20 DAILY ROUTINES AND SYSTEMS FOLLOWED IN HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT

PL. Sridevi Sivakami

1. Introduction

Housekeepers play a crucial role in the house keeping department when daily routine is properly planned and persuaded. Cleaning service is a labor-intensive job that doesn’t come with accolades of other industries. The chief or the superior executive house keeper guides his/her team to perform the daily routine which had been already established and also further have to be improved .The entire planning process just workout efficiently only on paper and not in practice this will be mere waste and result in inefficient output of the housekeeping department.

2. Objectives

After reading this module you will be able to understand the

Ø  daily routines followed in the housekeeping department &

Ø  the various systems adopted and practices by the housekeeper for the efficient functioning of the hotel. .

3.  Housekeeping Day

Hotel functioning for some years, housekeeping operations follow a set daily routine, with the required systems in place. The word ‘housekeeping day’ refers to part of 24 hour in a housekeeping operations are in full swing. For systematic management of the daily routine of the housekeeping department, the ‘housekeeping day’ is divided into three shifts, as is the case operationally too. Needless to say, more staff is scheduled for the morning shift than for the other shits, since workload peaks during this shift.

The three shifts are usually as follows.

• Morning shift: starts from 7.00 a.m. to 4.00.p.m.
• Whereas for Afternoon shift begins at 2.00 p.m. and end by 11.00 p.m.
• In case of Night shift work starts from 11.00 p.m. and over by 8.00 a.m.

The daily routine may differ slightly from one hotel to the other and shift timings may vary considerably, depending on their location and target clienteles.

3.1. Opening the house

Apparently there a daily operational procedure , here rooms are been assigned for servicing to GRAS scheduled for work that day . This is referred to as OPENING THE HOUSE. This actively is carefully monitored under supervision and works must be completed on time before it is to be reported and workers start their duties before 7 to 8 am. The night supervisor has to be ready to present their night report otherwise known as occupancy report which will be generated by computer during night hours by the front desk attendant. In order to have a clear cut view of sample occupancy report , the night supervisor also passes the list of arrivals and departures obtained from the bell desk to assistant housekeeper. So, depending on the two documents, the assistant housekeeper will get ready to present his /her daily work report.

The ultimate objective of referring to the night report is to insist a schedule for work and according to occupancy , definitely staff must perform the morning shift duties if it is his/her duty. Also the assistant housekeeper will compare the occupancy and then comprise and decide the number of GRAS required for room service at that occupancy level. And these reports are the reflection of room rack at front desk, a worksheet is assigned to each floor supervisor.

This sheet enlist room number of the section that floor supervisor is responsible and identify their status VACANT, OCCUPIED or CHECK OUT. This will give us nutshell on status of entire section to supervisor; also it is clipped onto room attendant’s chart. And he puts a checkmark against the room number on the sheet. As part of their opening duties, the supervisors take over from the previous shift staff and check the keys. They peruse the log book, which is used in the housekeeping department to convey information from one shift to the other.

Another document consulted by the supervisors is the banquet function prospectus (BFP). This gives them peculiar intimation of the various conferences and parties to be held in the hotel and enumerate the expected responsibilities of all the support departments, including housekeeping, for same. The housekeeping department is responsibilities for a banquet for providing table and decoration linens, decorative artifacts, flower arrangements and special accessories; cleaning the hall prior to and after the event; and so on.

3.2. Morning Shift

The beginning hours of day initiate wherein employees punch in their cards and proceed to the locker room to change into their uniforms. Normally, the soiled uniforms would have been exchanged on a one-for-one basis the previous evening work. The uniformed employees carry on & persuade the morning shift, which may vary between 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 a.m., depending on the individual hotel. The activities carried out by the employees in the morning shift are described in this section.

3.3. Responsibility of the task:

The deputy housekeeper or the executive housekeeper will hold the briefing session for all employees at the beginning of a work shift. This process facilitates two-way communication, before allocating jobs to the staff. The following instruction, measures may be communicated during briefs sessions nearly taking place for 10 minutes:

3.4.Rooms assignments: After briefing, the floor supervisors hand over the room assignment sheets. So that they can be used for updating the room status during work premises . Each room assignment sheet indicates the rooms that the concerned GRA has to service , giving their status as indicated in the daily work report when further enlists any ‘pick up’ rooms the GRA has to service apart from rooms in his/her section. The GRAs clip these sheet which ultimately helps the GRA to prioritize the servicing of rooms. For example, rooms with a check-out status are usually serviced first, but if a room needs early make-up, it is given first priority even before these. A sample rooms assignment sheet is Exhibited here. The first two columns in this example have been filled up by the floor supervisor and the next two are filled up by the GRA.

3.5. Handover of keys

Once the GRAs have received their room assignment sheets, they hand over the keys to the floor master for their particular floors by the deputy housekeeper. The keys in the housekeeping department usually hung in a key cabinet mounted on the wall next to the control desk received in a key control sheet.

3.6. Getting readying the cart:

The GRAs, armed with the master keys, further proceed to the floor pantries on their individual floors, where they make additions and alterations to their room attendant’s cart according to the room occupancy. It has to be noted that the carts are kept ready for servicing guest rooms by the staff from the previous shift, in this case, the night-shift staff.

3.7. Checkroom status:

It is more essential and highly important at this stage to have clear and accurate information about the physical exhibit of the room status. Most probably, this is one of the foremost morning shift activities undertaken by housekeeping staff. Lots of procedures may vary in their consideration to whom activities are to be entrusted and carried out.

3.8. Check the all rooms:

After confirming the physical check of the room status the GRAS, convey the same to control desk supervisor over phone, further indicating the no. Of guests who can be occupied in a particular room.

3.9. Checking only the vacant

The main objective of hotel industry is not only to make profit but also make the guests feel as they were in their own home. So in many properties, we must try to the maximum level not to disturb or pester the guests to check room status, while a discrepancy report can be placed which is computer generated by the inspection of only ON CHANGE, VACANT and ready rooms . so that the time can be saved , there is no necessity for GRAS to approach guestrooms in the morning until rooms are to be cleaned.

Further discrepancy check can be handed over to the floor supervisor who will inspect VACANT READY also ON CHANGE ROOMS has to be assured of their status. Moreover if there is any discrepancy, those can be marked in the section worksheets clipped onto the room attendants chart. Finally information is transferred to control desk. The supervisor of control desk consolidates the information received and prepares the housekeeping room status report.

4. Room Service & Inspection

They collect their carts and supplies, the GRAs now persuade to service the guest-rooms. After supervising, normally the first priority is given utmost importance and are cleaned by the GRAs, At once the floor supervisor is been instructed to release these rooms to the front office for sale. Room requires some maintenance work – order can be generated and so in coordination with the maintenance department, all efforts are made to post the rooms status back again to ‘vacant and ready’.

The order of cleaning guest-rooms is as follows:

1.      Guest requests for early make up (E.M)

2.      VIP rooms (before 11.a.m.)

3.      ‘check-out ‘ status rooms ‘blocked ‘ for new arrivals.

4.      ‘check-out’ rooms

5.      Occupied rooms with ‘please make my room’ signs posted.

6.      Stay overs.

7.      Rooms that had a DND card displayed earlier in the morning.

8.      Rooms due to move to ‘check-out’ status much later in the day.

As earlier as possible, it is during the morning shift room cleaning and inspection continues, where the public area supervisor inspects the public areas such as the entrance, lobby, guest corridors, elevators, and staircases to determine whether any emergency attention is required due to any untoward incidents at night. In such case of emergency in cleaning activities are necessary, the public area supervisor schedules housemen to accomplish the job. Otherwise, the housemen work on their routine cleaning schedules for public areas. During the morning shift, GRAs and supervisors are busy with servicing and inspecting the rooms. This upgrading activity continues in the afternoon too. Most rooms would have been serviced except the ones that displayed a DND card in the morning. Usually these DND cards virtually would have been taken off by this time of day and now the GRAs can knock, enter, and being service in the rooms. In case the DND card is still displayed on the room, the GRA should immediately inform to the floor supervisor.

The ideal way to deal with this situation would be for the floor supervisor to place a call on the intercom and speak to the guest. The floor supervisor should attend the call politely introduce himself and ask the guest when the room may be serviced. If guests do not want their rooms to be serviced, it cannot be forced on them. So if the guest does not give any alternative time, the supervisor suggests a quick linen change. This is mainly important, the GRA can gain access to the room and subtly check that the room is not being used for any illegal activity and also it is not tangled . It may also turn out sometimes that the guests forget that they have placed a DND sign on the door. Even after following the above procedures, if there is on answer to the GRA’s knock, the GRA should check if the door pin is out or not. then it have to be informed to the executive housekeeper .The executive housekeeper should confirmly inform the general manager and with his permission, can access the guest- room in question with an emergency key.

If the guest were found to be ill or even have experienced a life-threatening or fatal accident. Immediately precautionary measures have to be taken to save life of the guest. After the ‘DND’ status rooms have been dealt with the ‘stay over’ then rooms will be cleaned in the afternoon. Once the GRAs are through with the servicing of all rooms, usually by late afternoon, once again they undertake a physical check of the room status, fill the correct information on the blank duplicate of the room assignment sheet, and hand it over to the control desk supervisor. The sheets from all the GRAs will be consolidated by 3.30p.m. to generate the second housekeeping status report for the day and this is passed on to the front desk. This makes the work getting stream lined and prove beneficial to housekeeping department

4.1. Clean up ,reporting and handover

The GRAs now send all the soiled linen to the linen chute. As similar to Indian housekeeping practices, the housemen take the soiled linen to the laundry on a linen trolley. Around 3.30p.m.,the GRAs re-stock the carts for evening guest-room servicing. They wash and clean up the used tooth glasses collected during the day, disposal of trash, mix the appropriate dilution of cleaning agents, re-stock with cleaning supplies, re-stock linen, and leave the floor pantry neat and clean. The floor supervisors collect and file away all forms and reports and they submit their work sheets at the control desk. Otherwise it will become threat the supervisors make relevant entries in the log book. This is the exact time when the afternoon – shift crew is reporting for work. So there should be a shift overlap of at least an hour to facilitate handover and takeover of duties. The morning-shift staff hand over keys at the control desk, sign the key control sheet, and assemble for their debriefing.

4.2. Debriefing and going off duty: This session is similar and complementary to the brief at the start of a shift ,may include the following:

• Discussion of problems faced by any staff member.
• sharing  experiences  and  inviting  ideas  or  practical  solutions  to  tackle  any  practical common problem also repeat procedures which are vague
• handover of any incomplete work to the staff on the next shift.
• checking the next day’s duty roster .

After the debriefing, the morning-shift employees proceed to the uniform exchange counter to exchange their soiled uniforms for fresh ones for the next day’s work. if the morning shift began at 8.00am., the employees should then be free to punch their cards on their way out at 5.00p.m.,in a typical 9-hour straight-shift scenario.

4.3. Working pattern of Afternoon/Evening Shift

The afternoon-shift (otherwise also called evening-shift on some properties) GRAs keep on update the room status again by undertaking a physical check of guest-rooms by 4.30p.m.The third blank room assignment sheet prepared earlier is filled in with the updated status, since many changes may have taken place due to guest check ins and check outs after 3.00p.m.The ‘check-out’ rooms will now be ready rooms. The final housekeeping status report based on this check is consolidated at the control desk, tallied with the front desk, reviewed by the executive housekeeper, and then a copy is sent to the financial controller. Around 4.30p.m., a supervisor checks all guest corridors and service areas to ensure that no equipments, soiled linen, or trash is left behind and that the floor pantries are tidy. They also read the day’s entries in the log book. The afternoon GRAs now clean the ‘late service request ‘rooms and ‘brush up’ (BUP) rooms that had been serviced earlier in the day when they were occupied, but are now vacated. Only a very light servicing is required in these rooms, the term is defined as ‘brush up’. The GRAs then provide the turn- down service in all the occupied rooms at around 7.00p.m., when guests are expected to be out for dinner or other engagement. Any ‘late check-out’ rooms also need to be serviced for late- arriving guests or walk-in guests. Any guests request specifically made in the evening hours is also noted down on the room assignment sheet and transferred to the guest log book. finally, guest requests and requests for guest loan items required in the evening are met.

By 6.00p.m., the front office resolves all discrepancies, some through a simple phone call and others by physically re- checking. The evening GRAs re- stock the room attendant’s carts in the floor pantries for the next day’s work and go off from the duty.

4.4. Night Shift only few staff are scheduled for the night shift, unless a special cleaning project is to be carried out. The night supervisor takes over from the supervisors of the previous shift. The night GRA checks the room attendant’s carts, washes the drinking glasses, and other equipments and utensils which are used.

4.5. Maintenance works in a guest rooms

The Housekeeping department often takes the first step to maintenance functions for which engineering department is ultimately responsible. There are three kinds of maintenance activities:

Ø  Routine Maintenance

Ø  Preventive Maintenance

Ø  Schedule Maintenance

4.5.1. Routine Maintenance

The activities those which related to the general up-keeping of the property, occur on a regular daily or weekly basis, and require relatively minimal training or skills. The maintenance activities which occur outside of a formal work order system and for which no specific maintenance records are kept. Many of these routine maintenance activities are carried out by the housekeeping department and no job order is send to the engineering department.

4.5.2. Preventive maintenance

It consists of three parts inspection, minor corrections and work order initiation. .Inspections are performed by housekeeping staff in the normal course of their duties. Attending to leaking pipes, tapes and improper caulking around sinks and tubs can control maintenance costs by preventing greater problems , such as ceiling or wall damage in the below. Communication between housekeeping and engineering should be efficient so that minor repairs can be handled while the room attendant is cleaning the room. Preventive maintenance by its nature sometimes identifies problems and needs beyond the scope of a minor correction. These problems are brought to the attention of engineering through the work order system.

4.5.3. Schedule Maintenance activities are initiated at the hotel based on a formal work order. Work orders are a key element in the communication between housekeeping and engineering. The maintenance staff will indicate the number of hours required to complete the work and other relevant information. When the job is completed, a copy of the trades person’s completed work order is sent to the executive housekeeping.

5. Conclusion

The major routine of the department that recurs on a daily basis. First, aspect is routine information regarding which rooms would require service was communicated by a form to the housekeeping department. This  information  was  then  converted  into  meaningful

information according to the plan of work established for the housekeeping department. Workers were then specifically assigned to work tasks according to the volume of work that had to be accomplished. This too was done through the use of forms in a procedure called opening the house. All of this was accomplished before workers reported for work. The workday was then segmented into several parts. The activities procedure are known as subroutines, that are equally important but do not necessarily occur on a daily basis. Once the routines are understood, any and all of them are capable of being adapted to computer operation.