18 FUNCTIONS OF HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT AND INTER RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER DEPARTMENTS

PL. Sridevi Sivakami

1. INTRODUCTION

House keeping department has often nor been given its due importance in hotels, particularly in Indian hotel industry. The volume of work undertaking by this department can easily be gauged by the fact that in a commercial hotel, the department easily employees the largest work force. This department is also referred to as the backbone of a hotel because it carries out various activities. Housekeeping means to provide a clean, comfortable and safe environment at the highest standard often associated with hospitality. To create home away from home to the guest, establishment should carry out all the activities without any disturbances.

2. OBJECTIVES

After reading this module, you should be able to:

Ø   understand the importance of housekeeping in hotel

Ø   functions of housekeeping department  and

Ø   interrelationship with other departments and attributes of housekeeper

3.  IMPORTANCE OF HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT IN A HOTEL

Huge revenue was invested in construction and maintenance of housekeeping department. Hotel aims to offer specialized services to the guest and make to feel more comfortable during his /her stay and also keep the hotel environment clean and pleasant.

Hotels try to make their own style of ambiance and keep efficient staff. Margin profit of the revenue comes from the room sales minimum of 50 percent comes from the sales of the rooms. Housekeeping department works around the clock (24 hoursX365 days). Inventory control or stock of linen, cleaning equipments, cleaning agents, guest supplies etc will be maintained by this department. Now a day’s most of the institutions prefer to have outsourced or contract housekeeping operations which become a lucrative entrepreneur.

4. SCOPE OF HOUSEKEEPING

Main scope of the housekeeping department is to maintain cleanliness and orderliness in the guest rooms, provide all the guest supplies they play a vital role to keep the area free from safety hazards, in addition housekeeper should also attend guest request and make the guest more comfortable

5.ACTIVITES OF THE HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT

Housekeeping department organize, provide and control clean linen, laundry operation ,room service to guest and cleaning procedures. The provision of the service are generally refelected in the tariff for each room.

• Maintain comfort safe and secure environment
•  Provide services economically and efficiently
• Training its personnel
• Room supplies and equipments

6.1 MAINTAIN COMFORT SAFE AND SECURE ENVIRONMENT

It is said that cleanliness is next to godliness. The guest who comes to stay in a hotel expect it to be clean as their homes and sometimes even cleaner since they are paying a price for the service. Sixty three precent of the guests preferred and repeatately stay in a same hotel because of hotel cleanliness and service. It is upto to the executive housekeeper to set the standards for cleanliness and maintain them. The whole crew of the housekeeping department should be understand the imporatnce of efficient cleaning and know the implications of unhygienic environment .

Public area serve to showcase a hotel, their first impression of the hotel, its cleanliness and maintainess standard from the conditon of the hotel public areas.Area inventory list and frequence schedules play a vital role in cleaning of public areas . These areas need to be cleaned at non peak hours of the day and when traffic is low since taking them out of service is impractical.

Safety traning should be given o the housekeeper regarding the use of equipments and chemicals ,procedures for various job and awareness of potential hazards. Executive housekeeper must also ensure that his /her department follows the safety management programme laid down by the hotel and prepare safety manual designed specifically for the hotel.

Time frame for housekeeper to clean the guestrooms

6.2. PROVIDE SERVICES ECONOMICALLY AND EFFICIENTLY

Hotels are mutually very distinguished typologically, functionally, substantively, as well as by capacity. There is a huge variety of hotel types but they are generally classified by number of rooms or by the number of stars a hotel has and the luxury they provide. Functioning of the hotel often takes place not only within a single facility. The location, local environment and the architecture of the building also play an important role in the hotel‘s energy consumption. All of these differences significantly affect that energy use varies in a wide range, so analysis of the energy consumption must be taken into account what kind of hotel it is. Energy consumption costs in continental type hotels, for instance, if a total hotel operating costs ranges from 15-18% and occupy second place among total operating costs of the hotel.

RATIO OF ENERGY COSTS IN DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS IN A HOTEL

Hotels are in terms of architectural organization, consisting of four distinctly differentiated functional groups of premises, which are also, in addition to the function, highly diversified in energy requirements and consequently consumption. These functional zones are:

6.3 TRAINING OF ITS PERSONNEL

Enhancement of human ability will be achieved by imparting knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviour in order to achieve individual goals this can be done by training. Establishment should arrange for frequent training programme for their employee so that they can in turn apply in their work which will reflect in their productivity. The biggest challenge in hotel housekeeping in the present scenario is finding, training, retraining and continuously motivating quality staff

.Increased mechanization of housekeeping operations has placed housekeeping managers in a position to train staff on optimum usage of equipment ,supplies and labour to increase efficiency in operations .This is a crucial to minimizing wasteful expenditure .Today housekeeping jobs are more machinery oriented and training is crucial to maintain high levels of performances and productivity standards .It also prevents losses by way of damage to properly and operators as well as financial loss and cause damage to reputation .

Another upcoming training trend is that of housekeeper collaborating with hotel management institutions for the theoretical knowledge where the hotel industry faculty deliver lecture sessions to the housekeeping staff. Training for housekeeping staff has to be divided into four parts – attitudinal, technical, soft skills and SOPs. Training module should include Occupational safety and Health standard (OSHA so that housekeeper will adopt in their duties.

6.4. ROOM SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENTS

Room supplies and equipments are essential tool for housekeeping professionals; this also helps them to improve the productivity and efficiency. Good quality supplies and equipments can save the revenue of the hotel and prevent the breakdowns of labour and time. The supplies of housekeeping department include all the bathroom supplies and equipments include laundry, cleaning, linen and decorative fixtures and so on. This department is also responsible to provide fresh linen in crucial time to sale the room.

7. BASIC ACTIVITIES OF HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS.

7.1 BED MAKING

Bed making service is provided by the housekeeping department to the guest, he /she should feel comfort and relax during the stay in the hotel. The procedures or style for making a bed may vary from establishment to establishment . Most of deluxe hotel provide a special service to the guest in bed making which is also known a turndown service or evening service.

7.2 .LINEN MANAGEMENT

Second largest expenses was governed by the linen room and maintenance .Linen life span can be carried out properly when it is well maintained ,correctly laundered and properly stored .Linen room and uniform room is a central depot for all the hotel linen .The bulk of clean linen and activating reuse are stored here.

7.3. LAUNDRY SERVICES

Laundry operations are important aspects of housekeeping department depending on whether the hotel has on OPL (on premises Laundry) or outsource laundry. Laundry services starts from the laundry equipment, laundry process, guest laundry, type of laundry agents and uses and care for the fabric. Laundry management ensures that soiled linens are cleaned in a specific time and return to the linen room at the right time.

7.4 .PEST CONTROL

The main role of the housekeeping or maintenance department is to control the pests because they cause discomfort and disease. Pesticides and insecticides should be used when they are identified. Pest control is essential for the maintenances of the safe environment. This is because pest control measures may cause undue harm to other living beings too. Apart from this fact pest control chemicals may bring about some degree of damage to materials and fabrics in some instances. Guest staying in a hotel may be put off on sighting even one such pest. Therefore in hotel the threshold pest population is zero for most pests.

7.5. KEY CONTROL

Cornerstone of the hotel security is to have a key control in all the guest rooms which comes under common law. By careful monitoring and tracking the use of guest keys theft in a hotel can be reduced to a large extend . If there is no key card lock system, key coding system and policies should be considered for key control.

7.6. INTERIOR DECORATION

Interior Decoration is a highly personal expression of the sum of the interests of an individual or a group, a practical statement created by combining various elements of aesthetical using certain design principles. The use of formal elements of art according to certain principles of design ensures success in decoration. For a decorative, colour, lighting, floor and wall finishes are an important tool, it can be used in various ways, tints and shades on different surface to create beauty. Eco sensitive has become a new trend in hotel industry; they utilize maximum natural lighting and ventilation in the interiors.

7.7. ROOM MAINTENANCE

To keep things in order to carry out their scheduled work in smooth flow without any disturbances, maintenance & engineering department have a major role. When the request and complaints are received over the telephone immediately it have to be promptly taken into consideration and rectified or get things to be repaired.

7.8. NON-HOSPITALITY

Many non-hospitality industries incorporate housekeeping departments into their organization. Hospitals rely on a housekeeping department to clean and sanitize patient rooms, public areas and operating units. Specialized training in dealing with medical waste and sterilization may be required. These positions may require evening or night work so that cleaning can be done during non-business hours.

  8. INTERDEPARTMENTAL COORDINATION

Hotel housekeeper work in a unique place, usually hotels is designed for comfort to their guest. A well designed job and supported by a well designed work place will give a good team work for high quality service. Responsibility of the executive house keeper is to supervise a group of stop working with the other department. Housekeeping department cooperative and coordinate with the following department like front office, production /kitchen, food and beverage services, security and maintenances department and finance.

From the time of operation housekeeper comes in contact with practically every other department and if the work is to disturbed and friction between one department and another kept minimum so that the establishment is to run as smoothly as possible there must be close inter departmental cooperation. In case there must be good liaison and communications are helped by a bleep system and computers visual display units. A large hotel has chosen as an example and the following are the departments with which there should be close cooperation. To ensure that everything works to give a balanced, effective organization the housekeeper needs to coordinate the activities of the department. Effective communications are the vital importance.

8.1. COORDINATION WITH FRONT OFFICE

Reception and housekeeping are both concerned with rooms –the former with letting and the latter with preparation and later servicing of the rooms. For this to be done efficiently there must be a constant exchange of information between two departments and each must understand the work and possible difficulties of the other. The house keeper must relies on the receptionist to let know on which day guest s are arriving or leaving, in order that guest’s special requirements may be anticipated and complaints may be avoided .With this prompt exchange of information there is less likelihood of friction arising between the two departments and in large modern hotels tape recorders, telewritres, room status boards or computers may be installed to facilitate communication.

To ensure efficient rooming of guests, both housekeeping and front office must inform each other of changes in a room’s status. Knowing whether a room is occupied, vacant, on change, out of order (OOO), under repair, or similar for proper room management. There should be coordination to clean front office, public areas there must be coordination between housekeeping and front office department to share information on occupancy levels which helps to forecast occupancy for the year and makes it easier to draw up a budget, establish par stock levels and estimate required staff strength. There should be coordination know about the daily room report and housekeeping discrepancy report it also helps to gear renovations and spring cleaning to low occupancy periods thereby preventing loss of revenue. The housekeeping and front office department also coordinate with each other for other important information which require special attention like: VIPs in house: this information is essential so that the staff can take a little extra care and keener precautions in cleaning and supervising VIP rooms.

8.2. COORDINATION WITH FOOD AND BEVERAGE DEPARTMENT

The coordination of housekeeping with the restaurants and banquet halls is mainly

concerned with the provision of linen and uniforms. On his/her part the restaurant manager should ensure that the time set for the exchange of linen must be maintained and linen should not be lost or misused. There should be coordination to maintain minibar in guest rooms. The housekeeping should be well informed about the forthcoming banquet function in advance so that housekeeping will arrange everything to organize that function. Housekeeping may also have to arrange for flower decorations for banquets. The coordination between the two departments becomes particularly necessary in collection of trays from the guest corridors which are collected from the room, placement of fruit basket in guest rooms. In many hotels housekeeping also looks after pest control in restaurants, kitchens, and stores attached to them. Special cleaning of these areas call for coordination with the housekeeping department. Both the restaurant and kitchen staff requires clean uniforms on a daily basis, for which too they need to coordinate with housekeeping.

Cooperation here is mainly concerned with the linen. While the linen keeper .needs to have sufficient stock to meet the demands of the restaurant manager and ensure that the times for exchange linen are expected and not misused. Cooperation is particularly necessary where there is a floor waiter service, so that friction doesn’t arise over such trivial matters not collecting trays from the room, waiters leaving trays on the corridors.

8.3. COORDINATION WITH PURCHASE DEPARTMENT AND STORES

The purchase department procures out-of-stock items for housekeeping, such as guest supplies and amenities, stationary, linen, cleaning materials and equipments etc. housekeeping should convey their requirements to purchase by way of advance notice in the form of a purchase requisition. Coordination with stores ensures the availability of day-to-day necessities of housekeeping. Large hotels have a store attach to the housekeeping department that stocks linen, supplies and so on. Communication with store is by way of a requisition form, which housekeeping sense to when it requires certain items. The requisition form is called as store requisition form. Coordination with stores ensures the availability of day-to-day necessities of housekeeping

8.4. COORDINATION WITH SALES AND MARKETING DEPARTMENT

There should be effective coordination between sales and marketing department and housekeeping to supply promotional items in guest rooms and other areas of hotels. The sales and marketing department informs housekeeping of the occupancy forecast for the entire year, which is broken up month wise. This enables housekeeping to budget for the necessary expenses.

8.5. COORDINATION WITH MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT

Urgent repairs are normally reported to maintenance by telephone and if a good relationship exists between the two departments it is more likely that urgent repairs will be dealt with promptly instead of being added to wait their turn on the list which can lead to friction between the housekeeper and the receptionist as well as with the maintenance staff. However it should remembered that maintenance is required in other department besides housekeeping.

The housekeeping department depends on maintenance to keep things in order. While carrying out their schedule work, housekeeping employees may find some deficiencies in the hotel facilities, such as faulty electrical plugs, dripping faucets, leaking pipes or malfunctioning air-conditioning units etc. a need for urgent repairs is reported to maintenance over telephone and these requests are usually taken into action immediately.

8.6. COORDINATION WITH FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Wage packets are made up from the information received from the housekeeper regarding hours worked ,holidays taken days due to sickness etc and where this is accurate and punctual ,it is hoped that the staff of the housekeeping department will not be kept waiting unnecessarily in a queue for their wage packets .The housekeeper should see that the income tax forms of new staff ,notification of staff ,notification of staff leaving and of any accidents ,petty cash slips and checked invoices are handed over promptly.

8.7.   COORDINATION   WITH SECURITY  DEPARTMENT:

The coordination here is mainly concerned with the prevention of fire and thefts and the safekeeping of keys and lost property. Housekeeping personnel should also report anything of a suspicious nature or movement in hotel immediately to the security staff. Housekeeping have to coordinate if they see any anti-social activities in the guest room such as gambling, smuggling and so on. The security department is responsible for conducting training sessions on handling emergency situations for the staff e.g. they conduct fire drill to train staff to gear up in a fire emergency.

9. ATTRIBUTES OF GOOD HOUSEKEEPERS

There are certain qualities which a housekeeping staff should possess in order to perform the housekeeping functions which are sometimes more important than the skill too. Housekeeping personnel requires a set of knowledge and skills, they also require a set of behaviors and that complete the professional profile.

The housekeeping professional is obliged to develop certain attributes that are a must for the role. These attribute when translate into behavior it is called competencies. Therefore competencies should give importance while hiring the housekeeping.

The staff should have a good presentation of one’s own self when interacting with the guest. This reflects their quality of services and standards in an establishment. The housekeeping staffs also go through a medical examination and should be fit to perform the housekeeping function. Grooming is one of the most important features of housekeeping professionals. Since the room attendant, floor supervisor, houseman, public area personnel and cloakroom attendant have face to face contact with the guests of the hotel, therefore he/she reflects the image of the hotel. The staff should possess power of critical observation to make a flawless room and keen sense to inspect rooms for perfection. Smile is the most enduring competency required of housekeeping professionals especially those in guest contact.

The housekeeping staff needs to be honest as they have access to all the rooms and guests belongings lying around. They also deal with various kinds of guest amenities that are very expensive. So they should have inherent discipline and integrity. They should be polite to guest by frequently using terms such as Thank you, Please, May I help you, excuse me, etc. Discipline is the hallmark of a good housekeeping professional. This is because the temptations in a hotel are many.

The housekeeping staff must co-operate with the staff of other departments for teamwork and more efficiency. The housekeeping staffs have to handle guests request and complaints. The guests are fussy and can make unusual request. The staffs have to be tactful and diplomatic to handle these requests. The housekeeping staff should also have good memory to remember staff likes, dislikes, needs and wishes of guests and especially repeat guests.

10. SUMMARY

There are now many and various innovations and trends in housekeeping. This module explains briefly on the introduction to the housekeeping department, basic functions of the housekeeping department are cleanliness, bed making, ensuring the maintenances of the infrastructure, linen room control, interior decoration, safety and security of the guest. Ideal functions of the housekeeping department have been outlined. Housekeeping department coordinates with other departments for the smooth functioning of the work without any interference. Attributes of the housekeeper is also discussed in this module

REFERENCES:

1. Andrew, S. Hotel Front Office – Training manual, Tata Mac Graw Hill Publishing co ltd, New Delhi, 2009
2. Schneider, M. and Tucker, G. The Professional Housekeeper, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 2005.
3. Branson, J, C. and Lenrox, M. Hotel, Hostel and House Keeping, Edward Arnold Ltd, 2007.