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Coaching Skills for Metro Housekeeping

Outsourcing agency Metro Housekeeping organises ongoing training for Housekeeping Supervisors and Managers. Lycette & Associates conducted another “Coaching Skills for Housekeepers” workshop at Meriton Pitt Street.

The diverse group of 20 who originate from every corner of the globe enjoyed the role plays and group activities as well as an opportunity to network with their peers. They were keen to get back into their operations to put into practice what they learned. The group included Supervisors, Area and Site Managers as well as Public Area  Supervisors from Hotels such as Mercure Sydney, Wydnham, Marriott, Fairmont Resort and all the city Meriton properties.

Lycette & Associates will be conducting another Coaching Skills workshop in Brisbane next month. The South East Queensland housekeeping fraternity is invited to attend this workshop. For more information visit our website: http://www.lycetteandassociates.com/housekeeping-courses-training/?coaching-skills-for-housekeeping-supervisors

L&A guest speaker at the Blue Mountains Hotel School

Liz Lycette, Director of Lycette & Associates was invited to present 2 hour lecture to the Year 2 students at the Blue Mountains Hotel school Leura Campus. This session introduced the students to new rooms division products and technologies used in hotels and resorts globally. A lively debate was conducted by the group on the pros and cons of the use of technology in Housekeeping.

This presentation was followed up by a similar lecture to the Masters students at the newly opened Sydney Campus of the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School.

Associate Applied Lecturer, Ms Melinda J McLeod gave some comments;

“The feedback from the students has been very favorable, they thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and have encouraged me to ensure that their fellow colleagues receive this presentation in future terms. Excellent.”

At L&A we are whole heartedly in favour of educating up and coming hospitality professionals into the critical importance of a well- run Housekeeping operation for the success of any hotel. These young students are the future of hospitality and the key to it’s success.

Liz Lycette presenting at BHMS

Liz Lycette in discussion with BHMS students

Win a free admission to the online Finance for Housekeepers course

To all housekeepers around the world! For only 48 hours L&A is offering 1 person FREE ADMISSION to its online Finance for Housekeepers course
For your chance to win and start this course on Monday 23 April with fellow housekeepers from around the world register your name, position, hotel and email address with Josephine.
Email her your details and your name will go in the draw. Email josephine@lycetteandassociates.com

The winner will be notified by email.

More information about the course:
This self-directed course enables Housekeeping Manager’s to think critically and become more financially savvy. The focus is on practical skills for the workplace, expanding and developing professional confidence. The course is facilitated, clear and simple learning via the internet – scheduled over 8 weeks and over approximately 20 hours:

• downloadable on-the-job tools and templates
• interactive forums with global peers
• case studies and practical work exercises
• assessments evaluated by the facilitator and returned with individual feedback
• awards for successful participants with a L&A certificate or within Australia, a Statement of Attainment

The Point Brisbane attention to detail

After L&A’s initial operational review in November 2011 Liz returned to The Point in Kangaroo Point, Brisbane in February for a day of follow up. Follow up is as important as the initial visit. An Operational Review consist of an audit to determine the departments strengths and weaknesses and a consultant prepares a report and an action plan for the Executive Housekeeper and the team. The remaining days are spent mentoring through the action plan, giving tools, skills and guidance to improve the operation. The Point’s Housekeeping department  has been working hard to put in place all the suggested operational changes to further enhance the Hotel, gearing up for a busy 2012 season.

Some recent guest comments:

The Point is a great place to stay in Brisbane!

farmgirl71 commented on 26-Nov-2009 05:10 PM

The rooms were very clean and comfortable, crisp white sheets and nicely appointed. The housekeeping staff was excellent; the apartment was serviced daily and to a very high standard. The reception staff was friendly and co-operative, helping us out with additional accommodation we needed on one of our 4 nights. Car parking was easy and secure. Highly recommended!

tonylingard commented on 26-Nov-2009 05:09 PM

We stay overnight and weekends in Brisbane perhaps 7 or 8 times a year and must say the most stress free and relaxing hotel we have found is The Point.
With superb views of the City and the Story Bridge, ease of access, professional, attentive staff and ’boutique’ atmosphere, The Point is certainly a regular destination for us.
Housekeeping and attention to detail were very impressive and I particularly noted the quality fixtures and fittings installed which add to the feel and ambience. Overall a very comfortable, pleasant stay.

 For more information about L&A’s Housekeeping Operational Reviews contact Josephine email:  Josephine@lycetteandassociates.com  

And thereby hangs a cautionary tale

By Harriet Elvin

The check-in process at our Melbourne hotel is smooth and the room we’ve booked seems to deliver what it promised online – it’s clean, stylish and well equipped. Then I open the wardrobe door and find those dreaded don’t steal me’ coat hangers with hooks attached to the rail to prevent removal.

And so the whole seductive experience, which started with artfully styled photos and beguiling descriptions on the website, comes to an end. The message from the hotel is clear. Guests are thieves.

I don’t understand what it is with hotels and coat hangers? Do they know something we don’t about an imminent world shortage? Have they heard the government is about to impose a tax based on the number of hangers in each room, rather like the ‘day light robbery’ window tax in 18^th century England?

Even at plush places with eye-watering tariffs, the norm appears to be eight hangers between two persons. There seems to be a widespread fear that guests, who may well have paid, say, $300 a night, are going to leave with a bounty of wooden hangers in their luggage.

With ever increasing restrictions on airline baggage, why would we load our cases with something we could buy for a few dollars from the discount store back home? Besides, if we were in a kleptomaniac frame of mind, why not go for some higher-value trophies?

My quick inventory of the Melbourne hotel room reveals a quality alarm clock, hairdryer and coffee plunger, plus linen, tea towels and designer cushions.

All these items are imminently pinchable if one were to feel so inclined.

Listen up hoteliers the world over, we don’t want your coat hangers. Trust us with proper ones that don’t require a juggling act to hang up our clothes. Make them heavy to deter pilfering, but make them plentiful. By all means print the name of the hotel on each; that way, if the occasional guest does steel one they will feel guilty whenever they use it.

Or better still, might they not feel a sense of gratitude and return for another stay?

“This piece first appeared in the Follow the Reader column of The Weekend Australian’s Travel & Indulgence section and is reproduced with permission”.

Smartable Laundry servicing hotels in Macau

Following a recent visit to Macau, Liz Lycette from Lycette & Associates took the opportunity to tour the large commercial laundry, Smartable, on Coloane Island.

This huge commercial operation which opened in 2009 services many of the large Hotel operations on the Cotai Strip. Since it commenced operations 4 years ago, Smartable has grown from servicing one hotel to the current 12 hotels using their services.

The 3 Jensen CBW (continuous batch washers) have a total capacity of 7,950 kg of linen per hour! There are 6 more washer extractors with a capacity of 840 kg per hour. The 17 batch dryers which complement the washers have a capacity of 3000 kgs per hour and 3 tumble dryers have a 540 kg /hour capacity.

Big numbers! Over 280 staff run the whole operation, on one shift only with some overtime when the Hotels are full.

This operation also has a uniform and guest laundry dry-cleaning processing plant which has a capacity of processing a mind boggling 6,200 uniforms hourly.

The Smartable Management Team are keen to advise hotels on best practice such as avoiding misuse of linen and linen quality incorporating a component of polyester to reduce wrinkling and prolong linen life.

For more information on the Smartable laundry visit www.smartable.com.mo

Working in Angola with Express Support Services

By Sandra Lunn,

I have just spent five weeks working in Angola with the Express Support Services (ESS) team to train their staff.   The workforce of Express is 94% Angolan.  A project like this has never been undertaken in Angola and it is the intention to get all 2500 staff a qualification over the next 4 years commencing with Certificate I in Hospitality.   Due to an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002 a lot of Angolans have little or no education.

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country in Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city. Cabinda (northern Angolan province) has a border with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Angola was a Portuguese colony from the 16th century to 1975. The country has vast mineral, oil and gas reserves.  Angola is remote and undiscovered with little or no tourism.  It is an eye opener with extreme poverty, corruption, poor infrastructure and is incredibly expensive (in Luanda four tomatoes were $US24 and a rockmelon $US80).

I worked in two sites in Angola: Soyo and Malongo (Cabinda) staying in the ALNG (Angola Liquid Natural Gas) camp in Soyo and Chevron camp in Malongo. I also managed to fly via helicopter to an oil rig 70 kilometres off the coast of Angola and Congo.  The travel door to door, between Soyo and Malongo was about 5 – 6 hours but only a 12 minute flight.  As Cabinda is landlocked you can only fly in and out.  It can be a very frustrating process going through security to get in and out of the camps and airports.  The Soyo camp at capacity has 6000 residents, coming from 54 nationalities and 1200 Express staff.  The Malongo camp has 1500 residents and 1098 (including 617 sub-contracted) Express staff.  There is also about 350 staff based in the capital Luanda and off shore on the oil rigs.

Working with the Housekeeping teams across both sites was both fascinating and challenging, due mainly to the language barrier and cultural differences.  Staff are very grateful to have a job.  This is a breakdown of both sites Housekeeping departments:

Soyo

Approximately 291 staff including management and:

• 175 cleaners
  • 91 laundry attendants

Approximately 6,500 beds (6,552) divided into blocks:

• A Block (for visitors and senior managers) – 11 blocks x 24 rooms = 264 rooms. 1 person rooms with private bathroom
• B Block (for managers) – 11 blocks x 48 rooms = 528 rooms. 1 person rooms with shared bathroom
• C Block (for supervisors and foremen) – 16 blocks x 24 rooms = 384 rooms. 2 person rooms with bathroom.  Total capacity of 768 persons
• D Block (for all other workers) – 39 blocks x 32 rooms equals 1,248 rooms. 4 person rooms with communal bathroom. Total capacity of 4,992 persons.

Laundry department consists of:

• 3 x 24 hour laundries in camp
• Clean 30 tonnes of laundry per week

Laundry services for camp including:

• Laundry of client and staff items (3kg per person) on designated days and will depend on which block you stay in
• VIP’s and visitors have daily laundry service where it is picked up from your room around 7am and delivered back same day

Malongo

Accommodation Services has approximately 112 staff including 90 cleaners who clean external and off shore sites

118 cleaners (on site) with approximately 35 cleaning staff used on a daily basis to clean 1,510 beds

Laundry has approximately 55 staff including 51 laundry staff

98 janitorial staff that are used to perform general cleaning duties

Malongo camp is full of monkeys and you have to be careful not to leave food out or have things hanging around your neck as they will take them.  They are all over the camp.  There was a lot of wildlife in this camp such as impala, wild dogs, snakes (cobra and black mamba) and cats.  There is also the largest colony of bats in the world in the camp and it is phenomenal to see the damage they have caused to the trees.  You have to be very careful not to be bitten by monkeys, cats or bats and other animals due to many diseases especially rabies.

The cleaning performed is of a high standard.  The rooms are very basic but spotlessly clean.  The American clients are very pedantic about standards with beds to be made to exact measurements. In Soyo the room cleaners use no trolleys, work in extreme heat in summer and have to carry some supplies up steep stairwells and with no cover.  In rainy season there are very heavy rains which cause issues with mud and just getting around the camp, which is not sheltered apart from inside the buildings.  They work in teams in each block so tend to leave their cleaning supplies on the landing half way up the stairwell.  The clients only have Sunday off so are generally out of their rooms by 5am each day.  Each block has bed linen change days where they place a large trolley outside the block for dirty linen collection.

All client clothing that gets processed through the laundry is individually tagged with a number and your items are placed in a bag that has your room number.  They have a staff member that looks after the pickup, processing and delivery for a block.  I was staying in A block and in one day the A block laundry processed around 4000 items of clothing.

Some of the challenges Express face is cultural with women in their communities carrying everything on their heads.  The company has strict OHS policies with manual handling and will not allow this practice.  So the company has ongoing training programs and tries to educate their staff on safe work practices.  The issue is that carrying everything on their head is natural to them and when they go home each day this is what they do.  I saw many cleaning staff carrying all sorts of different things on their heads.  The most unusual was a packet of 100 toilet rolls which was perfectly balanced on a ladies head.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture in time.   In the laundry women have a more traditional role with them doing the ironing where men tend to do the heavy lifting.  In rooms again women tend to do the cleaning where men do the more heavy tasks or have senior roles.

The Angolans learn best using music and dance as this is an important part of their daily lives.  Express hold a safety workshop, with a selected topic, once a month where they ask all staff and they encourage community attendance.  Everyone gets a can of Coke on entrance and it is like walking into a night club with music blaring.  The topic when I was there was personal hygiene.  It was nothing like I have seen before where the Express OHS team start with a song that they have written called “Safety, Safety, Safety Number One”.  Everyone knew the words and everyone was dancing and singing.  Then they do a 10 minute play and then there is more music and safety and employee awards are handed out.  It was a big deal to win an award where there were big celebrations.  There were about 350 people there all laughing, dancing and singing.  It was wonderful, very motivational and that song is still in my head.

This was an amazing experience and one that I will never forget.  I met some lovely people, saw some amazing sites, ate interesting food like kudu and impala and I was looked after incredibly well by everyone.  We had a little saying over there “TIA TIA”.  When things didn’t quite work as we wanted them to, which often happens in Angola, we would just say “TIA, TIA: this is Angola, this is Africa”.  It somehow made it okay.

First published in the Executive Housekeeper Magazine and reprinted with permission from Sandra Lunn.

Australian Amenity Company wins award at IHMRS & BDNY

Concept Amenities, a global leader in the supply of environmentally responsible guest bath amenities, received the Editors’ Choice Award, for their Jean-Michel Cousteau collection of hotel guest amenities, during Opening Ceremonies of the 96th annual International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show® (IHMRS) and 2nd annual Boutique Design New York (BDNY), Sunday, November 13, 2011, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The Awards recognize best new products within the categories of design, equipment & supplies, guest amenities, tabletop, and technology, as well as an eco-friendly equivalent to each of these categories.

Editors from leading hospitality trade publications reviewed nearly 150 submissions of the latest products for the industry, and selected winners based on innovative product design, how a product answers a particular industry need, creative use of material or construction, and development or use of a new technology.

Judges for the 16thannual IHMRS Editors’ Choice Awards were Michael Birchenall, Foodservice Monthly; Kris Burnett, Hospitality Upgrade; Glenn Hasek, Green Lodging News; Fred Klashman, Total Food Service, Dennis Nessler, Hotel Business; Michelle Renn, Hotel Online; Andrew Sheivachman, Hotel Management; Len Vermillion, Lodging; Ed Watkins, Lodging Hospitality; and Jeff Weinstein, HOTELS.

Read full article

Housekeeping. The heart of hotels

So you think housekeeping is a dead-end job? Well, think again. It puts you at the profit centre of the hotel and can be a fast route into senior management. Ben Walker reports.

Today, Vivien Sirotkin is at the top of the corporate ladder. As director of hotel operations at Q Hotels she is one of a relatively small number of UK female board directors (only 12% of UK company directorships are occupied by women and that percentage drops to just 6% in the hospitality sector, according to People 1st).

During a glittering career of high achievements she was the first woman to manage a five-star hotel in Europe (Gleneagles 1988-1991), the general manager of Cliveden (2001-2) and vice-president of Guinness Enterprise Holdings USA (1991-2).

The secret of her success? She insists that much of it is down to her housekeeping background: “A start in housekeeping is as good a start as you’ll ever get in hotels. Cleaning rooms is hard work and if you can motivate and manage a housekeeping team, then you can probably motivate anyone.” Vivien’s view wouldn’t be so surprising were it not for housekeeping’s persistently lowly ‘Cinderella’ status within the industry.

While Vivien was finishing her degree in hotel and catering administration at Surrey University, an international hotel company made a recruitment visit. With blatant discrimination they said they were only looking for one male trainee (“I was very upset about that,” she remembers) but added that there was a trainee opportunity in housekeeping.

Read the full article

New product from Gilchrist & Soames

For the environmentally conscious out there, Gilchrist & Soames have added a new product to their range, the BeeKind ™ paper bottle.

The BeeKindTM Collection paper bottle is a 59% reduction in packaging material by weight and a 92% reduction in waste space compared to rigid plastic bottles. With honey and certified organic extracts of red clover, calendula, lemongrass and chamomile, BeeKind is soothing and stylish.

For more information contact Amenities Australia at sales@amenitiesaustralia.com