Are your Housekeeping Department cuts actually costing you money?

Housekeeping Departments have one of the highest expenses and payroll budgets in all modern hotels operations. Attempts at savings by employing inexperienced or inadequately trained senior departmental staff invariably lead to inefficiencies in personnel management, resources control and a poorly prepared and presented property.

Principal of the Blue Mountains Hotel School, Guy Bentley asks us to ““consider the investment in the facility and in the rooms it takes to present the standards of comfort and elegance the client demands today.””

Bentley emphasizes the role of the Housekeeping Department and in particular the knowledge, experience and competence of the senior Housekeeping Department Managers in ensuring the successful presentation of the hotel and ultimately the success of the owner’’s investment. With General Managers now often responsible for more than one property they no longer have the time to build and nurture a close professional relationship with their Executive Housekeeper but Owners still need to have the confidence that their properties are being prepared and presented consistently and efficiently.

““The Executive Housekeeper holds the key to ensure that this main product meets the clients’’ requirements every day and investing in Executive Housekeeper professional development and mentoring support provides insurance on the investment””, he says.

Employing adequately trained and experienced senior Housekeeping Managers and ensuring their on-going professional development is critical to success in modern hotel operations. Unfortunately however it is often ill-considered and the Housekeeping Department training provisions are invariably areas of ‘‘cuts’’ when things get tough.

There is always the desire for an increase in productivity along with a simultaneous reduction in costs but in practice of course this is rarely achievable. It is very short- sighted to simply promote a competent Room Attendant or Floor Supervisor and then to expect them to be able to organize and manage a large team responsible for the cleaning and presentation of all rooms and public areas in a hotel. It takes an experienced professional to co-ordinate the necessary resources to ensure such tasks are performed reliably, efficiently and to consistent quality standards.

Executive Housekeeper of the Radisson Plaza Sydney, Maureen Jolowitz believes that ““the current Executive Housekeeper’’s role, with Owners’’ requirements and technology is far more complex than previously. Housekeepers, particularly those new to the role require support and formal mentoring. We don’’t need to reinvent the wheel –– the skills and experience are available and a formal mentoring system would assist in boosting the confidence, moral and status of Executive Housekeepers and therefore Housekeeping Departments.””

Michael Cottan, General Manager of the Shangri-la Hotel Sydney identifies specific and emerging challenges facing Executive Housekeepers; ““Executive Housekeepers lead a diverse workforce consisting usually of many cultural backgrounds, skilled and unskilled, full-time, part-time and outsourced labour. Most often senior Housekeeping Department staff have achieved their position by working up through the ranks and are inadequately prepared for the challenges of leadership and management skills.””

Leonie Looser, Executive Housekeeper of the Sydney Hilton puts it this way; ““In today’’s world and the quest for the hard earned dollar, little time has been left for the mentoring, training and development of the Housekeeping professional””.

A strong, well-managed and experienced Housekeeping management team will increase the efficiency of the operation and have a significant impact on the hotel’’s on-going profitability.

The hotel industry requires a higher level of professionalism in Housekeeping operations to competently manage current and up-coming challenges. It also needs an increase in the supply of experienced and professional senior and Executive Housekeepers to manage the Housekeeping functions of new properties being developed. Unfortunately the supply of potentially new recruits is limited as many hotel school students are attracted to other management roles in the industry rather than the less glamorous and generally lower rewarded Housekeeping positions.

This situation must be corrected and the role and function of the Executive Housekeeper and senior Housekeeping staff in the overall profitability and successful operation must be recognized and promoted. Furthermore suitable candidates must be identified and nurtured into Housekeeping roles to maintain this often over-looked, but vitally important area of operations.

Investment in in-house and external professional development of senior housekeeping staff is essential to the profitable future of the hotel industry.

March 2005 Issue – Executive Housekeeping Magazine
This article was first published in ‘The Executive Housekeeper’ magazine, the official publication of Australia’s Executive Housekeeping associations. www.adbourne.com