Organisers of a new award scheme for hotel security officers aim to highlight good work in the sector. The man behind the award told Mark Rowe that he also hopes to encourage others into hotel security.
The Institute of Hotel Security Management (IHSM) is running a security officer of the year award. Closing date to nominate someone will be 1st October, and a judging panel including institute members, A professional body and the chairman, Karl Spiers. The three top contenders will be invited to the institute’s AGM in November. There the winner will recieve a trophy for the hotel, a shield and £250 for the winner.
For more on the award visit the IHSM web page.
Something to aim for
Karl is Director of security, and a member of Hyatt’s council of experts, at the Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill in Portman Square in W1, pictured. He’s been in hotel security since 1990 – having served in the Royal Navy for nine years, including the Falklands and in the Gulf, he began at the Mayfair Intercontinental. So he’s well placed to know the good work done by security staff. As the IHSM chairman for the last two years he wants hotel security officers to be awarded for the work they do and to help them in their career and something to aim for.
Life-saving floor patrol
He gives the example of an officer on floor patrol: “A officer finds a Guest just hanging outside the bedroom door; basically the guest had a heart attack.” The officer put the stricken man who had been unable to reach a telephone into the recovery position and staff brought a defibrillator. “We got there at the right time and saved his life. When you do things like that, it’s a really good job.” Karl recalls another time that someone came into a hotel reception that was taken to be a drunk by Concierge; but the man had in fact suffered a stroke and had come into the hotel because it was where he had met his wife, many years before: “He came into the hotel for sanctuary.” As Karl points out, hotel security is not about being intimidating presence; it’s about how you interact with guests and to make them feel safe and secure, we want our guests to come back again. Hence hotel security departments look for officers who will look after customers, whether they ask for something as simple as how to get wi-fi. Take that common problem in any hotel; noise. Karl suggests that if a guest complains of a lot of noise in the next bedroom, that front of house should first ask the guest to turn his TV down, rather than send security in the first instance. “It’s the way you deal with issues that can make all the differnce; so we are looking for an officer that can put people at ease. We want to make sure that security in the hotel is warm, and pleasant and welcoming. We want the nice people.”
An unsung job
Is it fair to say that hotel security, like the service sector in general, is an unsung job? Karl agrees: “Hotel security is unsung,” and he adds that there’s been a lack of awareness of what hotel security is about, even within private security; recalling the old days of going for job interviews and being asked what he did in hotel security. He wants the award to be one more way of raising awareness of hotel security. He gives an example from his own Hyatt hotel; if one of his officers does a very good job, going above and beyond, Karl can reward the man with Hystar ‘points’. Reach 12 points and you can have a complimentary meal in the Churchill restaurant (The Montagu) to the value of £100. Karl also hopes that the award will encourage security people to look at hotels as a place to work, as he speaks of it sometimes taking him a long time to find the right person when he has a vacancy. And indeed he would like more in the hotel sector to join the institute, as it and hotel security departments are all about sharing good practice, to inform general hotel staff and the security specialists, whether about postal or telephone scams or cloned payment cards.
About the award
On the submission form (that you can download online), besides detailing how long the nominee has worked in the hotel and as a hotel security officer, the IHSM asks for details of how that nominee dealt with a challenging incident, and brought it to a successful conclusion. To nominate you can also say what the nominee has done to improve the security department; what qualities he or she has to stand out from the crowd; and what his or her colleagues would say about the nominee.
Visit www.hotelsecuritymanagement.org.
