Monthly Archives: May 2011

Popular Housekeeping presentation in San Francisco

Hotel Rex, a Joie de Vivre Hotel in San Francisco hosts L&A presentation

Lycette & Associates was in San Francisco attending a reunion of École Hotelière alumni, and Liz Lycette took the opportunity to make a presentation to the San Francisco Housekeeping fraternity. This popular talk, Staff Productivity Management, Trends and Innovations in Housekeeping was well attended. Over 25 Housekeepers from hotels and hospitals as well as interior designers and Mr. David Jett, Chapter President of IEHA were present at the Rex Hotel on Thursday 21st April 2011.

Ms Ingrid Summerfield, CEO of Joie de Vivre Hotels made the introduction and assisted in partially sponsoring the event. Wine and networking was an excellent finale to the afternoon presentation.

For more information on Housekeeping presentations, training and consulting contact Josephine van Damme at josephine@lycetteandassociates.com or visit our website www.lycetteandassociates.com

Marriott International stresses importance of housekeeping to the overall success of every Marriott operation

The Marriott Housekeepers Group in Hyderabad

Marriott International made arrangements for Lycette & Associates to be part of the 3 day Housekeepers workshop 2011 held in Hyderabad, India. The 19 participants came from JW Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Marriott and Renaissance properties from all over India. Mr. Gerrit Graef, Area Director of Operations for Marriott International South Asia, Malaysia and Australia opened the workshop stressing the importance of Housekeeping and Rooms to the overall success of every Marriott operation.

The positive feedback was terrific from all the participants from seasoned Housekeepers to those newly promoted in their roles. The workshop covered a day on finance, a day on staff management and training and a day on quality control. The group exercises generated some very lively discussions and as always the benefits of networking with each other were immeasurable.

The participants have gone back to their properties with a wealth of ideas on how they can streamline and improve profitability in their operations. The segment on trends and innovations on the last day was very well received and will assist the Housekeepers to move forward.

The session was closed by Ms Ranju Alex, the General Manager of Courtyard by Marriott Pune with words of encouragement for the Housekeepers. Ms Alex began her hospitality career in Housekeeping and inspired everyone to improve develop and grow through continual learning.

Over the 3 days, along with the delicious Indian food prepared by the very capable F&B team, the group enjoyed a little R&R in the evening with a trip to the local Sari shop. Retail therapy is always highly recommended on any training workshop.

Sari shopping

Towel Animal

Team Games

Interview with Dina Angelucci – Assistant Vice President – Housekeeping and Environmental Services Galaxy Macau

Dina Angelucci

By Liz Lycette

Meet Dina Angelucci, Assistant Vice President for Housekeeping and Environmental Services at Galaxy Macau. Dina is responsible for Galaxy Hotel with1459 guest rooms and a number of the shared services to the entire Galaxy property. Galaxy Macau a 550,000-square-metre property comprises of the 1,459-room Galaxy Macau hotel tower complete with casino and entertainment areas and two other hotel partners, Hotel Okura Macau and Banyan Tree. This also includes retail facilities, more than 50 food and beverage outlets, the gaming facilities comprises of 5 gaming halls and VIP gaming rooms on 3 levels, gardens, the world’s largest sky wave pool with a 350 tonne white sand beach and an  additional 5 swimming pools. Furthermore Dina is in charge of wardrobe, linen, floral and environmental services across the resort with a total of 800 staff and budgets in the millions.

What was your career path to date and how did you start in housekeeping?

I was born in Melbourne and began my hospitality career by studying at William Angliss College in Melbourne. After three years of study I graduated with a certificate of catering.

My first job was as a Room Attendant at the President Hotel in Melbourne. I was promoted to Supervisor after 9 months and then moved to the Menzies at Rialto. I joined The Como in the position of Assistant Executive Housekeeper. Next I worked at the 200 room Park On Exhibition as Executive Housekeeper for a period of 5 years.

A stint in Far North Queensland saw me involved in yet another hotel opening of the 280 room Reef Hotel Casino in Cairns, but moved back down south to Victoria to take an appointment with The Como as Executive Housekeeper, a position I held for 7 years.

In 2003 an offer to start as Executive Housekeeper at Park Hyatt took me to Sydney. While I was there I had the opportunity to become involved with pre-opening support assignments to Park Hyatt’s Saigon and Seoul. A new posting came along to Park Hyatt Washington DC in the US, where I worked for a period of 2 years. One of the  challenges I faced during my time in the US was a support assignment to Hyatt North America in the rebranding of the 980 rooms Adams Mark hotel to Hyatt Regency St Louis Missouri my time spent working in the US was a huge learning curve for me.

In 2008 I was transferred to Shanghai China to Hyatt on the Bund 631 rooms and from there transferred to the 555 room Grand Hyatt Shanghai. Again I assisted with pre-opening and support assignments for hotels in Shanghai, Macau, Shenzhen and Beijing.

With all that pre-opening experience the next career move came in September 2010 when I was appointed Assistant Vice President Housekeeping and Environmental Services at Galaxy Macau.

How many staff are you responsible for and what areas are you responsible for?

I have a total of 800 staff; led by 3 Executive Managers, they in turn have 8 Managers, 15 Assistant Managers and 80 supervisors and team leaders, supporting their respective departments. I am responsible for the Galaxy Hotel Housekeeping operations (1459 rooms) as well as the shared services to the entire resort wardrobe, linen, floral and Environmental Services (public area cleaning, pest and waste management.

What would your typical day be like?

My day starts at 7:30am catching up on emails and getting organised for the day ahead. Morning briefings are usually at 9.30 and at about 10.00am I walk the floors, check rooms ready for handover and monitor the rectification progress. Most of the time I work on projects, this week its fragrance for the property and floral. I finalise business processes across the Department especially with regard to shared services and deliverables. I follow up with procurement, monitoring the procurement process and I have a regular catch up with my Executive Managers. A large part of my day is spent in meetings and on administration.

What are your top three challenges this week?

1.     Floral

2.     The moving target of handover dates

3.     Linen quality issues.

How did you choose those Managers under you what were your criteria?

We have 5 ½ million square metres of space at Galaxy Macau. For the Hotel Housekeeping Managers, gaming experience is a must.

For Environmental Services or Public Areas, hotel experience is not really a required criterion. My Managers have to have experience in very large operations such as airports or shopping malls; this is more critical than a hotel background.

My team must have experience in managing large teams over large areas. We have an enormous amount of stone and mosaic so up-to-date knowledge of how to manage all kinds of different hard surfaces is critical.

What are the differences in managing a property of 300 rooms compared to a property of 1459 rooms?

It is all about strategising and planning. You must have confidence in the Executive Managers and let them manage their teams. Micromanagement doesn’t work here.

The entire department needs to operate like a machine most importantly is the back of house infrastructure. It is critical to get this right from day one; you need to work down to the detail on this. This infrastructure includes all the storage areas, the location of the storage area and satellite stations and the mapping of all of these areas. For example we have a soiled linen chute room and we just installed a conveyor to separate the towelling from the bed linen. When we are running 100% occupancy we will have more than 400 linen trolleys of linen going out to the external commercial laundry operation so we need electric tugs to move all of these trolleys. Setting up and purchasing all the right equipment is essential.

What are your top three tips for success in housekeeping management?

1.     An understanding of the whole operation. Including learning the operations from line level employee up.

2.     The need to care. Someone has to fight the battle for them.

3.     Never ever forget the human side of housekeeping.

If you had to do it all over again what would you do differently?

Nothing. I have had an incredible opportunity during my career, Hyatt gave me the opportunity to travel the world and be part of some wonderful hotels, Galaxy is giving me the opportunity to manage on a large scale

What advice would you give someone starting out in housekeeping?

You need to start at the bottom. You can’t learn about housekeeping at college or from a book. You need to understand how the whole Department operates and understand the processes. We perform at least one miracle a day.

How about your personal life how do you balance work and home life what do you do for fun?

It is essential to have friends outside the working environment to go out with otherwise you can’t disconnect from the job. I walk home from work most nights and this gives me time to decompress. I enjoy reading biographies and I love cooking. What has helped me most while moving around the world is always to have some of my own things around me, this help me settle in, even if I am living in the hotel. I have some framed pictures of my family  and I always bring my own quilt, pillows and bed linen to make myself feel at home.

How do you think housekeeping management has changed since you started? Where do you think it is heading?

Housekeeping has done a 360° turn since I was a Room Attendant in the 1980′s. Housekeeping is much more professional than it used to be. Sadly the position of Executive Housekeeper in Australia doesn’t carry as much weight as it should. The importance of this position is a lot more apparent in other countries around the world!

Overseas the role of the Executive Housekeeper is equivalent to that of a Business Manager, understanding and managing the P&L line by line. Technology advancements are very important and it is essential to continually ensure all work practices are up-to-date.

In large operations the Director of Rooms has a place however in small operations with an experienced Front Office Manager and Executive Housekeeper reporting to the General Manager works best, they should be able to manage.

Top Tips for the Perfect Uniform

Interview with Pamela Batt, Contractor for uniform Installation Galaxy Macau

Pamela was born in Melbourne and grew up in Perth.  She began her career by owning and running and a card and gift shop in Perth for over 15 years before moving to Sydney in 1995. Her hospitality career began at Star City as a Wardrobe Attendant in the Wardrobe Department. She then moved to become Wardrobe Clerk,  responsible for quality control, ordering and maintaining the quality of all items in the Star City Wardrobe Department. She finished off as a Supervisor at the casino/hotel operation and left Star City for Saint Catherine’s Girls School in Waverley. Here she was the Uniform Shop Manager for 4 years until she moved to Macau with her husband in April 2006. She took on the job as Wardrobe Manager for Altira Hotel and Casino and undertaking the wardrobe installation for the opening of the hotel in December 2006. After 18 months she was transferred to the sister property; City of Dreams to set up the new wardrobe operation there. City of Dreams has 6300 uniformed employees and Pam’s role was to coordinate the uniform design and set up for the installation. She left the hotel in January 2009 and after a break took on  her current job as Wardrobe Consultant for the Galaxy project which began in July 2010.

She is responsible for outfitting the 7500 uniformed employees this includes initially coordinating with the designers and coordinating with the manufacturing side. When I asked what issues she faced with such big numbers she said the number one concern was communication. She needed a very extensive size range for all of the different multicultural staff. Of the 7500 employees there are 32 different nationalities. The third big issue was in educating staff on how the wardrobe department works and functions.

I asked Pamela for her top tips on how to get the perfect uniform. The number one point was functionality for the position. It is important to ensure the garment is made to fit for the purpose of the garment, this is a big priority.

Number two was durability of the fabric and the construction of the garment. Good manufacturing processes without shortcuts being taken is essential for the perfect uniform. Shortcuts could include using poor quality facing fabric in suit lapels for example.

The third point was the correct choice of fabric, a fabric which can withstand the industrial laundry process. She finds a combination of 60% polyester with 40% viscose for pants and suiting to be the most successful. She also recommended microfibre and 100% polyester for pants and suiting though this doesn’t breathe so well.

For white shirting,  the recommendation is for  65% polyester 35% cotton, this is the best mix for durability and longevity of the garment. She mentioned it is important to  always choose the blue toned version of a white shirt rather than the yellow toned version. As the garment wears, it becomes grey as the cotton fibres disintegrate and the shirt is left with 100% polyester fibres at the end of its life.

For white shirts with best the look choose 60% cotton and 40% polyester.

In terms of design, for Pam it is hard to go past the classic 2 button suit, it never dates and this is the suit design she would recommend.

For pants, always use adjustable buttons on the trousers, these are better than the adjustable sliders which tend to break during the commercial laundry process. Her other tips include to consider ordering uniform standard sizing rather than made- to- measure, even for suits. She usually order 50% unhemmed garments and 50% with  regular and longer legs at the time of installation. She also suggested to look at longer arms and shorter arms versions of jackets and shirts for ease of multi-fit.

In terms of fabric it is essential to ask the manufacturer to include in their contract 30% spare fabric to keep on hand and to be utilised within 12 months. You need to be able to give a guarantee to the manufacturer that you will use the fabric up within 12 months.

These are Pam’s top tips for the perfect uniform.