Executive Housekeeping Today - May 2008 - (Page 14)

I.E.H.A. Investigates: by Laura M. DiGiulio, Editor Issues in Hotel Housekeeping cleaning. “At The Peabody Orlando, our standards are reviewed and approved by our Executive Committee. Our associates are trained and certified in all of our standards, starting on the first day of employment. It’s important that associates understand the goals of the organization, and that they have an opportunity to voice their opinion on how best to take care of our guests,” says Pat Baird, R.E.H., Executive Housekeeper at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, FL, and President of the Maingate Chapter. “We must make sure we give our associates the tools and training necessary to do their job. All too often, new hires are put on the front line without proper training and we wonder why they take shortcuts. As executives, it’s imperative that we are out and about to inspect what we expect. We cannot allow our associates to move along without our support and attention.” In addition to job descriptions and policies and procedures, a proper and realistic time-to-task outline should be put in place to allow for proper cleaning. When front line housekeepers are expected to turn too many rooms within a shift, more corners are cut. In an averaged-sized property, 20 rooms are way too many for an eight-hour shift, unless team cleaning is utilized—15-16 rooms “Is Hotel Housekeeping Really Following Rules?” This is just one of the many stories that made headline news in television broadcasting during late 2007 and early 2008. Just Google the words “Hotel Cleanliness” and 256,000 choices of videos, from YouTube to AOL; news broadcasts, from Fox to ABC to NBC; and articles, from bloggers to news giants around the globe, pop up from places such as Ohio, New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, the United Kingdom, and Australia, that feature skeptics who ask this very same question. The scene that sticks out in the majority of these skeptics’ minds is the one that many of you may have seen or heard about: One housekeeper was caught on camera performing a major “no-no”—using the same cleaning rag to clean the toilet in a guest room bathroom that she used to clean the guest room drinking glasses. Unfortunately, a few hidden cameras in a few hotels caused a huge uproar around the globe—and put a huge damper on the dedicated employees within the hotel housekeeping industry and the hospitality industry in general. Due to the uproar, I.E.H.A. wanted to get to the bottom of the issues within the hotel housekeeping industry. So, we sent a mass e-mail to all of our members within the hospitality sector and asked the following: “As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of news coverage recently related i to hotels not being ‘up to par’ in regards to cleanliness. What do YOU think are the REAL reasons hotel housekeepers may be cutting corners in regards to cleanliness? Do you think that TV stations are simply trying to increase ratings? Or do you think there are other issues that need to be addressed?” We would like to thank all of our members who contributed their thoughts to this article! Outlined below are the REAL reasons hotel housekeeping may not be following the rules. Training and Supervision The formula is really quite simple: When your facility has knowledgeable training supervisors plus a thorough training program in place, the result should equal a clean facility. “I think there is a lack of training that should be performed by supervisors,” says Heike Greenwood, Facility Consultant for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in Miami, FL, and member of the Florida Gold Coast Chapter. “It seems that many executive housekeepers turn a new housekeeper over to an experienced housekeeper to learn from, resulting in picking up bad habits. This is a lack of attention to detail.” In addition, having the proper tools in place for housekeepers to do their jobs effectively, such as job descriptions, policies, and procedures, allows for proper training, and in turn, proper Time and Budget 4 Executive Housekeeping Today/May 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Executive Housekeeping Today - May 2008

Executive Housekeeping Today - May 2008 Contents Executive Corner From Ivory Halls to Four-Star Resorts The Ten-Dollar Test Toward Customer Satisfaction Frugal Housekeeper How Green is Your Laundry Not All Microfiber is Created Equal Feature Article - I.E.H.A. Investigates: Issues in Hotel Housekeeping 2008 Candidate Information IHW Product Information The Green Scene 2008 Convention Information Product Highlights Inside the Industry New Members Joint IEHA/ISSA Members CEH/REH Members Advertisers' Index Calendar of Events Inside I.E.H.A. What I.E.H.A. Has Done For Me

Executive Housekeeping Today - May 2008

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