3 Sure-Fire Methods for Being an Effective Steward of Safety

You are the steward of safety at property.

Take a step back and ponder this responsibility, and then take a deep breath — because it’s big.

The safety of your patrons, colleagues, boss and every person who enters your property rests on your shoulders.

You’re constantly taking in overwhelming amounts of information. From “do this”, to “do that”, you’re always faced with supplemental training in response to new policies or changes in industry policy.

Then, you’re tasked to train and monitor your team. Are they doing everything they need or could be doing?

Do you sometimes feel like you have zero control over your operation? How do you keep up? How do you know what the best practices should be for your property?

Prevention is Your Priority as a Steward of Safety

It takes effort on the part of you and your team.

What’s the sum of your efforts? It’s Prevention.

It’s the only way to reduce your stress and enhance the guest experience. You don’t want to increase incidents or response times or increase your overall liability.

You want the confidence that when your team has an incident to handle, they’re handling it correctly. You want peace of mind; therefore alleviating the potentials for hazard or liability needs to be at the center of your operation.

A Formula for Safety at Your Property

Rather than simply brushing the surface of what prevention is, we’d like to get laser focused and give you immediate takeaways. After you read this article, you can put them into action.

The three P’s are a formula, and the sum — and final P — is Prevention. Prevention is the secret for being a successful steward of safety.

Here’s the formula: Proactivity + Protocols = Prevention leading to safety at your property. The formula produces results we can’t argue with.

Make Effectiveness a Proactive Choice

A proactive leader acts in anticipation of future problems, needs or changes for their operation.

Become proactive by creating protocols inclusive of communication methods and protocols your team will use to provide your customers with a memorable experience.

Now you’re showing your team what it is to be a steward of safety and why it’s important to be proactive.

Here’s how.

Your leadership and training provides your staff with the ability to see and fully understand potential hazards. Most importantly, they can execute effectively to mitigate incidents when they occur. You don’t have to micro-manage any of the steps while the incident is being handled.

It’s a professional level of safety execution.

Five Protocols You Should Put Into Action Now

Need some tips or don’t know what to watch out for? Here’s the insight you’re looking for.

The process starts before patrons even enter the property. Identify potential hazards associated with your venue. Do you have broken cup holders? Are stairwells or concourses damaged? Make sure your seats and all furniture are up to par.
Locate wet spills or puddles to be handled immediately. For those of you running events where low temperatures are a factor, be on the lookout for ice.
Once patrons arrive, you’re live. As soon as patrons enter the property make your presence known. It’s imperative they know your security team is proactive, available and able to respond at a moment’s notice. This will give you and your team control if the crowd shifts to a new location. For sporting events, an example would be when patrons move from tailgating into the stadium for the event.
Train your team to approach potential unruly fans (i.e. sport fans with opposing team jerseys). Have your staff introduce themselves. Tell patrons they’re available if they need assistance. Your team can focus your patrons’ attention to your venue’s text communication signage. A protocol such as this will deter potential unruly patrons by making your presence well known.
Identify potential hazard locations or hot spots and deploy your Incident Response Team or “Hot Team” to these locations. Using analytics will provide you with the data and insight you need to identify these areas.

There’s nothing more powerful than seeing facts. Do you know what’s really going on at your property? Track and use your analytics to see how effective the team is. Analytics are the only way you’ll know how successful your efforts truly are.

Track response times and the number of incidents occurring during events. Use analytics to drill and role-play with your team the likeliness of wet spills in specific locations or how to respond to lighting approaching your property.

Following Protocols Produces Prevention

It’s like we said. Being proactive starts with you, but is accessible on all levels. Develop the protocols, and let the prevention begin.

Training is the basis of your stewardship. Educate your staff of all the potential hazards to enhance their awareness of hot spots and triggers for hazards or incidents that might surface throughout your property.

Have them report incidents and how they’re handled into your incident management system. That way, your team’s held accountable, incidents are communicated, and all information is measurable.

Don’t skip that step. Don’t stop there.

You’ve developed protocols for staff to identify, handle and mitigate incidents. Now walk through the scenarios.

Role-playing gets the brain working and your team motivated. Role-playing creates an active training environment with long-term benefits. Click here to read our latest article on role-playing and to download the high resolution presentation.

Over to You for Peace of Mind

Proactively manage your team and property, institute protocols with purpose and prevent potential hazards from occurring.

Proactive management and purposeful protocols result in prevention that leads to increase safety, pleased patrons who will return to your property and less liability.

What are the fruits of your labor? Peace of mind.

Now that you know the secret for being an effective steward of safety, how will you execute this formula within your operation?