What is risk management in the hotel industry?

Risk management for hotels is the process of identifying, assessing and controlling risks to your staff and customers. This includes operational risks, safety, financial and technological risks. 

Where other hospitality businesses might focus on a single environment like a restaurant, hotels need to ensure that every facility they offer is safe and compliant, including restaurants, bars, leisure facilities and customer accommodation.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic risk management has taken on even more importance, and its scope can include anything from hygiene to building maintenance.  It is vital that your hotel’s risk management system is properly equipped to ensure workplace safety for customers and teams in all areas of the business.

Beyond accident prevention, a good risk assessment checklist also helps improve operational efficiency. It can even have a positive impact on employee engagement because teams feel confident in safety processes.

The key to a hotel risk assessment that both reduces potential dangers and engages staff is ease of use and consistency. A digital checklist is the perfect solution, because it will never go missing and can be filled out in exactly the same way whenever it is required.

Trail is a digital checklist & operation management app designed to provide exactly this functionality. Request a demo today to try it out, or see more of our risk assessment templates below.

How to manage risk in your hotel

The goal of risk management in any industry is to identify and monitor risks whilst proactively preventing them from happening.

There are actually a variety of checklists that you could create to help with your risk management process. Hotel managers can use checklists to:

• Identify risks: Managers can use a checklist to assess the hotel premises and spot any potential hazards.
• Assess risks: A checklist can help businesses evaluate the severity of the risks.
• Prioritise risks: After assessing the potential impact of different hazards, managers can prioritise which risks need to be addressed.
• Implement control measures: A checklist reminds you to implement safety measures to prevent risks from occurring and escalating.
• Monitor measures: Use checklists to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the safety measures and make any necessary changes.

The best starting place for most hotels is a risk assessment checklist. This checklist helps you or your employees to spot risks, note their severity, and recommend actions to mitigate their potential harm.

How to make a risk assessment checklist

A risk assessment checklist will vary depending on the facilities in your hotel. You might want to create multiple checklists if you manage a large hotel with lots of separate facilities on offer. However, here are some ideas for things to check to get you started:

• Food safety. Possible risks include out of date stock, food handling and correct food storage.
• Electrical equipment. Cooking, cleaning and maintenance equipment could pose a risk, particularly if used in busy environments.
• Gas safety. If you use gas cookers, hobs or other equipment, ensure that the systems are well-maintained and that the staff have proper training in their use.
• Fire escapes. As well as having a fire safety plan, you should also ensure that fire escapes are as accessible and well-maintained as possible.
• Room hygiene. In a post-pandemic world, it is vital to ensure that rooms are properly cleaned and disinfected before the next guests arrive.

These ideas are just starting points; you will need to customise your risk assessment checklist (and other risk management checklists) to make sure you cover all of the risks in your hotel.

Trail’s templates will give you a good starting point for a digital checklist, but they are designed to be flexible. Don’t feel limited by what is on offer here or elsewhere – it’s vital that you don’t miss potential risks due to compromises or incomplete checklists.

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Benefits of using a hotel risk management checklist

The key with hotel risk management is to make health and safety part of your establishment’s DNA. Don’t wait until something goes wrong to address potential risks – use checklists to ensure that you and your staff are always ready to give customers and other employees the safest environment possible.

• Avoid incidents: Checklists help team members spot potential hazards before they become an issue.
• Drive accountability: Team members are tasked with carrying out regular checks and managers can see whether tasks have been completed, driving accountability.
• Feel confident in your compliance: With a comprehensive hotel risk management checklist in place, you can feel confident that everything is covered.  
• Create a positive safety culture: Incorporating risk assessment checks into your day-to-day operations can also encourage staff to form good working habits.
  

Check out some of our health & safety template checklists here.

Manage risk in your hotel with Trail

While paper risk management checklists are certainly better than none at all, they take time and are hard to keep track of. Trail is a powerful hospitality and hotel management app that helps you manage the risks in your hotel in one easy-to-use platform:

• Protect your business: Trail’s smart tasks automatically alert you if something isn’t right. Attach photos and comments to tasks to prove the right corrective action was taken to protect your customers, teams and business.
• Improve accountability: Trail is a complete historical record of all activity, time and date stamped with photos and comments attached where needed. So you can drive accountability and confidently prove your compliance.
• Boost productivity: Checklists and forms are designed for speed and simplicity, woven into your team's working day. Everyone knows what to do and how to do it.
• Get performance insights. Dashboards and reports highlight issues in real-time, so they can be resolved quickly without the need for time-consuming and expensive audits.

Try Trail free for 14 days with the button below, or book a demo if you want to see the app in action.