Maintain the health, hygiene, safety and security of the working environment

This standard is about maintaining health, safety, security and hygiene standards relevant to your area of responsibility. The maintenance of these standards is essential in protecting staff and customers from harm. This standard is for hospitality team leaders, first line managers or supervisors.
In most working environments there is always the possibility of an accident or damage to someone's health. The cost of something going wrong can be high. As well as the trauma for individuals of personal injury there is the potential cost of staff days lost due to work- related illness or injury. There is also the potential compensation payments and damage to the organisation’s reputation following a customer complaint.

Maintaining a safe working environment doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. All that many organisations need is a basic but robust set of procedures that protects staff, customers and other members of the public from harm.

Taking personal responsibility for understanding and applying procedures is important for any supervisor or manager, as is making staff do the same. This standard covers this key area in more detail.When you have completed this standard you will be able to demonstrate your understanding of and your ability to:

• Maintain the health, hygiene, safety and security of the working environment

1. Make sure that you have information on health, hygiene, safety and security  procedures that apply to your area of responsibility
2. Make sure colleagues have relevant information on health, hygiene, safety and security issues within your area of responsibility
3. Make colleagues aware of the importance of following health, hygiene, safety and security procedures
4. Check that colleagues follow the health, hygiene, safety and security procedures that apply to your area of responsibility
5. Monitor your area of responsibility for risks to health, hygiene, safety and security
6. Deal with risks and accidents promptly, following organisational procedures and legal requirements for safeguarding customers,  staff and other members of the public
7. Record or report risks and any health, hygiene, safety or security action that you have taken according to your organisational procedures
8. Pass on information relating to how procedures are working and how they can be improved with regards to identified health, hygiene, safety and security risks

1. Your responsibilities and your organisation’s procedure for health, hygiene, safety and security that are relevant to your work
2. The main areas of health, hygiene, relevant safety law and regulations that affect the work for which you are responsible
3. The statutory authorities that enforce these health, hygiene, and safety laws and regulations
4. The implications of breaking the law on health, hygiene and safety both for you and your organisation
5. The person who is responsible for first aid, health, hygiene, safety and security in your organisation and their responsibilities
6. Your responsibilities for the health, hygiene, safety, and security of permanent and temporary staff and the importance of making sure they are aware of relevant procedures
7. How to communicate with colleagues on issues to do with health, hygiene, safety, and security
8. The types of information required and the procedures you should follow  when recording and storing information about  health, hygiene, safety and security
9. Other people and organisations that need to have access to your information about health, hygiene, safety and security and the information you might have to give to external authorities
10. The procedures you should follow to make recommendations about health, hygiene, safety and security and to whom you should make them
11. How to identify report or deal with faults with the equipment you are responsible for
12. The limits of your authority when directly dealing with risks and hazards – what you can do yourself and what you need to report
13. How to develop contingency plans that will reduce the impact of any health, hygiene, safety and security problems that occur
14. How to monitor your area of responsibility to make sure you maintain the health, hygiene, safety and security of employees, customers and other members of the public and how frequently you should carry out health, hygiene, safety and security inspections
15. The typical health, hygiene, safety and security hazards that exist, or may exist, in your area of responsibility, how to assess, eliminate or minimise the risks associated with these hazards in the working environment
16. Your organisation’s emergency procedures, what to do in the event of an emergency, and the evacuation procedures that relate to you and your staff in the area of work, including for a bomb alert and fire

The following behaviours are provided as guidance to underpin effective performance of a hospitality supervisor

1. You respond quickly to crisis and problems with a proposed course of action
2. You identify people's information needs
3. You make appropriate information and knowledge available promptly to those who need it and have a right to it
4. You comply with, and ensure others comply with, legal requirements, industry regulations, organisational policies and professional codes
5. You are vigilant for possible risks and hazards
6. You take personal responsibility for making things happen
7. You identify the implications or consequences of a situation
8. You act within the limits of your authority
9. You constantly seek to improve performance

This standard is a sector specific standard. This standard is linked to all other standards in the Hospitality Supervision & Leadership suite of standards. Supervisors working directly with food and drink should also refer to standard HSL30 which focuses specifically on food safety, covering the topic at a more in depth level appropriate to their area of work.