Hospitality Focus on Safety: Hand and Eye Safety
Definition:
Hands and eyes are used for almost every job performed in the hospitality industry. With the sense of urgency always on high, it is very common to suffer injuries that can be prevented with proper procedures and forethought.
Traumatic Injuries:
- Traumatic injuries will occur when an object causes punctures, pinches, crushes or tears.
Contact Injuries:
- Contact injuries occur when the hands or eyes are exposed to solvents, acids, cleaning chemicals, flammable liquids, or contaminated substances that can cause burns or irritation.
Repetitive Motion Injuries:
- Repetitive Motion injuries will occur when a task is repeated for long periods of time.
Potential Exposures:
- Handling or mishandling knives or sharp objects.
- Handling or mishandling chemicals or contaminated materials.
- Repetitive motions with hands.
- Long periods of reading or working without timely breaks.
Prevention:
- When handling any sharp objects, such as broken glass, food-prep knives or utility knives, wear cut-proof gloves.
- Act with a plan and with awareness of your surroundings.
- Never place your hands into an area that you cannot see or are not looking at directly.
- Never use your hands to compact trash. Always use the small trash can.
- Wear protective equipment appropriate for the job you are performing. Always were eye goggles and gloves when handling caustic chemicals or contaminated materials. Before removing the gloves, always wash them with soap and water and remove one at a time by peeling back the wrist cuffs over each glove. Then wash hands with soap and water before removing the eye goggles.
- Ensure that sprayers have the proper settings for foaming or distance.
- Do not ignore warning signs that your hands or eyes may be irritated by certain chemicals or substances.
- Take breaks to avoid carelessness or eye strain.
- Change grip or hand position frequently during repetitive tasks, if possible.
In the event of injury to the hands or eyes:
- Follow the guidelines for the incident found in the Emergency Binder.
- If you feel you may have incurred an injury of any kind, report it immediately to your supervisor.
- If you have suffered an injury to the hands, wash your hands immediately with soap and water.
- If you have suffered an injury to the eyes, rinse them thoroughly with the eye wash solution.
- Be very clear on whether you require immediate medical attention, imminent medical attention or request additional accommodations to prevent injury in the future.
- Report the incident to the Risk Management Team.
- Inform the staff of the incident and make corrections to procedures or errors to ensure that this incident does recur.
June McCreight
June McCreight began her career in the hospitality industry as a housekeeper in 1996. In the years since, she has risen through the ranks, learning maintenance, front office, sales and revenue management, property management and district management, bench management and opening team management. She has trained hundreds of hoteliers and won many awards for her management successes. In 2011, June wrote and published, The Strangers in My Beds, a fictional novel based strictly on the strange events of her career in hotels. In 2014, June partnered with her father, a very accomplished software architect, and opened the business, Coba Enterprise Management, LLC with a very unique and specialized CMMS (Computer Maintenance Management System) software for hotels.