Staff can be very transient. The challenge for the Executive and Head housekeeper is to attract the right people at the beginning and then keep them motivated. The general advice they offer is: make it fun as a job, empower staff to self-check and give more responsibilities. Rotating staff in various jobs within the department avoids boredom.
Lots of small promotions speed up the rise up the ladder and are good incentives for staff who want to do well.
Assess the Role of the Housekeeping department in the Hospitality
Industry and establish the importance of a Housekeeping Manager?
In order to explain the role of the housekeeping department in the
hospitality industry a definition of what housekeeping is will be
needed. Margaret Lennox, the writer of 'Hotel, Hostel and Hospital
Housekeeping', defines housekeeping as "the provision of a clean,
comfortable and safe environment." These things are not just the
responsibility of the housekeeping department, all members of staff
should provide these facilities for there own department, for example
the head chef and chefs will housekeep in the kitchen. The
housekeeping department tends to be mainly confined to the hotels'
bedrooms, corridors and public areas.
Although a definition of housekeeping has been given, it is important
to discuss further responsibilities of the Housekeeping department.
The department has additional aspects that are not always immediately
evident. These would involve training, control of costs of
complimentary toiletries and linen, to ensure product specification
accuracy when ordering supplies, maintaining the quality of the
bedroom whilst adhering to standards, and most importantly of all, to
support the hotel's business as a whole, as the success of the hotel
depends on the selling of bedrooms.
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.
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 how I will staff the housekeeping department in this hotel.
Bibliography
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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.
Hotel & Motel Management, Vol.214, Issue 15. Pp.60-61
World Wide Web
Cassado, M. Housekeeping Management.
http://www.housekeeping.com/, visited on 30th November
