What does a security guard do at a hotel?

The overnight post

Hotels are busiest at the desk during the day and most exposed at night, when one night auditor holds the lobby, the doors are locked but not really, and guests come back late. The officer takes the post as the evening staff leave, stays visible in the lobby, and walks the building on the interval the post orders set: guest floors for noise, propped stair doors and people who do not belong; the garage and the lot for vehicle break-ins; the pool deck after closing; the loading dock and the back-of-house doors that staff prop for a smoke. Between rounds the officer watches the cameras from the desk.

Working with the desk

The night auditor calls the officer for a noise complaint, a guest who has had too much, a visitor who is not a guest, a domestic argument in a corridor, a medical call. The officer handles it by the post orders: a knock and a conversation, a walk to the door, a call to police where the situation needs it, a call to EMS for a medical emergency, and a note in the report. Escorts for staff to their cars at the end of the shift are part of the post.

Events and peak nights

Conferences, weddings and the nights when a hotel is full of one group add posts: an officer at the function entrance, one in the lot, one on the floor where the group is. Those are planned with the general manager or the events team from the hotel’s calendar.

Fire watch at hotels

Sprinkler repairs, alarm panel work and renovations of guest floors take systems out of service in a building that cannot be emptied. Hotels are among Price Protection’s most frequent fire watch clients, and the hotel fire watch article explains how the watch runs alongside the security post. The hotels page describes the post in full.