CA Hotels Focus on Training to Limit Housekeeping Injuries
Shawn Fabian and Larry Eppley comment on the California Division of OSHA's new regulation regarding workplace injuries.
"Discussion and debate with respect to this regulation started back in 2012," said Shawn Fabian, "It was around that time that OSHA and the government started thinking about whether a new standard should be developed to address risks of musculoskeletal injuries among housekeepers.” He also added that, "The regulations provide for three buckets of materials. The first is a prevention program that affected employers are required to implement. The second is the worksite evaluation, and the third is a training that affected employers are required to present supervisors and housekeepers," and that, "The program is to encourage housekeepers to inform employers about hazards at the worksite and potential risks. There must be procedures to investigate injuries, methods for correcting hazards, and there must be procedures for reviewing the program annually at each worksite to determine whether the programs have been effective over the previous years"
Larry Eppley commented on the requirement for each property to have its own program, saying, "Take somebody who has a portfolio of limited-service hotels, and they may all be identical, but it doesn’t matter—it is site specific. You can’t just figure it out in one of your locations and repeat the training based on that at another location. You have to do your evaluation at each site."