Human Safety And Risk Management – Hospitality Training Academy

Introduction:

Discuss about the Human Safety and Risk Management.

Hospitality Training Academy, otherwise known as HTA is one of the emerging organizations of Australia. Established in the year of 2010, the organization is known for providing professional training to the students fin a variety of professional courses on hospitality management. Considering the importance of the hospitality degrees in the dynamic world of today, the HTA intends to offer professionally certified diploma courses to the trainees in the hospitality services. The organization ensures that each of the trainees pursuing the course from the organization manages to gain access to the required knowledge, skills and professional expertise needed in the hospitality industries.

Just like any other organization, the HTA also follows a set of risk policies and procedures so as to safeguard the organization and its employees from potential risks that can threaten the organization or the well-being of the stakeholders. The organization has adopted the risk assessment policies so as to protect the organization from the major threats that are being deemed to be potentially harmful for the organization (Sadgrove, 2016). The “major risks” of the organization have been identified as the risks that have a higher likelihood of occurring within the organization, and affecting the interests of the stakeholders. The risk management policies and procedures are as follows:

The management authority sets up a risk management committee responsible for assessing and mitigating the potential risks at periodical intervals

The risks that the organization is vulnerable to (financial, organizational or reputational) will be regularly assessed by the members of the risk management committee

The committee is entrusted with the duty of developing as well as implementing the risk management plans

The results of the risk identification will have to be regularly evaluated, reviewed and managed.

The entire system of identifying the risks involves the decision of the Director as well as the SLT.

The organization takes much care while storing and maintaining the risk assessment policies as these policies also contain highly sensitive data. The organization maintains a risk register that helps in effective storage and maintenance of the policies.

HTA has many stakeholders, out of which the external stakeholders of the organization are the suppliers of the organization and the government. On the other hand, the internal stakeholders of the organization comprise of the trainees, mentors and the owner.

The personnel responsible for managing the Safety Management System of the organization are the Director and the SLT.

Risk Management Policies, Procedures and Processes:

Once the potential risk has been identified by the organization, two experts who are hired for providing advice to the organization are an IT expert meant for protecting the confidential data of the organization and a health advisor who can provide suggestions in case of the risk of injuries.

The chief objective of the risk management plan is to minimize the consequence of the unplanned and the unpredictable incident on the actualization of a specific project, and addressing the potential risks before a disastrous incident occurs. The objective of the plan is to identify the risks and analyze the harm caused by the same, so that the organization can adopt necessary preventive measure to combat the same (Gonzalez & Yun, 2013). In order to ensure the success of the risk management policies, the risk policies will be required to be regularly updated as well as reviewed and monitored by the members of the respective organization.

As far as the scope of the risk management policies is concerned, cyber security is an important issue, as the loss of confidential data of the clients may lead to the loss of reputation. Besides, the risk management programs will also intend to cover the work-related illness and injury inflicting the hotel housekeepers and hospitality staffs. The occupational injuries, as well as work-related distress due to overloaded work schedule can affect the health and well-being of the workers working in the organization, and these risks will be considered.

The risks identified are mainly of three types- cyber risk, trauma hazard and fire risk. Cyber risk refers to the risk or possibility of the disruption of vital information of HTA organization, owing to the failure of the information technology systems. The trauma hazard refers to the occupational hazard caused to an employee by professional stress or accidents at workplace. The fire risk refers to the risk of accidental loss of lives or damage of properties because of the occurrence of accidental fire at workplace.  The likelihood of each of the risks is being stated below:

Identified Risk	Likelihood of Occurring	Consequence
Cyber risks	Medium	Loss of sensitive data
Ergonomic, Carcinogenic, and Trauma hazard	High	May affect the employee well-being and affect the employee productivity rate
Fire risk	High	Loss of lives and damage of properties

The fire risk can cause catastrophic consequence at the workplace, because HTA is a hospitality training centre, and consequently it involves the use of fire. Hence, the possibility of accidental fire attack is remarkably high here. Again, the students are trained here in the activities of the hospitality industry, and consequently they have to carry heavy equipments, utensils and machines, that can lead to health hazards and mental trauma. This can also lead to a huge loss to the trainees. The cyber risk owing to malware attack may not potentially harm the organization, as the training organization does not involve money transfer activities with its consumers.

Stakeholder Analysis:

As far as the treatment options for the risks is concerned, it is to be noted that the cyber risks can be mitigated by hiring a highly experienced and skilled IT expert, and regularly following up with his course of actions in response to the potential cyber risks of the organization. For combating the problem of the fire risks, the organization has to make arrangement for smoke alarms and fire sprinkler systems. Besides, each trainee will be trained and educated about the basic tips such as immediate shutting off of air conditioners, in case of these fire attacks (Bolton et al., 2013).  For looking after the health hazards, a health review committee will be set up, the members of which will be assigned with the duty of monitoring the well-being of the employees.

The fire risk can occur at the workplace, because HTA is a hospitality training centre, and consequently it involves the use of fire. Again, the students are trained here in the activities of the hospitality industry, and consequently they have to carry heavy equipments, utensils and machines, that can lead to health hazards and mental trauma. Cyber risk may occur because of the disruption of vital information of HTA organization, owing to the failure of the information technology systems

Risk	Control measure (hierarchy of control)	Monitoring method	Timeline	Person responsible	Required resources
1.Cyber threat	Appointment of an IT expert	Management authority will regularly follow up with the course of action	6 months	Head of the Risk Management Committee	Technical support, financial resourse
2.Health Hazard	Appointment of a health advisor	A risk assessment plan will be made at periodical intervals	2 months	Head of the Risk Management Committee	Financial resource, human resource
Fire Attack	Provision of training to the employees and installation of smoke alarms	Management authority will regularly follow up with the course of action taken up by the health advisor	7 months	Members of the Risk Management Committee	Financial resource, human resource

It is highly important for the organization to comply with the instructions laid out by the WHS management systems. Hence, in order to ensure that the HTA follows these policy workplace safety procedures will be available in written forms, and the written layouts containing the instructions and guidelines of the WHS policies will be passed out to the respective employees. Besides, the health and safety trainings will be provided to each employee so as to increase their awareness.

As it has been observed, that health hazards, IT risk and the fire risk are the three major risks that can potentially harm the reputation or productivity of the organization. Although the risk assessment plan has tried to address the important issues, there may be new issues such as equipment risks or chemical risks that can emerge later. Hence, it is advised that apart from monitoring the present risk assessment policies, it is equally important to update and modify these policies, to mitigate the chance of any kind of risk affecting the organization (Nicholson & Ridd, 2015). It is highly recommended that the organization also assesses the extent to which it is able to meet its health and safety goals.

Risk Management Plan:

The risk management plans and the WHS documents of any organization should be regularly updated, and the same should be made easily accessible to each of the stakeholders of the organization. A Document Management System can be used for storing these important documents, and most importantly the documents should be made easily traceable. A record may be stored electronically or it may be stored using a hardcopy, yet the record being a vital task of the organization must be assigned to a specific unique identifier, such as Oracle Universal Records Management system. Alphanumeric or even sequential numbering methods can be employed for tracing these documents (Glendon et al., 2016). Besides, while storing the WHS records, each of the files must be indexed for enabling easy retrieval, and minimizing loss. As far as the storage of these important documents is concerned, these documents must be stored and maintained in accordance with the UOW Records Management Policy (Glendon et al., 2016).  The UOW Records Management Policy should be used as it helps in creating a proper communication plan as well as a well-formulated implementation plan for assessing as well as eliminating the potential risks. Besides, some of these risk management documents may also have confidentiality properties, and hence its accessibility should be restricted and limited to the staffs with legitimate professional needs. In case an individual intends to gain access to these highly confidential documents, he must write it to the respective authority, following which the consent will be granted on the basis of the UOW Privacy Policy (Aneni et al., 2014).

The Privacy Law of an organization refers to the strict regulation followed in each country across the globe, to ensure that the highly confidential and personal information of an individual is not divulged to the public, which however can be collected by the government or private organizations for professional use (Aneni et al., 2014). While managing the risk documents, it should be noted that the directors of an organization are entrusted with the duty of maintaining the confidentiality of the commercially sensitive data, and hence the privacy policies of the organization must be revised in conformity with the changes n the Privacy Law (Glendon et al., 2016).

The WHS Regulations explain the guidelines that must be followed by an organization for ensuring workplace safety. An Australian organization must develop its workplace safety policies in accordance with the WHS Acts and Regulations (Hammer et al., 2015).

Risk Identification Chart:

As and when two people enter an agreement on the basis of a legal contract, the agreement bound by legal ties must follow the rules of a contract law (French et al., 2015). However, a contract, verbal or written can also be breached, and hence those involved in the execution of contracts process, must assess and evaluate the risks involved, so as to adopt prudent prevention methods for the same (O’Sullivan et al., 2014).

The WHS Codes of practice intends to provide the basic guidelines to the organizations operating in different parts of the world, such as New Zealand and Australia so that they can ensure the health, well-being and safety of the workers. Hence, the WHS laws must be incorporated in the risk policy of an organization (French et al., 2015).

Each organization must ensure that it has a set of risk management policies and procedures in written form, as it helps to highlight how each of the employees are expected to fit in the overall safety management system of the organization. Besides, when the policies are not orally communicated, but are laid down in a written form, the employees also become aware of the legal duties and obligations around the policies.

An example of the in-house WHS legislative reporting requirement is to ensure that the workplace of an organization is in safe condition, the storage and transport of plants and machines are not likely to cause harm. Again, an example of the external legislative requirement is to ensure that the detailed record of the accidents taking place outside the organization is being properly kept (O’Sullivan et al., 2014).

After conducting the PESTEL analysis of the organization, it has become evident that the WHS and OHS acts mandate that the employers implement effective policies for ensuring and improving health and well-being of the employees. Since this is a legal requirement, these guidelines must be incorporated in the risk management policy plan of the organization. As far as the social factors are concerned, it is to be noted that according to the report of the Stress and Well-Being Survey Australia 2014, the Australians are usually subject to intense pressure at workplace leading to health hazards. Hence, the training period of the clients pursuing studies in the HTA should be reduced, so as to prevent the possibility of health hazard, and consequently this rule should be incorporated in the WHS management plan of the organization.

Reference List:

Aneni, E. C., Roberson, L. L., Maziak, W., Agatston, A. S., Feldman, T., Rouseff, M., … & Al-Mallah, M. H. (2014). A systematic review of internet-based worksite wellness approaches for cardiovascular disease risk management: outcomes, challenges & opportunities. PloS one, 9(1), e83594.

French, B., Boyle, M. V., & Muurlink, O. (2015). Workplace Bullying in Australia: The Fair Work Act and its Impact.

Glendon, A. I., Clarke, S., & McKenna, E. (2016). Human safety and risk management. Crc Press.

Hammer, L. B., Johnson, R. C., Crain, T. L., Bodner, T., Kossek, E. E., Davis, K. D., … & Berkman, L. (2015). Intervention effects on safety compliance and citizenship behaviors: Evidence from the work, family, and health study.

Nicholson, A. S., & Ridd, J. E. (Eds.). (2014). Health, Safety and ergonomics. Butterworth-Heinemann.

O’Sullivan, T. (2014). Application of national WHS legislation in relation to the design, inspection and maintenance of pressure equipment. In Proceedings of the 36th Conference of the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists held at Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, 29 April-1 May 2014.. Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists.

Pérez?González, F., & Yun, H. (2013). Risk management and firm value: Evidence from weather derivatives. The Journal of Finance, 68(5), 2143-2176.

Sadgrove, K. (2016). The complete guide to business risk management. Routledge.