Is your hotel getting all it can from its Cal/OSHA MIPP work? Hotel Housekeepers in California have the highest DART rate for soft tissue/ergonomics injuries and illnesses of any occupation in the state. In response to these numbers, the Cal/OSHA Hotel Housekeeper Musculoskeletal Injury Prevention Program (MIPP) Standard went into effect two years ago.
The MIPP is the first occupationally-specific ergonomics standard anywhere, and requires hotels, lodges, inns, and B&B’s in California to do specific things to protect the health and safety of hotel housekeepers.
These steps include the following:
- Having a written MIPP program (we have written dozens of programs) that is updated every year
- Conducting annual assessments of every housekeeping task (we have conducted thousands of assessments)
- Training housekeepers, supervisors and managers every year, and new ones upon hiring in the requirements of the Standard and findings from the onsite assessments (we have trained thousands of hospitality employees)
- Making improvements based on the results of the assessments (we have made hundreds and hundreds of recommendations) to reduce risks to housekeepers
Where is your property, or property management company in all of this? Cal/OSHA expects the injury rates to fall. Are you doing your part to make that happen?
Does each property have a written MIPP program? When was it last updated? Having the written program means you have achieved the first level of compliance. This is one of the first things a hospitality company can get “dinged” for in an audit.
Has your property conducted the required ergonomics assessments of all housekeeping tasks as required by the MIPP? Did you engage an Ergonomist with a professional certification (CIE or CPE) who knows the risks factors that hotel housekeepers can be exposed to? We have both certifications on our team, know the risks that cause soft tissue illnesses and injuries, and know how to help you solve them.
What recommendations were developed as a result of any prior assessments? Did they give ideas to help your housekeepers get rooms cleaner while reducing the stress on their bodies? We do all these things, and I invented Ergo Tuck® to help housekeepers make beds with less hand stress, less risk for needle sticks, and to reduce bubbles.
Did the training provided to your team members also include better work techniques? Did they provide a “show and tell” of new and different housekeeping tools and equipment? A GM at one of our clients, a veteran hotelier with decades of experience, told me that she had learned several new things during our training course–and so did her housekeeping team!
We are not going to “just check the MIPP boxes.” When we come onto your property, we are going to partner with you. We will use our time with you and your team to find ways to get your guest rooms even cleaner and safer, keep your housekeepers safer, and help you achieve even better third-party guest satisfaction ratings.
We are also good at finding safety risks that others may miss. For example, we have helped our client properties identify otherwise unrecognized electrical fire safety hazards, hazardous materials management violations, general liability risks, and previously unrecognized exposures to bloodborne pathogens. We have skills and abilities that are matched by very few other companies completing MIPP work.
We know we’re good, but so do “our” housekeepers. We find that when we return to a property, the housekeepers compete with each other to have us work with them, personally, to help them reduce their risk for injuries and illnesses. It’s a special feeling like none other when the people doing one of the most physically challenging jobs around know and appreciate the work we do. Click this link for more information.
Our effective approach to housekeeping does not end with hotels in California, nor does it end at water’s edge. We find ways to make your guests happier and housekeepers safer. Don’t housekeepers outside California also deserve the best? Cruise ship room attendants do many of the same things as hotel housekeepers, except their “hotels” move from place to place. Cruise ships provide another good opportunity for us to help you keep your employees and passengers safer and happier.
