Housekeepers say panic buttons could be a nuisance

Hotel housekeepers in the Middle East say that panic buttons could be more of a nuisance then a necessity if a  US initiative to equip housekeeping staff with the personal security devices was to be rolled out in this region.

Operators of New York City’s largest hotels agreed last month to equip all housekeeping staff with personal panic buttons, leaving hoteliers in other cities worldwide wondering whether they could be next in line for the initiative. 

The security devices are intended to help staff summon help if they encounter danger in a guestroom, a possibility brought to light when a hotel maid claimed she was sexually assaulted by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in his suite at the Sofitel New York last year.

Housekeeping bosses in the Middle East told us assaults are rare, but they do happen.

“There was one incident where a guest was drunk and trying to close the door while the housekeeping girl was inside, she called for help. It’s not only the girls, sometimes the boys have a problem,” Ramanathan Sivalingam, director of housekeeping, Towers Rotana Dubai told Hotelier Middle East.

Laetitia Lasry, executive housekeeper at The Palace, The Old Town – Dubai, has dealt with two cases of reported sexual harassment against staff in recent years.

“The last time it happened, the girl came to see me afterwards. The guest had asked her to go into his room to help with the luggage, and while she was going in he touched her backside and he was obviously hoping something would happen,” recalled Lasry.

“She told him ‘you have no right to do this to me… there are cameras on the corridor and someone will know I’m here’. After investigations we saw the guest [on CCTV footage] going out checking for cameras before he let her go.”

The concerned male had already checked out of the hotel by the time hotel staff were ready to confront him.

On another occasion, said Lasry, an older man – “with a bit of a grandpa attitude” – told a chamber maid how “cute” she was before grabbing her face and pulling her in for a kiss. As the alarmed housekeeper made for her exit, the man asked her to return to his room for a “party” with some friends, telling her she could bring friends along too.

The girl reported the incident and the ‘grandpa’ appeared to back-off after a few stern words from the team outlining the inappropriateness of the gesture and clarifying that there would be no party.

“But if a guest really gets out of order, we will ask them to go,” asserted Lasry.

Since these two incidents, Lasry has put procedures in place to ensure that housekeepers do not work alone, but in pairs – which also saves on equipment and halves the time spent in each guest room, she says.

While pairing up may work as a precaution for room-cleaning staff, most hotels simply do not have the resources to make every room-service and mini-bar attendant have a colleague tagalong. In New York hotels, the personal alarms will be distributed — within a year — to any staff member required to enter a guest room, but the unknown cost of implementing this precaution is one of several hotelier concerns.

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Panic room
Hotelier Middle East spoke to InterContinental New York Times Square assistant director of housekeeping Ekland Skifteri, who remained sceptical over the feasibility of panic buttons.

“How much will it cost to equip all the staff members, and what's the cost/benefit ratio?” he asked.

Skifteri raised other concerns too: “How advanced is the panic-button technology and how accurate are they? I understand that the buttons use technology similar to GPS tracking, are there any privacy violations?

“Will there be a group of designated people trained to respond to these alarms? How will guests feel? Will they be uncomfortable if they see someone servicing their room that has a panic button ‘just in case’ something happens? Will the guest feel at home away from home, or simply offended?” he continued.

Lasry said: “Guests could take offence, but the button would have to be discrete — not a red button on top of their uniform!”

But a concern echoed by Middle East hoteliers is that of false alarms.

Crowne Plaza Kuwait director of housekeeping Akshi Singh says panic alarms may be “more of a nuisance than a boon”.

“Handicap toilet alarm and smoke alarms in hotels are going off routinely due to mistakes, children’s pranks and so on. We’re not adding another alarm to an already over-laden security system. Everyone working in a hotel is perfectly capable of warding off unwelcome gestures from guests,” said Singh.

“Panic buttons could be handy, but are not necessary,” he concluded.

Prabhat Shukla, executive housekeeper at Holiday Inn Downtown Kuwait, and chairperson of Kuwait Housekeepers’ Group was also cautious of the initiative: “You have to examine the chances of it being blown by mistake. This can create an unnecessary nuisance and lead the hotel to an embarrassing situation.”

Lasry added: “The only emergency we have usually is the fire alarm going off because the staff pressed the wrong button while cleaning it. I’m worried the panic buttons may get misused by accident. I don’t think the initiative would be welcomed here.”

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Time will tell
Furthermore, Shukla fears the panic devices could create unnecessary panic among new recruits, which could reflect in their quality of service, adding that staff should have adequate training to handle potentially risky encounters rather than relying one security device.

“We would like to wait and watch the outcome of panic buttons before applying them in the region,” Shukla concluded.

On the other hand, Rotana’s Sivalingam was convinced the initiative would be a positive step: “Currently staff members just have to call housekeeping and we also have an emergency number for cases of fire for example. Panic buttons wouldn’t worry staff, it would benefit them”.

Panic buttons are certainly a “hot topic” in New York, as Skifteri puts it, but it’s apparent there are still many questions unanswered.

“Whether the initiative is a good or bad thing it remains to be seen throughout the years to come. It will be helpful for staff members to work with peace of mind and not be worried about anything that a misbehaving guest might do. It will also be very helpful for any kind of emergency in fact, such as medical emergencies — and not only in the case of an attack,” says New York’s Skifteri.

“Hopefully, knowing that staff members with guestroom access have these buttons on their person will be a deterrent for future attacks.

“We will just have to give panic buttons a try and see if we get to find the answers to our questions as we go along,” he asserted.

Sofitel, which was among the first chains to confirm it would implement panic buttons across its New York City properties, declined to comment on whether it would roll the initiative out in other cities, including in the Middle East.