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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
Staff Productivity, Trends and Innovations in Housekeeping presentation in Shanghai
Lycette & Associates’ Liz Lycette was in Shanghai last month for her popular talk on housekeeping staff productivity, trends and innovations with 2 different industry groups. The first presentation was held at Kerry Pudong Hotel with over 25 Housekeepers and their Assistants attending. The Executive Housekeeper, Henry Yang of Kerry Pudong Hotel hosted the event and also organised a tour around of the hotel and guest rooms. The short seminar highlighted the importance of staff productivity management in Housekeeping. Even in China where payroll is not as high as other parts of the world, it is recognised that it is getting harder and harder to find housekeeping staff.
The group were very keen to learn of useful tools and especially new technology and innovation which can significantly increase housekeeping efficiency and effectiveness. Microfibre and Optii Keeper were 2 such new technologies showcased.
With participants coming from all over Shanghai, this was a great networking opportunity for the attendees to chat and share ideas. There is currently no formal Housekeepers Association in Shanghai; hopefully this will spark the attendees into action to create such a group.
On Thursday 20th October Liz was invited by Judy Hou, CEO of Les Roches Jin Jiang Hotel School to make the same presentation to a group of 20 General Managers from Jin Jiang Hotel Group. Those in the group were selected to travel to the US for further training and experience and this was a great opportunity to share some housekeeping knowledge with them.
About Les Roches Jin Jiang Hotel School
http://www.laureate.net/OurNetwork/AsiaPacific/China/LesRochesJinJiangInternationalHotelManagementCollege.aspx
http://www.lrjj.cn/
Founded in 2004, Les Roches Jin Jiang International Hotel Management College is a joint venture between two leaders in their field—Les Roches, among the top three hospitality management schools in the world for an international career, and Jin Jiang International Hotels, China’s leading Hotel Company. More than 500 students attend its Shanghai campus.
London Presentation: Staff Productivity, Trends and Innovations in Housekeeping attracts a big audience
Liz Lycette presenting in London
Portfolio in conjunction with Lycette & Associates presented a popular address on housekeeping staff productivity, trends and innovations to over 50 Housekeepers and Senior London Hotel Managers on 17 May at Liberty House in Central London.
The 1 hour presentation gave attendees an overview of the importance of staff productivity management in Housekeeping including innovations and trends in the international housekeeping arena. The audience were shown the issues that affect productivity in Housekeeping and how they can be fixed or improved upon.
Liz touched on useful tools for the busy Housekeeper, discussed new technology and innovation in materials that have emerged and how this increases housekeeping efficiency and effectiveness with proven bottom line results. This also included new developments in software and cleaning techniques.
With participants coming from London and beyond, from 3 star to 5 star operations, this was a great networking opportunity for the attendees to chat and share ideas on the challenges of operating an efficient housekeeping operation in the UK.
About Portfolio International
Portfolio is a market leader in the field of senior executive and management recruitment to the leisure and hospitality sectors.
With offices in London, Hong Kong and Shanghai the business delivers on middle and senior level assignment work throughout
the UK as well as in most locations worldwide.
The heart of Portfolio’s success lies in the depth of experience and longstanding track-record of it’s senior team and the specific sector knowledge and enthusiasm of its consultants. Leisure and Hospitality recruitment embraces a myriad of sub-sectors including:
Hotels
Sport & Leisure Contract Catering & Event Management
Entertainment Restaurant, Pubs & Bars Venues, Private Clubs & Business Centres Travel
FM Soft Services & Consulting
Each of Portfolio’s sectors comprises a team, led by a Director, with the capability of handling the most senior Executive Searches and Advertised campaigns in this marketplace as well as faster paced contingent solutions.
Every management recruitment assignment undertaken receives a highly personalised approach from a results-driven, success oriented and pro-active team who enjoy working in close partnership with clients. The business is supported by advanced recruitment software.
Portfolio is part of the PSD Group.
The audience at the Portfolio L&A presentation
Optii Keeper to launch Panic Button
Alarms have been raised among hoteliers worldwide about the personal safety of housekeeping staff while on duty. Optii Solutions will include a panic button in its next iPod release of Optii Keeper to alert all nearby staff. The recent Strauss-Kahn incident has flagged concerns about the safety of housekeeping staff. This predominantly female group of workers often work alone and behind closed doors, where supervision and surveillance measures are ineffective.
While every chain is revisiting their policies and procedures and deepening employee awareness, effective security comes not only from prevention, but also from managing a situation effectively when it arises.
Hotel managers and Unions are united in the search for a more effective layer of security for this remote workforce, which, by nature of what they do, can find themselves in unsafe circumstances.
“The Optii Keeper software solution already enables unprecedented operational and productivity improvements for hotels.” says Soenke Weiss, CEO of Optii Solutions. “While room attendants already have peace of mind knowing that supervisors know where they are at any given time, adding a panic button to the iPod carried by every room attendant and supervisor enables Optii Keeper to alert all other staff in the vicinity and is a logical extension of the solution. Colleagues, managers and security personnel will be alerted and are able to respond to a situation immediately once an employee feels unsafe.”
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
Honours for E-learning Innovations projects
Ariane Lellmann and Ann Brady
By: Hayley Beck, Australian Flexible Learning Framework
The Learning Impact Awards (LIA2011) was a very successful event not only due to the interesting speakers and overwhelming LIA entrants but as commented by Rob Abel (CEO of IMS Global) due to the ‘outstanding quality of LIA entrants’ which made it very difficult for the judges to decide on award allocations.
Following is a list of the successful awards recipients:
* Winner: Mathletics (3P Learning Pty Ltd)
* Ist runner-up: Diving Supervisors and Chamber Supervisor Training* 2nd runner-up: Redefining ‘Class’ (Wanganui Park Secondary College) * Encouragement Award: Finance for Housekeepers (Lycette & Associates/Balfour College)* Encouragement Award: Remote Access Laboratory (USQ)
* Encouragement Award: BlogED (NSW Department of Education and Training (DET)
* Encouragement Award: Deloitte Leadership Academy (Deloitte)* People’s Choice: Tri-Border Attendance Strategy (Department of Education, WA)
Two innovative e-learning projects, funded and supported by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) were among the recipients. The awards, which recognise outstanding applications of technology to support education and learning, were held in Melbourne on 24 February 2011. ‘Diving into mobile learning’ was named runner-up of the Learning Impact Award and ‘Hospitalit-e’ received an Encouragement Award.
Diving into mobile learning
In 2010, the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme (ADAS) partnered with the NSW Public Safety Diving unit, to ensure public safety divers stayed up-to-date with industry standards and occupational health and safety legislation. Public safety dive teams, attached to the police, navy and army, face some of the most difficult and demanding scenarios of any rescue group. They typically dive in low-visibility or even black-out conditions, racing to save a life or methodically searching the bottom for evidence. The project used the Moodle learning management system (LMS) and mobile technologies such as netbooks and smartphones to provide learners with just-in-time information in the field. An offline version of the LMS (Poodle) was also created to provide information, resources and training materials to current and past ADAS learners.
Hospitalit-E
In 2010, Balfour College, working with Lycette & Associates, needed to address a skills gap identified where housekeepers working in resorts, hotels, aged care facilities and hospitals are often responsible for maintaining budgets, sometimes worth millions of dollars. Housekeepers tend to be recruited internally and learn on-the-job rather than through formal qualifications. Using Moodle and creating learning objects with Adobe Captivate, the project team devised an online learning program for three units of competency in finance. Assessment was carried out through online and work-based tasks.
Both projects were funded and supported by the Framework’s E-learning Innovations business activity. The ADAS project will now progress to the international IMS Global Learning Impact Awards, taking place in Long Beach California on 16-19 May 2011.
Finance for Housekeeping Managers NOW an online course!
Ariane and Liz at the annual elearning conference
Early December, the Hospitalit-e project “Finance for Housekeeping Managers”, a partnership between L&A, Balfour College, PHAN and the Australian Flexible Learning Framework was showcased at the Framework’s annual conference. Over the last year the Framework has provided the funding to develop “Finance for Housekeepers” an online course to empower and up-skill Housekeeping Managers in financial management competencies.
A skills gap has been identified in finance where Housekeepers are held accountable for budgetary issues. To attend face-to-face training is a challenge due to long working hours and geographically dispersed learners.
The Hospitalit-e project, “Finance for Housekeepers” addresses these issues through an online learning program for three units of competency in finance from SIT40307 Certificate IV in Hospitality.
The course has been divided into three modules and the design includes a range of delivery strategies and learning activities. Assessment will be undertaken through online and work-based tasks.
Fifteen participants attended the face-to-face induction on 14th September 2010, all commenced the course and 80% of those participants have since successfully attained all three units of competency.
Comments from some of the participants of the Hospitalit-e pilot course:
“All executive housekeeper and senior supervisors should take this course. It will give new direction to cost management and analyse the department views.”
“Thank you for giving me the chance to be part of the pilot. It was hard but extremely enjoyable”
“You are certainly making a difference for future housekeepers”…
The Hospitalit-e team delivered its final presentation at the December Framework conference. The conference had two main themes, sustaining elearning and new emerging technologies. The Hospitalit-e team had the opportunity to showcase the project to the elearning delegates.
To see the presentation and how Hospitalit-e “Finance for Housekeeping Managers” evolved, go to our wiki
** The course “Finance for Housekeeping Managers” will soon be available to all those who wish to learn on-line! L&A plans to run the course from 21st February 2011 through till 4th April 2011. The cost for this course is US$450 and once enrolled, participants will need to complete the 3 module course over an 8 week period. Participants move through the facilitated units together, in their own time; engaging in learning activities, case studies, work based assignments and assessments. There is plenty of opportunity for discussion and sharing information including best practice. A virtual class environment! **
To register your interest please contact: Josephine by email: josephine@lycetteandassociates.com
About the Australian Flexible Learning Framework
The Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) is the e-learning strategy for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. It provides the VET system with the essential e-learning infrastructure and expertise needed to respond to the challenges of a modern economy and the training needs of Australian businesses and workers.
The Framework was launched as a strategy in 2000, responding to information and communication technology (ICT) developments in workplaces and society. The Australian Government and all states and territories agreed to work together nationally to advance the use of e-learning in VET. The 2008-2011 Framework Strategy maximises and builds on the national investment to date in essential e-learning infrastructure. It will focus on embedding e-learning in registered training organisations (RTOs), business and industry.
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
KL housekeepers attend MAHIR presentation on productivity management in housekeeping
The popular presentation, Productivity Management in Housekeeping was run again last month and this time in Kuala Lumpur. It was organised by The Malaysian Association of Housekeepers (MAHIR) in conjunction with Lycette & Associates Housekeeping Consulting.
More then 20 Executive Housekeepers and their Assistants came from all over KL to attend this talk. All of them were enthused to take on board some of the ideas to increase productivity, to control costs and to enhance effectiveness through the use of new technology and innovation in materials. Some of these aspects are discussed at length in the L&A course Financial Management and the Development Programme for Housekeeping Managers. For more information on the presentation or one of L&A’s housekeeping courses contact Liz Lycette by email on liz@lycetteandassociates.com
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