Occupational health and safety in hotels: a department-by-department checklist

Turkish occupational safety law (Law No. 6331) makes the hotel employer responsible for a risk assessment, an emergency plan with posted evacuation routes and yearly drills, and training before the first shift. Hotel accommodation is classed "less hazardous", which changes renewal cycles, not the duties.

The seasonal team arrives on a Monday and the first guests on a Wednesday. Between those two days sit a risk assessment, an emergency plan and a training record that the law expects to exist before the first shift, not after the first accident. This article walks through what hotel occupational health and safety in Türkiye requires, department by department, and gives you checks you can run this week.

What does Turkish occupational safety law require of a hotel?#

Three things before anything else: a risk assessment, an emergency plan and training. Law No. 6331 (opens in a new tab) places all three on the employer, and a hotel is an employer in every one of its departments.

The risk assessment duty (Article 10) means the employer carries out the assessment or has it carried out, then decides the measures and protective equipment that follow from it. The output is a dated document that names the hazards, who is exposed and what was decided.

The emergency duty (Article 11) requires the employer to identify possible emergencies in advance, take measures to prevent and limit them, prepare emergency plans, and appoint enough trained and equipped people for prevention, protection, evacuation, firefighting and first aid. Training and drills follow.

The training duty (Article 17) applies in particular before work starts, on a change of workplace or job, when work equipment changes or new technology is introduced, and it is repeated at regular intervals. Additional training follows a work accident or occupational disease, and a refresher is required before returning after more than six months away.

Two points managers miss. Using outside experts does not remove the employer's responsibility: the signature on the documents stays with the hotel. And the cost of safety measures and training may not be passed on to workers, while time spent in training counts as working time. The employer may take outside support; confirm which arrangements apply to your facility with the provincial labour directorate or a qualified professional.

Which hazard class is a hotel, and what does it change?#

Hotel-type accommodation is classed "az tehlikeli", less hazardous. That sets the renewal cycle for the emergency plan and the shape of the safety support you must arrange; it does not remove the three duties.

The list is Ek-1 of the Communiqué on Workplace Hazard Classes (opens in a new tab) (Resmû Gazete 26 December 2012, No. 28509). Ek-1 was replaced on 13 March 2025 (No. 32840) with NACE Rev. 2.1 codes. Two codes cover hotel-type accommodation, 55.10.02 and 55.10.05, which differ on whether the facility serves restaurant meals to its own guests, timeshares excluded. Both are less hazardous.

The same list also classes as less hazardous: holiday and other short-stay accommodation (55.20.01), holiday pensions (55.20.04), stays of less than a month in own or rented furnished houses (55.20.03), campsites and caravan parks (55.30.36), accommodation intermediation (55.40.00) and other accommodation (55.90.xx).

The class follows the main activity (asıl iş). If several activities qualify as main activities, the one with the higher class applies, which is why a hotel that runs something heavier alongside accommodation should check its own row rather than assume. A change of main activity must be notified to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security within one month at the latest. The later amendments of 21 May 2025 and 1 April 2026 did not change the accommodation rows.

What must a hotel's emergency plan contain?#

The regulation fixes the contents: who prepared the plan, which emergencies were identified, what was done to prevent and limit them, how people respond and evacuate, and an evacuation plan posted where people can see it. The Regulation on Emergencies at Workplaces (opens in a new tab) (Resmû Gazete 18 June 2013, No. 28681) lists the minimum items.

The document itself carries the workplace's title and address and the employer's name; the names, surnames and titles of those who prepared it; the date prepared and the validity date; the emergencies identified; the preventive and limiting measures; the response and evacuation methods; and the evacuation plan.

The evacuation plan shows where emergency and firefighting equipment and first-aid supplies are kept; a sketch of escape routes, assembly points and alarm systems; the names, titles, areas of responsibility and contact details of appointed staff and their deputies; national and local emergency numbers; sections with special risks such as chemical release, flash fire or explosion; and the cut-off points and valves for electricity and gas.

Emergencies are identified from the risk assessment, considering fire and explosion, hazardous chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear substances, natural disasters and sabotage. Response and evacuation methods must take customers and visitors into account, not only workers. A plan written for staff alone fails at the first guest who cannot use the stairs.

The employer sets up extinguishing, rescue, protection and first-aid teams, and posts the evacuation plan at entrances and exits and on each floor, at eye level. Drills are held at least once a year. The plan is renewed after relevant changes in or near the workplace, and in any case at least every two, four or six years for very hazardous, hazardous and less hazardous workplaces respectively. Fire specifics belong in a separate set of fire safety rules for hotels in Türkiye; this plan covers the same building from the people side.

Kitchen, laundry and technical service: where the daily hazards sit#

These three back-of-house departments concentrate heat, machinery, chemicals and electricity, and they are where a low hazard class most often misleads a manager.

The kitchen combines hot surfaces, hot oil, open flame, sharp knives, wet floors and movement under pressure at service. Check extraction, gas connections, extinguishing arrangements and floor condition, and make sure the risk assessment names each station rather than the kitchen as a whole.

The laundry brings presses, rollers, dryers, heat, lint and chemical dosing for detergents and stain removers. Check guarding, emergency stops, the lint cleaning routine and ventilation. Technical service covers electrical work, working at height, plant rooms and pool water treatment: check that machinery is isolated before maintenance, that ladders and platforms are sound, and that only trained people open dosing equipment.

Pool plant rooms need chlorine and acid stored separately, never mixed, with ventilation, safety data sheets at hand and eye-wash within reach. Across all three departments, keep the safety data sheet for every product, label every container, never decant into an unlabelled bottle, and train the people who dilute.

The control that matters most: the risk assessment must describe what the department actually does in high season, not what the operating manual says it does.

Housekeeping: chemicals, lifting and carts#

Housekeeping carries the most frequent daily exposure in the hotel: cleaning chemicals in closed bathrooms, manual handling of linen and mattresses, and carts in corridors that are also escape routes.

Chemicals need safety data sheets available in a language staff read, dosing by measure rather than by eye, gloves and eye protection decided by the risk assessment, ventilation while working in bathrooms, and a strict rule against mixing chlorine-based products with acid. Manual handling means mattresses and heavy linen moved by two people, trolley and bed heights checked, and back or shoulder complaints reported early rather than after they become absences.

Carts need load limits, clear sightlines, and never a parking spot across an escape route or in front of a fire door. This is the point where housekeeping meets the emergency plan. Staff alone in guest corridors and rooms need a check-in routine and a way to call for help, and the risk assessment should name that routine in writing. Damaged sockets, broken tiles, loose handrails and faulty locks need a written route from housekeeping to technical service and back, with a closing date.

Training comes before the first room: new housekeeping staff are often the newest arrivals and the first people to handle concentrated chemicals.

How does the emergency plan work on the night shift?#

It works only if the names on it match the people in the building at three in the morning. A plan written for a full daytime team has to be read against the night roster, because that is where the names usually stop matching.

The appointed staff and their deputies must reflect each shift, not just the day team, and the posted plan must be updated when the roster changes. For lone working at the desk, agree a check-in routine, a clear instruction on who to call, and a way to raise the alarm without leaving the desk.

Know who on the night shift holds a current first-aid certificate, and make sure that person is not always the same one who is on leave. Run at least one drill at night or in low season, when the building is thin and the daytime assumptions fail. The shift handover should carry open safety items, not only cash, arrivals and promises; a separate front desk shift handover checklist covers the rest of that conversation, and how one hotel business day fits together shows where the handover sits.

Seasonal staff: what has to be done before the first shift?#

Training before work starts is a legal requirement, and in a seasonal hotel it is the item most easily pushed into the first week. Move it before the contract starts.

Training is given before work starts, and again on a change of workplace, job, work equipment or new technology. Keep a record per worker: content, date, trainer and signature. A record dated after the first shift is hard to defend. Training time counts as working time, and the cost of training and safety measures may not be passed on to workers.

Returning staff need refresher training before returning after more than six months away, which in a seasonal hotel means most of the team every spring. Additional training follows a work accident or occupational disease. Start with the people who handle chemicals, machinery and night shifts, because they carry the highest exposure from their first hour. A wider pre-season compliance checklist for seasonal hotels in Türkiye places this file in the full opening sequence.

What to do next#

Take the emergency plan off the wall and read the appointed names against next week's roster; fix the mismatch before the season starts. Then work through the risk assessment department by department, because the law asks for one assessment of a building that is really six workplaces, and the paperwork only holds if each department recognises itself in it.