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New Housekeeping Demo Lab at Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School

Students at the School practice making up rooms in the housekeeping new demo lab

It’s great to finally see a Hospitality School get serious about designing and installing a housekeeping demonstration laboratory where students can learn what the realities of housekeeping are.

The new demo lab at the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School (BMIHMS) has all the bells and whistles.

It took 6 months from first inception till it was completed in November 2013 and incorporates the following:

• A state-of-the-art bedroom space with a split king, allowing students to participate in demonstrations of different bed making methods and styles, and bedroom detailing.
• Purpose built bathroom, which has 5 different sizes of tiles and surfaces with 3 different coloured grouts, 2 styles of vanity atop a marble benched polyurethane cabinet. These variations enable demonstration of all cleaning requirements. The bathroom completely opens out into the room so demonstrations are easily visible to the group of up to 20 students.
• The bedroom area has 4 different carpets, 2 of which are tiles, along with 3 different wood surfaces including bamboo.
• The cube shaped seats for students also use a variety of upholstered materials, so that students can view wear and tear and address cleaning issues.
• Wall surfaces include framed textured wallpapers that form part of the décor along with painted surfaces.
• The area also has a mini housekeeping storeroom that is built from laminate, this stores the housekeeping trolley along with various pillow types, linen and also a porta cot. There is a desk and wardrobe area, which was built using a veneer timber. This stores a rollaway bed.
• The room features all the guest supplies and amenities one would expect in a hotel room

The room was designed and put together by Liz Boyd, Design Consultant in conjunction with BMIHMS Executive Housekeeper Vicky Jakus. Its purpose is to reflect the diversity of surfaces found in a typical hotel room so as to enable our students to learn the entire operations of the housekeeping department of a 5 Star hotel.

Students undertaking the Bachelor of International Hotel and Resort Management and Master of International Hotel Management degrees use the facilities. Their aim is to graduate with business degrees and progress to management positions with acute knowledge of hotel operations.

Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School  is very proud of their latest addition to their learning spaces and wish to thank all the suppliers who contributed to this project.

Optii catch up

Liz managed to catch up with the Optii team on a recent visit to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. She took the opportunity to hear of the  latest updates to the housekeeping software which will include lots of improvements on the optimisation of the cleaning itself, but will also include lots of other things housekeepers struggle with every day. Very exciting, but I can’t share much yet! Several more Hotels have taken up Optii in the last few months including Ramada and Days Inn and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Atlantis in Dubai.  Click Here To Read More

Return to Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa

On a recent trip to the Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa, Liz was able to meet up with Andrew Adams Smith Operations Manager of Guest Services and Phil Cram, the Facilities Manager at the Resort.

It is now over 2 years since the rural property opened its doors and the valley is certainly blooming.

The resort is the first carbon neutral resort in the world to be certified through an internationally accredited greenhouse gas programme, having measured its greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with ISO 14064-1: 2006. Over 175,000 indigenous trees have already been planted restoring native vegetation and enabling the carbon neutral status to stand.

The Resort has some impressive environmental best practice credentials including having the largest independent sewage treatment plant in the southern hemisphere!

Everything is recycled, plastics, paper, cardboard and metals are collected by Grasshopper Waste and careful measurement systems are in place to ensure best practice is continually followed up on. Wet waste is used as compost and in worm farms. The Chef has large gardens where fruit, vegetables and herbs are grown for use in the kitchens.

The property is independently audited annually to ensure all procedures are strictly followed and new ideas to become even more environmentally friendly are put in place.

About Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa  – recent Awards

The world’s first internationally accredited carbon-neutral resort, Wolgan Valley Resort & Spa has been honoured at the prestigious 2011 World Savers Award for its pioneering work and commitment to wildlife conservation.

The Condé Nast Traveler’s fifth annual World Savers Awards acclaims travel companies from around the world for their leadership in social responsibility. The rigorous process is judged across six categories including wildlife conservation, poverty relief, environmental and cultural preservation, education, and health initiatives.

Wolgan Valley was also awarded the Eco-spa of the Year category at the 7th Annual AsiaSpa Awards held in Hong Kong in November 2011.

To round up the clutch of accolades, Wolgan Valley was awarded the 2012 Condé Nast Traveller UK Gold List award in the Best Hotels for Service category. The Gold List features the best hotels in the world, and as Mike Dolan, a Gold List contributor, says of Wolgan: `The welcome here is warm, the service polite and intuitive, but in true Australian style, there isn’t a hint of ingratiation.’

Phil Cram, Liz Lycette and Andrew Adams Smith

Room Attendant Pre-work stretches

Standing Hamstring Stretch

Lycette & Associates is delighted to present some pre-work stretches designed specifically for Room Attendants by Konekt. These exercises help the Housekeeping team to warm up all the essential muscle groups before starting the very physical task of making up rooms. They take a few minutes but are well worth the effort.

Konekt is the largest private sector provider of organisational health and risk management solutions in Australia. Their 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.

For more information on Room Attendant Training contact Josephine

Hotel employee security – working alone in a guest room

After multiple reports in the media regarding the incidents at the Sofitel and the Pierre Hotels in New York, the safety of Room Attendants, working alone in a guest room has been highlighted as a major issue. A system needs to be in place to protect our colleagues. Below are some suggestions:

• Set up a safe standard
• Ensure you communicate this standard to all your colleagues so they are in no doubt that they can report anything to you and that they have your full support.
• Consider if working in pairs is an option
• Consider if a panic alarm is available.

The following could be a working procedure:

• Use the correct entry procedure for entering an occupied room.
• Before proceeding to clean, check all areas inside to ensure the room is empty, especially in suites.
• If the guest is in the room, ask the guest when you can return to clean his room.
• Return when the guest is out.
• If the guest insists that you clean the room and does not wish to leave, inform him that you will come back shortly with a colleague.
• If he asks you why, say ―”sorry, this is the procedure I am required to follow”
• If the guest is a lady and you feel comfortable, you can start your work.
• Your security has to be the prime consideration. Ensure you report any unacceptable behaviour from a guest. Even if this behaviour did not disturb you, it may be disturbing to another colleague.
• Do not leave the door open, this is a security issue, a person passing by could easily enter the room.
• If guests come into the room while you are cleaning, follow the above procedures as though the guest is in the room.
• Ensure that you use your own master key and do not open doors for others.

This article was reprinted with permission from the UK Housekeepers Association (UKHA)
For more information visit:  www.ukha.co.uk

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.

NEW DVD – Occupational Health & Safety for housekeeping staff

Chemical safety

In collaboration with elearning products Lycette & Associates is now able to offer Housekeeping Departments around the world a NEW DVD for housekeeping staff.

This Occupational Health & Safety DVD is an Australian made product, which has been designed to assist hotels by providing essential best practice training for Room Attendants. The topics include manual handling, bathroom safety, sharps & syringes, electrical safety, biological hazards including disposal of syringes, chemical safety and includes all the steps in stripping and making beds. Last it has suggested warm up exercises and stretches before starting work.

Occupational Health & Safety for housekeeping staff lasts 20 minutes; each topic can be played on its own. This can be a very helpful tool for morning briefings with a focus on one area of concern and the correct action to take.

This DVD is an excellent introduction for newly appointed team members learning about safe work practices.

The cost is US$200 (Australian GST 10% – will be added where this is applicable)

For more information and to purchase a DVD contact Josephine email: josephine@lycetteandassociates.com

Safe bed making practices

Slips, trips and falls

Sharps

The fight against back injuries in Housekeeping – exercise and mechanical bed lifters

Housekeeping Staff at Disneyland Hong Kong warm up in the gardens before work!

A recent industry focus group research project^[1] considered bed making as a high risk manual task along with others such as lifting soiled linen and pushing a trolley over a poor surface for long distances. One of the solutions proposed by the group was to install a mechanical handling aid, such as a bed lifting system to adjust bed heights to a workable level. In this same report the group mentioned that one of the barriers to installing such devices is a reluctance to make the investment.

The latest statistics are very clear. According to Konekt, an OHS specialist in Australia, 27.6% of total workplace injuries are to the back and shoulders.

Lycette & Associates has worked with many hotels on quality assurance and on the job training for Room Attendants where a proportion of time is spent on improving safe work practices. A great way to start is to encourage Executive Housekeepers to implement a 5 minute warm-up and stretching programme for Room Attendants before starting their physical work. Room Attendants enjoy this morning routine with lively music as an energizing way to start the day. The feedback is very positive and many hotels in Asia are now adopting this as part of the morning routine.

Additionally mechanical aids will make the job easier and therefore reduce the risk of injury.  The product we are familiar with is the Ezi-maid bed lifting system, an accidental invention by its owner, John Koorey.

While John was building his own hotel on the Mid North Coast of NSW he actively thought long and hard on coming up with a solution to save his Room Attendants from sore backs. From these humble beginnings of pleasing his own housekeepers, the Ezi-maid bed lifting system has grown into a success story.

Ezi-maid is now installed in many hotels and motels throughout Australia. Most of these hotels are managed by their owners, who can see the direct benefits this system brings. Internationally, Sandy Lane Resort in Barbados has just completed a full installation and the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai has just received their first order. The Ezi-maid bed lifting system has already been shipped to many countries all over the world including New Zealand, Germany, Norway, Japan and Taiwan. There is worldwide interest for the product, especially from India. And now the Ezi-maid system is also being installed in many non-surgical hospitals lessening the burden on nursing staff.

One of the most successful markets has been Singapore, which has now more than 19 hotels taking advantage of a grant from the Singaporean government to assist the employment of older workers in the hospitality industry, especially in housekeeping.

The older workforce phenomenon is apparent in many countries and in housekeeping with all its manual tasks, this can be challenging to say the least. To combat the risk of injury, while making the bed hotels can install bed lifting systems to make life a lot easier. The bed raises off the floor and away from the wall for easy access and bed making, it also allows for vacuuming under the bed without having to bend down.

Ezi-maid has been recognised by Work Cover (Australia). In fact, John Koorey’s hotel the Dorsal won a Work Cover award in 2008 for the best solution to an identified Health and Safety issue. But pressure needs to come from industry bodies, like Hotel and Housekeeper Associations, to get governments and hotel owners and management companies on board to support these mechanical aids as a standard feature in hotel rooms.

The challenge for John is to get through to the hotel owners, or those making investment decisions. John mentioned he finds that often they are not even aware that a product like Ezi-maid can assist in reducing injury and increasing productivity.

For more information on Quality Assurance or Safe Work Practices for Room Attendants contact Liz Lycette on liz@lycetteandassociates.com or visit www.lycetteandassociates.com

About Ezi-Maid Bed Frame & Lifting System

The Ezi-Maid Bed Lifting System is a robust steel frame that is situated under each bed. Its compact height, 85 millimeter (3 inches) and powerful motor activates to lift the bed to waist height allowing the bed to be made in the standing position. The bed raises 570mm (almost 2 feet) off the floor and also the same distance out from the bed head allowing total access around and underneath the bed. For more information contact John Koorey on john.koorey@ezimaid.com.au or visit www.ezimaid.com.au

^[1] Workplace Health Safety Queensland

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

Tip: Carpet Stains – Hair dye

A series of tips to help you get rid of the toughest carpet stains.

Hair dye:
You need the following equipment and products:
Hairspray, carpet cleaner; or dry-cleaning fluid, cotton balls

If you can get to the stain right away, use hairspray. Let it dry then treat with carpet cleaner. If you don’t get to it immediately, put dry-cleaning fluid onto a cotton ball and wipe it all over the stain. Then wipe with a clean cotton ball. Repeat until it is removed.

Source: Spotless by Shanon Lush and Jennifer Fleming