RF Technologies (RFT) HELP ALERT® Panic Alert System for Hospitality, which was recently featured in a Chicago news story, highlights the need to protect hospitality workers from violence and assault in the workplace.
The story detailed an ordinance introduced on April 19, now under consideration by the Chicago City Council, which would require that certain staff in Chicago hotels be equipped with panic alert devices to protect them while they work.
(See how the Help Alert Panic Alarm System leverages existing Wi-Fi to protect staff and patients, teachers and students, workers and guests. Courtesy of RF Technologies and YouTube)
Help Alert is fast and easy to deploy, and requires just three components for start-up: the PinPoint server and software, battery-operated reference tags, and panic alarm pendants.
How It Works
Powered by PinPoint® Locating Technology, Help Alert uses Wi-Fi technology to locate staff in need of assistance, indoors or outdoors.
RFT’s Marina Willis, president, Pinpoint Technologies, was interviewed for the story.
According to a Chicago Tribune report, the bill, sponsored by Alderman Michele Harris, 8th Ward, and backed by labor unions including Unite Here Local 1, would require that employees working alone in Chicago hotels be issued panic buttons (such as RFT’s HELP ALERT wireless pendant) that would enable them to warn security quickly if they encounter potentially dangerous situations in guests’ rooms.
The ordinance would also require that hotels post sexual harassment and assault policies and promise no retaliation against workers who report encountering such treatment.
Hotels that do not provide the panic alert buttons and adhere to other parts of the measure could be fined up to $500 per incident.
“Has this prevented things from escalating? Absolutely,” says Willis, of RF Technologies.
“We’ve had situations where we have had housekeepers go into a room, start cleaning, and someone comes out of the bathroom not wearing any clothes and blocks them from leaving the room.”
Hotel workers are already wearing these devices in New York and Washington, D.C.
Similar mandates and/or ordinances will soon be adopted in cities including Seattle, San Francisco, and areas in Southern California, where they are being requested with increased frequency by staff members and local unions representing hospitality workers.
RFT is pleased to be a part of such an important initiative focused on keeping hospitality workers safe. We are ready to put to work our 30 years of experience keeping people safe in hospitals, schools, colleges and universities, senior living facilities, and hotels, with our HELP ALERT Panic Alert System.
RF Technologies provides safety solutions at over 10,000 senior living, healthcare, education and hospitality facilities nationwide.
Life safety solutions such as CODE ALERT® Wander Management, QUICK RESPONSE® Wireless Nurse Call, SAFE PLACE® Infant Security, and HELP ALERT® reduce risk for residents, staff, and the facility; innovations such as RFT CARES® smartphone application improve caregiver coordination and efficiency.
