Housekeeping Management Consulting
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Housekeeping Olympics across the Pacific!
L&A
noticed that several housekeeping crews in the US were busy competing in their annual Housekeeping Olympics.
Crews from AmericInn in Wisconsin Rapids, and its sister hotel, Sleep Inn and Suites, also in Wisconsin Rapids, gathered in AmericInn’s parking lot to participate in two events to observe National Housekeeper’s Week.
Housekeeping teams from each of WashDCHotels’ 14 hotels in the DC Metro Area were invited to participate in the 3rd Annual B. F. Saul Company Housekeeping Olympics last Friday, September 17, 2010.
Presentation in Macau on Wednesday 29 September
Staff Productivity Management in Housekeeping
Free Presentation 29 September 2010 at 3.30 pm
Traditionally, the Housekeeping Department is one of the largest in a Hotel operation. Housekeeping labour and related costs are one of the biggest expense lines on the Rooms Division P&L.
How financially savvy are you as Executive Housekeeper and how well do you understand how to look at productivity as a useful and effective tool to save costs?
New technology and innovation in materials have emerged to significantly increase housekeeping efficiency and effectiveness with proven bottom line benefits.
Lycette & Associates will deliver a 1-hour presentation on this topic, which will be held on 29 September at the Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau from 3.30 pm with lively discussion afterwards.
Please register your attendance with the Institute for Tourism Studies, Click here to register
For more information on Lycette & Associates go to www.lycetteandassociates.com
All Housekeeping Managers, Executive Housekeepers, Assistants and any other interested parties are welcome to attend.
Venue: the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT)
Colina de Mong-Há, Macao, China
Date: Wednesday 29 September 2010
Time: 3.30 – 4.30pm (discussion afterwards for all who can stay a bit longer)
Cost: This is a FREE event
PHAN organizes OHS workshop in Sydney
The Professional Housekeeping Association of NSW (PHAN) organised an Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) seminar for its members and other interested parties. This workshop, held at the Menzies Hotel in Sydney is one of the many events that the PHAN organising committee puts together every year. Lycette & Associates was there to participate. Konekt, a publicly listed Australian company and the largest private sector provider of organisational health and risk management solutions ran this particular session. The company focus is on helping organizations minimise the impact of workplace injury and related workplace costs, resulting in reduced workers’ compensation premiums.
The seminar provided the attendees with an overview on safety and compliance issues in hospitality and in particular in housekeeping.
The statistics of the most common injuries in this industry group helped the participants identify potential accidents and help employers rectify these situations. The employer responsibilities, the role of the employee, and the role of the nominated health provider were explained. Housekeeping requires physically fit and able personnel; therefore it may be prudent to organise a pre-employment screen to identify potential problems before commencement of employment. A pre-employment screen will test the functional ability and fitness capacity of the potential employee.
The role of the insurer was another area described, especially some of the jargon used.
Some practical measures like how to perform a task analysis, or how to compile a Job dictionary and a suitable duties plan were all part of this workshop.
The key of course is, to prevent accidents from happening and all agreed that this would increase productivity, employee satisfaction and morale. Additionally many hotels already have specified warm ups/stretches for their housekeeping employees but for those who have not yet put this in place it comes highly recommended.
These days there is an additional challenge for the housekeeping department, an ageing work force. The physical nature of some tasks in housekeeping may require management to make adjustments to accommodate these workers.
For more information on Housekeeping training contact Liz Lycette by email liz@lycetteandassociates.com
About PHAN
PHAN is the Professional Housekeepers Association of NSW. PHAN President is Chona Ogilvie. For more information visit: www.phan.org.au To contact PHAN email info@phan.org.au
About Konekt
Konekt is the largest private sector provider of organisational health and risk management solutions in Australia. The focus is on helping organisations to keep their workforce safe, minimise the impact of workplace injury, rehabilitate or redeploy injured workers, while meeting regulatory and compliance obligations. Konekt solutions are delivered by a national team of allied health professionals, servicing all Australian capital cities and major regional centres. For more information visit: www.konekt.com.au
A Green Approach in Housekeeping
Guest amenities, a major housekeeping expense on the Rooms Division P/L are traditionally supplied in small individually packaged bottles and packets. Think of the waste this creates! And even worse most of these products are only partially used. Now there is a new approach to all those fancy little bottles: the dispenser solution.
When Lycette & Associates was last in Hong Kong, we caught up with Tommy Tsoi, Executive Housekeeper at EAST, Hong Kong to find out more about Tommy’s experiences with the implementation and running of a new dispenser program that replaces the individual packaged guests amenities. As a part of the pre-opening action plan EAST had several strategies in place to take care of the environment and reduce its impact on the planet. To implement a dispenser program was a logical step to take.
Tommy has been in charge of the program’s implementation since the hotel’s pre-opening phase. The hotel celebrated its Grand Opening on the 25 January this year. As a part of the overall fit out the holders had to be mounted in all the bathrooms and then all the dispensers had to be fixed on each bracket. The initial investment is the outlay of the equipment and the time it takes to get things up and running. For example it took one Room Attendant 11 days to complete the 345-room fit out. The hotel is using shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, lotion and hand wash dispensers in all its bathrooms at the washbasins and shower areas.
Although there is an overall cost saving in these dispenser amenities, regular replacement is difficult and labour consuming. This particular brand has tiny pieces in the brackets that need to be unscrewed, the dispenser replaced and the bracket re-fastened. The pump is quite fragile and has a lifetime of 3 to 6 months. For hygiene purposes the dispenser will need replacing within this time frame. Old dispenser bottles will be recycled.
With the full range of amenities available to each guest, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Guests like the fact that this system reduces waste. A few guests have commented there were no amenities to take home, however after explaining the reason for the hotel’s decision, all were satisfied.
One disadvantage of the system is that it is difficult for disabled guests to reach the mounted dispensers. EAST had some complaints from disabled guests and it now supplies those guests with individual packaged products.
Tommy and his team have overcome some of the handling difficulties and servicing the dispensers has become routine.
For anyone going down this path a word of caution from Tommy Tsoi, to be aware of the regular labour intensive dismantling of the holder to replace with a new dispenser bottle. He also points out that the overall guest feedback is very positive, but to keep in mind that dispenser bottles are not convenient for disabled guests.
The implementation of dispensers achieved the hotel’s aim to reduce waste and therefore reduce its environmental impact on the planet.
For more information on any dispenser program or on any other housekeeping matter contact Liz Lycette on liz@lycetteandassociates.com
About EAST Hong Kong
EAST, a new lifestyle business hotel by Swire Hotels offers 339 rooms and 6 suites with harbour or urban views and state-of-the-art communications technology. EAST also features a 24-hour gym Beast (Body by EAST) and an outdoor heated swimming pool. A causal all-day dining restaurant Feast (Food by EAST) and a rooftop lounge bar Sugar (Bar.Deck.Lounge) provides an extensive al fresco terrace with views across the harbour. The hotel is conveniently adjacent to Tai Koo MTR station and just a short drive from Central, Hong Kong. For more information visit: www.east-hongkong.com
About Swire Hotels
Swire Hotels has been created to manage intriguing urban hotels in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the United Kingdom, providing a luxury experience for travellers who seek individuality, style and personalised service. The Opposite House, Beijing, opened in 2008 and was followed by The Upper House, above Pacific Place, Hong Kong, in October 2009. Swire Hotels opened a 345-room lifestyle business hotel called EAST in Hong Kong’s Island East, on 25 January 2010. Swire Hotels is creating a new collection of locally inspired and stylish hotels in the heart of great English towns and cities called Chapter Hotels. The first hotel in the collection will be launched in Q4 2010 in Cheltenham. For more information on Swire Hotels visit: www.swirehotels.com
About Swire Island East
Swire Island East is one of Hong Kong’s best planned and most efficiently serviced business districts, comprising the retail and office centres of Cityplaza and TaiKoo Place. All of this area is managed by Swire Properties. Following the completion of One Island East, the portfolio now offers approximately 9.76 million sq ft of prime retail and office space for local and multinational corporations. A wide range of cosmopolitan business and leisure amenities are situated within the area, including the approximately 1.11 million sq ft Cityplaza shopping centre, Butterfield’s private members club, lifestyle business hotel EAST, multi-purpose venue ArtisTree, over 60 restaurants and cafés with parking for over 6,000 cars.
Hospitalit-e Project on Track
For many years L&A has been at the forefront of new technology in Housekeeping and has successfully delivered many different training programs around the world. These workshops, courses and programs have always been in a face-to-face environment, but from early next year the first course ‘Finance for Housekeeping Managers’ will be available online. The online delivery is currently in development and almost complete.
This project is a collaboration between Lycette & Associates, Balfour College and PHAN (The Professional Housekeeping Association of NSW). The course and pilot, scheduled to take place this month has been financed through a grant awarded by the NSW Government under the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. PHAN members are participating in this month’s pilot course. Upon completion the participants will receive a certificate for 3 units of competency in Finance as part of the Certificate IV course in Hospitality. The units of competency are as follows:
- SITXFIN003A – Interpret financial information
- SITXFIN004A – Manage finances within a budget
- SITXFIN005A – Prepare and Monitor budgets
The eleaning project team has worked hard and diligently to keep on track. After a recent mid-project meeting with the Australian Flexible Learning Framework the team was congratulated for its progress to date.
The pilot is scheduled for 14September and will take place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney. Registration is already complete and the course is already at maximum capacity. Participants have signed up to undertake a maximum 6 hours per week over a 3-week period and the course concludes with a workplace-based assessment by the end of October. All participants agreed to provide the team with feedback upon completing this pilot course.
Finance for Housekeeping Managers will be available through L&A or Balfour College 4 times per year. Each course is run over several weeks and students move through all the subjects and assessments as a cohort.
For more information on elearning, this course or anything else on housekeeping email Liz Lycette on liz@lycetteandassociates.com
Development Programme for Housekeeping Managers was back in Hong Kong by popular demand!
In conjunction with the Hong Kong Hotel Association, Lycette & Associates was back in HK to run their popular Development Programme for Housekeeping Managers. This is the fifth time this successful 3-day course was delivered to an audience of Executive Housekeepers, Assistants, Front Office Managers and Hotel School lecturers from around Hong Kong.
The goal of the programme is to help update and expand Housekeeping Management skills to meet the business needs of the growing hospitality industry in Hong Kong.
The overall objective of this 3-day course is to improve the performance of housekeeping staff by targeting three critical areas of operation:
- Profits – improve cost control systems and effective utilisation of resources
- People – increase staff retention, effective leadership skills, personnel management and development
- Product – achieve and maintain consistency in presentation standards and property upkeep
Liz Lycette and Ariane Lellmann of Lycette & Associates facilitated both courses, which took place at the conference hall of the Association’s head quarters in Kowloon.
This first program commenced on 20 July for 3 days with 29 participants and the second 3-day programme was run the week after also with 29 attendees. After the completion of this course, participants were presented with a programme certificate by Dr Peter Wong, General Manager / Vice President-Operations, Royal Plaza Hotel and by Mr Freddie Ho, 2nd Vice Chairman HKHA and Group General Manager of Ramada Hong Kong Hotel & Ramada Hotel Kowloon.
Since November 2007, L&A have conducted 5 Development Programmes in Hong Kong. To date, a total of 152 participants have completed this 3-day workshop for Housekeeping Managers and all were delivered in association with HKHA.
Feedback from participants has been very positive. The Financial Management for housekeeping was one of the most appreciated topics with innovation in materials and new technology also definitely a hit.
All enjoyed sharing experiences and the networking opportunities that come with an event such as this.
Some other comments from participants and their Managers included:
“One most useful topics to me was the “Ishigawa diagram” (Analysing problems by looking at the root cause and controlling the process). This made me think more about the details of how to find out the causes of a problem and then how to solve the problem using the diagram. I will apply this process to improving guest room cleanliness.” Raymond Yuen, Assistant Executive Housekeeper, Crown Plaza Hong Kong
“She learnt a lot and had a great interest in the topics, especially in Budgeting and Staff Management, the content was much richer than her expectations and all subjects are relevant to her existing job. After completing the course, Yvonne applied the training techniques to her daily work. Also, the course definitely helped her to identify her strengths and weaknesses and I can see an improvement in her work performance.” Winnie Wan, Executive Housekeeper, Harbour Plaza North Point speaking about Yvonne Chan Lai Ching, Assistant Housekeeper who attended the course.
For more information on Development Programme for Housekeeping Managers contact Liz Lycette on liz@lycetteandassociates.com or call +61418795203 or visit our website www.lycetteandassociates.com
About Hong Kong Hotel Association
The Hong Kong Hotels Association (HKHA) was established in 1961 to protect the lawful interests of hoteliers in Hong Kong and promote greater industry unity and co-operation among its members. As the official voice of Hong Kong’s hoteliers, the HKHA represents the collective views of the industry on all matters affecting hotel operation. It also performs a consultative role in proposed legislation arising from new Government policies and measures.
One of its key functions of the Association is to offer educational programmes to members through training courses and seminars. Some programmes are designed for more senior industry executives, whereby professors from leading international hotel schools are invited to conduct these programme. Such initiatives have received widespread recognition among members.
Another key objective of the Association is to ensure and uphold consistency in service and quality standards, as well as promote greater internationalism of the industry through the introduction of new technology and management techniques.
For more information: Hong Kong Hotel Association Conference Hall, 508-511 Silvercord Tower Two, 30 Canton Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong Phone: (852) 2375 3838 Fax: (852) 2375 7676, email info@hkha.org or visit www.hkha.org
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