Safety

Bradken Resources Limited was fined in the Melbourne County Court July 2019 after being found guilty by a Wangaratta County Court jury of failing to provide and maintain safe plant following a 10 day trial.

Although there had been no prior incidents of a casting falling back onto the windscreen of a skid steer loader, the court heard Bradken knew, or ought to have known, from previous similar incidents that this could happen.

The court was told it had been reasonably practicable for Bradken to reduce that risk by using alternative machinery, such as a rock excavator, that did not put its employees as close to the castings.

No matter the size of the business you MUST complete and document a Hazard & Risk Assessment.

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Often the hotel industry is peppered with students and part time staff, whom for many it is there first job.  It is an industry that traditionally has a high turnover of staff.  The difficulty for many Chief Fire Wardens is the requirement to “train” staff in general evacuation training within two days of commencement.  Many Human Resource Managers “train” their staff in General Evacuation Training, BUT how good is the training.

Often the quality of the training will depend on how that person is feeling that day.  There is often no consistency.

I have had many people that say that they “train” their staff by telling them… “There is the door, get out”.  Or they show them where the exits are and think this is “training”.  General Evacuation Training is soooo much more than this.  To provide comprehensive training in General Evacuation Training should take around an hour and most HR Managers or Managers don’t have the time for this.

As hotels are often targets for armed hold up, you want to make sure that your General Evacuation Training includes something on what to do in the event of an armed hold up or an active shooter.  General Evacuation Training is about helping staff to make the right decision in all types of emergencies.

Some years ago I did some training in South Australia for a company that only wanted the Chief Warden’s trained as they did not believe the other staff needed training.  So I conducted a fire drill.  I went up to a workshop manager and said to him “This is a fire drill, pretend there is a fire there, what would you do?”  He looks at me for a second… you could see his brain thinking… he says “I know! I go to the assembly area and he takes off! …. I then went to the showroom and gave her the same spiel and she said “well I have no customers in the showroom at present so I go to the assembly area” and she takes off!…. No word of a lie… I went out to the warehouse and said the same thing to a warehouse person and he said “well I’m just a casual here, but hey, I can go to the assembly area and he took off!  IF you can’t see what the problem is… YOU need General Evacuation Training…

So, what is the solution?  The Answer is Yes has created a series of Online fire training courses.  What makes them unique is they are the only company that will (without charge) customise the training course to be specific to YOUR business.  A Fire Safety Adviser ensures that the training is consistent and complies with all legislation

Fire training does not have to be done face to face and staff can do the training online.  It could also be something that staff have to do before they start work!

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There are many examples of data security breaches in hotel chains. One hotel chain, ‘The Marriotts’ reservation system was hacked with an estimated 500Million reservation information stolen.  This figure was later reduced to 383Million once the investigation had completed.

‘Those stolen records potentially include; unencrypted names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, Starwood Preferred Guest account information, dates of birth, genders, arrival and departure information, reservation dates, and communication preferences.’[1]

The company who provided the reservation service subsequently had its contract terminated.  The reservation system was compromised for four years before the discovery. For those who had their identity stolen and replaced their passports was paid for by the hotel chain.

While there is little you can do as a customer to protect your personal information given to a hotel, you assume they will protect this information sufficiently.

Steps to reduce Cyber Risks

Hotel chains can train their staff and dictate the security requirements for Cyber Security to any third party connected to their business.

A Cyber Risk assessment combined with a Cyber resiliency review would have gone a long way to help mitigate the attack, which is more than just an audit. Staff trained in Cyber Security and not just Information Technology would also help reduce the risk.

If you are using the hotel’s Wi-Fi, assume that what you send over the network can be intercepted and monitored as you do not know the level of security applied to that network.

You can use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to help reduce the risk of eavesdropping your data.

Keep your computer operating systems and software up to date, especially since you do not know if their system is already compromised.

Keep your electronic devices with you and if you must leave your laptop in the room, then put it in the safe.  However, remember, all safes have a default backdoor to get into in case the customer forgets their code.

These simple steps will help reduce the risk of compromise.

[1]  https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/04/marriott_stolen_passport_numbers/

For More Info on Cyber Reconnaissance (risk assessment) Training