How TFE Hotels revolutionised lone worker safety

Overview

Ensuring round-the-clock support and peace of mind

am Most common time of day for support

Hotel locations supported

About TFE Hotels

TFE Hotels (TOGA Far East Hotels) is Australia’s International Hotel Group – headquartered in Sydney and operating in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Austria, Singapore, and Switzerland. TFE has a portfolio of seven hotel brands – A by Adina, Adina Hotels, Vibe Hotels, Quincy Hotels, Travelodge Hotels, Rendezvous Hotels and Collection by TFE Hotels, with more in the development pipeline.

The challenge

TFE Hotels has a bold vision for the safety and wellbeing of their people. “Great safety and wellbeing is at the heart of our people, our business, and our future” said Phil Rice, Director of Safety and Wellbeing.

This strategy is underpinned by an extensive review conducted every three years, involving data analysis, focus groups, and assessments. In the most recent review, the top hazard identified was the risk of working alone, affecting a significant number of their hotel shift workers across the country.

TFE Hotels’ challenge was to mitigate their lone worker risk while ensuring seamless operations and maintaining a best-in-class employee experience.

"We set out to explore our options in the market with the goal of providing our directors, board and leadership group with genuine peace of mind that the business is doing all that is practical and achievable to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our team. As a locally headquartered company here in Australia, we're empowered to act on that genuine care focus for our people."

The solution

TFE Hotels quickly identified that adding more manual processes or specialty safety services, like duress alarms, wouldn’t address their needs.

“This approach would have resulted in additional cost, complexity and confusion in managing multiple parties and products with inconsistent service delivery. We also wanted to avoid adding unnecessary extra manual effort on our safety and wellbeing team on top of their existing workload.”

According to Phil, Sonder stood out as a solution that would enhance TFE Hotels’ duty of care without increasing his team’s workload.

“Where we wanted to go, like all businesses, is less systems and more functionality and Sonder certainly delivers on that goal for us.”

In collaboration with the operations team, TFE Hotels mandated Sonder’s ‘Check on Me’ safety feature every 30 minutes for shift managers working alone. All Check on Me activations connect with Sonder headquarters, located in Sydney, who’s team of safety professionals will check on the individual when the 30 minute timer runs out via phone, or if necessary, with urgent in-person support. Phil notes that this straightforward process has proven to be a simple yet effective way to reduce their risk against key safety and wellbeing hazards.

"The mandated use of Sonder's Check on Me is our preferred approach simply because, whilst there may be a minor additional need for action or effort on the part of the staff member, the trade-off is if someone is unwell or unsafe in some way we want to minimise the length of time as much as practically possible and this approach works well for our people and our business."

The results

Phil highlights Sonder’s important contribution in both preventing and addressing psychosocial risks for TFE Hotels, playing a pivotal role in their three-year safety and wellbeing strategy.

“Viewing it from a psychosocial perspective, Sonder is a tool and a resource that can provide a number of benefits across a number of risks and hazards in a preventative way and also provides us with some great advantages in severity mitigation post-incident.” Phil Rice, TFE Hotels.

Now well and truly integrated into TFE Hotels’ risk framework and safety processes, Sonder’s usage and positive impact continue to grow across other known employee safety and wellbeing risks.

"Sonder is mapped in TFE Hotel's enterprise risk management framework as a control measure against various risks in our risk profile and embedded into our serious incident response process too. We also include Sonder's anonymous utilisation data in our quarterly reporting for our audit risk committee and board, which enables us to have an ongoing conversation across the business around the various risks and identifying opportunities to do more."

The compulsory use of Sonder’s ‘Check on Me’ feature has brought peace of mind to both employees and the wider business. In tandem with this, TFE Hotels actively encourages the adoption of the ‘Track My Journey’ app feature, especially for team members commuting to and from work.

TFE Hotels’ preventative approach to their employee risk challenge has not only improved lone worker safety but also built familiarity and trust with Sonder. This has led to an uptake of other health and wellbeing services available via the app, such as 24/7 medical advice for TFE employees and their families.

Phil notes, “The existing familiarity with Sonder helps tremendously. If we’re saying to our shift managers ‘just keep in mind you, your team and their families can access Sonder for support at work or at home’, they aren’t looking back at you saying ‘what are you talking about’.”

TFE Hotels leads the way in putting the safety and wellbeing of lone workers first, showcasing a commitment to creating a safer and healthier work environment for their team. Through implementing solutions like Sonder, they have not only addressed challenges but also set a standard for the industry, making them a clear employer of choice.