Key and Their Control

Individual heads of departments are responsible for all the

keys in their areas. The housekeeper is usually responsible for
more keys than any other departmental head.
❖ Types of Keys
The housekeeping department is primarily concerned with the
following categories of keys:

• Emergency Keys- This key opens all the doors in the

property, even those the guests have double-locked. In
addition, it also double-locks the room against all the
other keys. The emergency key or ‘E-key’, overrides the
catch or deadbolt put on by the guest for privacy in the
room. Hence, the emergency key should be well
protected. It should be stored in a secure place such as
the hotel safe deposit box, or a metal cabinet that only
the general manager or the security officer can access.
Some properties may also keep the E-key off the
premises. Its use should occur only in emergency
situations such as a fire or when a guest or employee is
locked in a room and needs immediate assistance.
• Master Keys- These keys opens all guestroom doors that
are not double locked. They are separated into four
levels of access:
i. Grandmaster Key: This key opens all hotel
guestrooms and often all housekeeping storage

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 rooms as well. It can also double lock a room if
access to it has to be denied. This key can be used in
emergency situations when it is vital for a manager
to enter some or all areas of the hotel. It is itself
kept under lock-and-key at the front desk of hotels.
ii. Pass Key/ Master Key: This key is kept by the deputy
or assistant housekeeper and will open any internal
door that has not been double-locked.
iii. Sub-master or Section Master Keys: These keys
open all rooms in one work section of the hotel. A
supervisor may be issued more than one key of this
type as he or she may be required to inspect the
work of more than one GRA.
iv. Floor Master Key: A GRA is given this key to open
the rooms he or she is assigned to clean on a floor.
The floor key opens all rooms on a particular floor
that are not double-locked. If the employee has
rooms to clean on more than one floor or area, he
or she may need more than one floor key. Floor
keys typically open the storeroom for that floor too.
• Guestroom Keys- These are keys issued to guests upon
their registration. The guestroom key opens a single
guestroom so long as it is not double-locked. Many
properties do not list the hotel’s name, address, or room
no. on guestroom keys. That way, if a guestroom key is
lost or misplaced, it cannot be traced be traced back
easily to the property for criminal use. A code number

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 representing the room number is typically stamped on
the key instead. A master code list is maintained at the
front desk and is used to recycle keys by changing the
codes. Guests are asked to hand their keys when they go
out and the keys are then put on a key board, which
should be kept out of view of passers-by as a security
precaution. A guestroom key not hanging on the key
board should indicate that the guest is in the hotel.
• Supply Keys- These keys are used within the servicing
sector of the hotel by the supervisory-level staff to
ensure that stocks and equipment are safety stored away
when not in use. Store keys, office keys, and linen room
keys and are examples of such keys.
• Card Keys- Many hotels nowadays use the card key
system. This type of room locking mechanism uses
regular door locks and special plastic cards that act as
keys to unlock the doors. The plastic cards look like credit
cards with holes punched in them. Some have a
magnetic strip instead of the holes. The system uses a
computer that codes the card to lock and unlock the
doors. Rather than re-keying the door locks in case of
loss of keys, the computer is used to create new room-
lock codes for each room. Master keys may be easily
created and destroyed through the computerized card
system.

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 ❖ Key Control
The control of guestroom keys is one of the cornerstones of
the hotel security that guests have a right to except under
common law. Key control is the process of reducing guest
property theft and other security-related incidents by
carefully monitoring and tracking the use of keys in hospitality
operation. If there is no key-card lock system, the following
policies should be considered for key control:
Coding-
A few precautions to take while coding are as follows:

• Room keys must not have any form of tag that identifies
the hotel.
• Keys must not have the room number on them. Keys
must be identified by a numeric or alphanumeric code.
That code should not, in any way, directly correspond to
the building or room numbers.
Issuing Keys-
Apart from the basic precautions for all the keys, there is
more stringent security for keys with higher access.
1) Guestroom Keys: These are the keys with minimum
access, unlocking just the one room. When keys are
given to guests upon registration, the guest’s room no.
must not be spoken aloud if there are others within
hearing range. Room nos. should be shown to the guests

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 in writing with a reminder that they should note it down
if a guest check-in packet is not used. Explain to the
guest that the coding system is their protection.
GRA’s and others who find keys in unoccupied
guestrooms or elsewhere should place them in their
pockets or in the locked key boxes provided, not on their
carts (where they are accessible to others), and turn
them in to their supervisor to be returned to the front
desk.
2) Master and sub-master keys: All section master keys,
room master keys, grand master keys, and emergency
master keys (normally kept in a safety box) should be
signed out each time they are taken and their return
noted in a key control sheet. All the keys should be
stamped ‘do not duplicate’.

Custody of Keys-
These are the precautions to be taken while the key is with a
guest or employee after being issued as per the correct
procedure.

• Employees should not be allowed to loan the keys

assigned to them to one another.
• Employee should hand over keys whenever they leave
the property, even the meal breaks.

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 • Individual who have been issued master or sub-master
keys should be spot-checked from time to time to ensure
that they have them on their person.

Changing locks and keys-

Whenever a new key is made or a new lock is fitted, certain
precautions are necessary.

• A record must be kept of how many keys are made for

each room and when they are made.
The general manager must review this record on weekly
basis, installing and dating the key-making log each time
she or he reviews it.
• If required as a result of this review, the general manager
must instruct the maintenance staff either to re-key a
lock or to exchange room locks around within a
housekeeping section.
• If new room codes are to be used or locks are being
switched, the code on the keys must be adjusted
accordingly and over stamped until the old code is
illegible and the new code should be stamped nearby if
locks are swapped within a section. As a standard
practice, it is recommended that some locks in a section
be moved quarterly.
• A log must be kept of all lock swaps and re-keying.

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 ❖ Loss of Keys
This is a time when particular vigilance must be exercised.

• If a section master key is lost under circumstances that

may result in a guest being at risk, the entire section
should be re-keyed. If a section is being re-keyed, also
consider re-keying a new grandmaster and emergency
key so that, in effect, a phased re-keying of the entire
hotel is accomplished if it has been some time since this
was last done.
• If a master key or emergency key is lost under any
circumstances, it must be reported to the owner or the
corporate office immediately by the general manager.
After the circumstances are discussed, they can decide
whether the entire hotel should be re-keyed.
• As an additional step, the general manager or somebody
he or she delegates the responsibility to must cross-
index all incidents of theft, missing property, damage,
and so on as follows:
a. Room no. or location. Watch out for locks that have
been moved.
b. Names of potentially implicated employees.
It may be discovered that room thefts never occur when so-
and-so is odd, or that they occurred, regardless of the room
no., when so-and-so was working in maintenance or
housekeeping.

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 ❖ Electronic Locks
These are a precaution in themselves. Since the introduction
of the recordable electronic door locks in the late 1970’s, the
hotel security has been virtually transformed. The focus at the
time of its invention was increased guest security. Now there
are countries where hotels that do not feature electronic
locking mechanisms in guestrooms will be unable to obtain
insurance. Even the simplest of key card locks have been
found to reduce break-ins by upto 80 per cent.
Employee key-cards can even be coded to allow access only to
their assigned units of responsibility and only during the hours
of their shift.
❖ Smart Cards
The future of security, however, lies in smart cards. ‘Smart
card’ is a generic term for a card the size and thickness of a
credit or debit card that is embedded with a microprocessor
chip. The chip itself has ‘intelligence’ by way of computational
power similar to that of early personal computers. These
powerful computing capabilities make smart cards much
more secure than the other types of cards presently in use.

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