It is also important to attain the role of the housekeeping manager. The housekeeping manager is the person responsible for the efficient and economic running of their department as required by the General Manager. The manager of the housekeeping department has the responsibility of planning and forecasting for the department, organising, leading, directing, controlling and co-ordinating the area of the hotel under their jurisdiction.
In ‘Housekeeping Management in the Hospitality Industry’, Stephen Craig gives twenty-five tips of ways to manage a diverse mix of people. They are gathered from qualified executive housekeepers in various parts of the United States. Out of these twenty-five I have taken six which I believe to be of utmost importance. The first of these is to treat all people equally, secondly, greet people whenever you meet them, the third is to always discipline staff in private, fourthly, care about your team of staff, the fifth tip is to not be a teacher if you are not the best teacher of that task, have specific tasks taught by whoever teaches them best, the sixth and final tip I think is important is to be a delegator, all tasks should be understood by more than one person.
Within the housekeeping department there are three key roles that people will be employed to undertake. These are the Housekeeping Manager, the Floor Housekeeper and the Housekeeping Assistants. An organisation chart of a typical housekeeping department in a large hotel can be seen on the following page.
Formally known as the Head or Executive Housekeeper, the Housekeeping Manager is the person with the ultimate accountability for the department in terms of staff deployment and development, operational standards and profitability. They have a controlling and directing role of staff within the department, meeting with the customers to ensure complete satisfaction whilst managing costs, achieving targets and observing relevant regulations such as COSHH, or Care of Substances Hazardous to Health. Overall, the Housekeeping Manager accepts accountability for standards of cleanliness, maintenance and financial performance within the housekeeping department.
The Floor Housekeeper is, as the name suggests, a supervisor in charge of a floor or a number of floors within a hotel. The Floor Housekeeper’s primary responsibility is to manage the Housekeeping Assistants working within this agreed area supervising the quality and efficiency of their work. Once a room is serviced by the Housekeeping Assistant, the room is not passed onto reception as let-able until the Floor Housekeeper has firstly checked that all relevant standards are in place and the room is ready for the customer. The Floor Housekeeper is then accountable for handing back rooms for the front office to let.
A key focus on training and development the Housekeeping Assistant forms a large part of the Floor Housekeeper’s responsibility whether it be training and inducting new starters or re-training and corrective training of existing staff. It is important that all training is recorded, however quick a session may be, for continued measurement of employee performance. The Floor Housekeeper should adopt a proactive role and challenge customers on their perceived level of satisfaction, offering further assistance as appropriate.
The key role of the Housekeeping Assistant, formally known as chambermaid is to service the bedrooms. This must be achieved within guidelines that have been agreed with the Housekeeping Manager. Each bedroom, once serviced, should be to the same high standards of cleanliness, and the set-up of the room should be to the hotel’s specifications. The Housekeeping Assistant has a certain responsibility for customer liaison and is often questioned by customers as to the hotel’s facilities or local amenities. Vacuuming corridors, stocking trolleys and disposing of refuse and linen are other duties to be undertaken. All of these targets will need to be completed to an agreed productivity target set within the hotel. These may be measured in minutes, or by the number of rooms serviced in a shift.
In conclusion it can be said that the main roles of the three top jobs in the housekeeping department, the Manager, the Floor Housekeeper and the Assistants have been thoroughly examined in order to establish that the Housekeeping Managers are a vital part of the running of any hotel. The housekeeping department has also been explained more generally, in order to give a view of what the Housekeeping Department’s role is.
Bibliography
Books
Craig, S.R. (1989). Housekeeping Management in the Hospitality Industry.
New York: National Publishers
Verginis, C.S. & Wood, C.R. (1999). Accommodation Management, Perspectives for the International Hotel Industry. Thomson International Business Press
Lennox, M.& Branson, J.C.(1988) Hotel, Hostel and Hospital Housekeeping, (5th Ed.)
Hodder & Stoughton
Kappa, M.M, Nitschke A. & Schappert, P.B. (1990). Managing Housekeeping Operations. American Hotel & Motel Association
Journal Article
Falbo. (1999). Room cleanliness remains key to garnering repeat business.
, Vol.214, Issue 15. Pp.60-61
World Wide Web
Cassado, M. Housekeeping Management.
, visited on 30th November
