludes today's tutorial on hotel housekeeping safety for injury and strain prevention, which goes over some of the ways that hotel housekeepers can become injured on the job, as well as injury prevention techniques and tips

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    If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them in the space below.

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Hello, and thank you for watching VisiHow. This tutorial is on hotel housekeeping safety for personal protective equipment (which is abbreviated as PPE). There are many cases where the housekeeper or a member of the staff could come in contact with a substance or situation that requires personal protection equipment. They may be exposed to blood or other body fluids that they need to clean. They may also be exposed to furniture with sharp edges, nails or staples poking out of the floor, as well as chemicals. We need PPE when we're cleaning to make sure that we don't come into contact with something that's going to make us ill or injured.

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   Some examples of personal protective equipment include sleeve protectors, to protect our arms

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   Face shields and safety glasses make sure that our eyes and face are protected, especially when dealing with chemicals

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   Aprons protect our body from any spills

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   Gloves protect our hands, especially around chemicals or sharp corners

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   Slip resistant shoes and boots will protect ourselves against slips, trips & falls, especially if we're doing a lot of floor stripping and mopping

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   This concludes the tutorial on hotel housekeeping safety for personal protective equipment

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   If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them in the space below.

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Hello, and thank you for watching VisiHow. This tutorial is on hotel housekeeping safety for chemical storage & use. It's very important that we know how to properly store and use any chemicals that are found throughout the property, to prevent injury to ourselves as well as any spoilage or mixing of chemicals that should not be put together, because they may create a fume that is highly toxic.

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   To begin, the supplier that supplies the chemicals will also supply us with the Material Safety Data Sheet, which is abbreviated MSDS

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   The MSDS should be stored in a location such as a binder that is easily accessible, so that if someone does not know how to properly use or store something, they can access this information. The MSDS will give us all of the information about the concentration of the chemicals, the composition of the chemicals, how they can be used or mixed, what they can not be mixed with, and how we should store them. The MSDS are very important and should be accessible to anyone who may need a refresher as to how the particular chemical needs to be used.

   

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   There should be proper ventilation in areas where we are using the chemicals, to control fumes that are very toxic

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   We also need to use our PPE (personal protective equipment) to make sure that we're not inhaling or spilling something on ourselves that's going to cause a great deal of injuries.

   

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   We need to properly store the chemicals

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   Many chemicals will require a clear, cool and dry location for storage.

   

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   We may need a separate area for chemicals that are particularly hazardous

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   If they have very toxic fumes, they should be kept in a controlled, locked room and not as easily as accessible.

   

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   Any spray bottles that we have should be properly labeled

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   Many times when we receive the chemicals from the supplier, they will come in a larger bottle. From the larger bottle, we will refill smaller spray bottles that can be used in the daily cleaning process by the housekeepers. The spray bottles should be properly labeled so that they don't inadvertently mix something that's going to create a toxic fume or oily mess when the housekeeper tries to use it.

   

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   Any damaged containers that we have should be replaced so that they don't leak

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   All lids for chemicals should be kept secured so that if something is knocked over and spilled, the fumes are not leaking out

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   This concludes the tutorial on hotel housekeeping safety with some guidelines for chemical storage and use

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   If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them in the space below.

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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