The Role of Housekeeping in Hospitality Operations

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CHAPTER 2

• The Role of Housekeeping in Hospitality
  Operations
• Objective describing the role of housekeeping
  within the hotel explaining its relationship
  with the other departments

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Types of HotelsThree Basic Service Level
Categories

• Economy/limited-service Hotels
• Mid-range-service hotels
• Suite Hotel
• Executive Floor
• World-class-service hotels

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Economy/limited-Service Hotels

• provide clean, comfortable, inexpensive rooms and
  meet the basic needs of guests
• appeal to budget minded travelers e.g. families
  with children, bus tour groups, business
  travelers, vacationers, retirees, groups of
  conventioneers
• has limited food beverage service, do not offer
  room service, uniformed service, banquet rooms,
  health clubs
• the staff consists of owners as managers, room
  attendants, front desk agent, sometimes a
  maintenance person

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Mid-range-service hotels

• provide modest but sufficient service
• appeal to the largest segment of the traveling
  public e.g. business travelers on expense
  accounts, tourists or families taking advantage
  of special childrens rates
• offer uniformed service, full food and beverage
  facilities (e.g. specialty restaurants, coffee
  shop, lounge etc)
• has management staff consists of a general
  manager and several department managers

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Mid-range-service hotelSuite Hotels

• provide a small living room and a bedroom with a
  king-size bed, some provide a kitchenette
• serve for frequent travelers, families interested
  in nonstandard hotel accommodations, preferred by
  executives
• housekeeping labor expenses may be higher because
  of the larger size of rooms.
• have less public space and fewer guest services
  than a typical mid-range-service hotel

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World-class-service hotels

• provide upscale restaurants, exquisite decor,
  concierge service, luxurious meeting and private
  dining facilities
• serve for top business executives, entertainment
  celebrities, high ranking political figures,
  wealthy people
• provide exclusive housekeeping services e.g.
  turndown service

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World-class-service in mid-range-service
hotelsExecutive Floor

• some-mid-range-service hotels may dedicate
  certain floors (usually the top floors) to
  world-class service
• has large and deluxe rooms
• has upgrade furnishings, decor and amenities

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Sample Organization Chart for a Midsize
Rooms-Only Hotel
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Sample Organization Chart for a Large Hotel
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- continued
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Hotel Divisions and Departments

• Revenue Center areas that sell goods and
  services to guests, in other words, generate
  revenue e.g. front office, food and beverage
  outlets.
• Support Center areas that does not generate
  revenue directly, but play a supporting role to
  the hotels revenue centers. e.g. housekeeping,
  accounting, engineering and maintenance, human
  resources.

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Hotel Divisions and Departments

• Front-of-the-house areas in which employees
  have guest contact e.g. front office, food and
  beverage outlets.
• Back-of-the-house areas in which employees have
  less direct contact e.g. accounting, engineering
  and maintenance, human resources, housekeeping.

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Hotel Divisions and Departments

• The Rooms Division - front office (front desk,
  cashier, mail and information section),
  housekeeping, reservations, telephone, uniformed
  service.
• The Engineering and Maintenance Division
• The Human Resources Division
• The Accounting Division
• The Security Division
• The Food and Beverage Division
• The Sales and Marketing Division

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Housekeeping and the Front OfficeCommunication
between housekeeping and front office

• Written Communication
• occupancy report
• housekeeping rooms status report Ex. 5, pg. 15
• Mechanical Communications
• Computerized Communication

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Written Communication

• Occupancy Report prepared by a front desk agent
  every night, lists the occupied rooms that night
  and indicates the rooms expected to check out the
  following day (due out).
• The executive housekeeper gets this list in the
  morning and schedules the rooms for cleaning.
• Housekeeping Status Report prepared by the
  housekeeping department at the end of the shift,
  indicates the curent housekeeping status of each
  room (the rooms that have been cleaned that day)

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• based on a physical check of each room.
• Room Staus Discrepancy is a situation in which
  the housekeeping departments description of a
  rooms differs from the front desks description
  of a room.
• Keeping room status information up-to-date
  requires close coordination between the front
  desk and the housekeeping department. The two
  most common systems for tracking current room
  status are mechanical room rack systems and
  computerized status systems.

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Mechanical Communication

• A room rack may be used by the front desk to
  track the status of all rooms. A room rack slip
  is filled at the registartion process with the
  guests name and other necessary information and
  placed in the room rack slot corresponding to the
  assigned room number. The presence of a room
  rack slip indicates that the room is occupied.
  When the guest checks out, the rack slip is
  removed and the rooms status is changed to an
  on-change.

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• This sytem may lead to mistakes and delays in the
  room status information between housekeeping and
  front desk. For example, if a room rack slip is
  mistakenly left in the rack after the guests
  ckeck out, front desk agents may think that a
  vacant room is still occupied (sleeper).
• Here, the communication between housekeeping and
  front office may be spoken (on the telephone),
  written (through the usual reports) or telewriter.

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Computerized Communication

• In a computerized room status system,
  housekeeping and front desk uses a computer
  terminal which ensures instant access to room
  status information. When a guest checks out, a
  front desk agent enters the dparture into the
  computer which alerts housekeeping that the room
  needs cleaning. After the rooms is cleaned and
  inspected, housekeeping enters this information
  into the terminal. This is how the front office
  is informed that the room is available for sale.

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• When the computer systems is connected to the
  guestroom telephone system, the supervisors can
  enter a designated code on the room telephone to
  change the rooms status in the hotels computer
  system to inform front desk that the room is
  ready for sale. This saves time and energy in
  informing the front desk about the status of
  rooms.

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Rooms Status Definitions(Rooms status
definitions ex. 6, pg 16)

• Occupied A guest is currently registered to the
  room.
• Complimentary The room is occupied, but the
  guest is assessed no charge for its use.
• Stayover The guest is not cheking out today and
  will remain at least one more night.
• On-change The guest has departed, but the room
  has not yet been cleaned and readied for resale.
• Do not disturb The guest has requested not to
  be disturbed.

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• Sleep-out A guest is registered to the room,
  but the bed has not been used.
• Skipper The guest has left the hotel without
  making arrangements to settle his/her account.
• Sleeper The guest has settled his/her account
  and left the hotel, but the front office staff
  has failed to properly update the rooms status.
• Vacant and ready The room has been cleaned and
  inspected, and is ready for an arriving guest.
• Out-of-order The room cannot be assigned to a
  guest. A room may be out-of-order for a variety
  of reasons, including the need for maintenance,
  refurbishing, and extensive cleaning.

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• Lock-out The room has been locked so that the
  guest cannot re-enter until he/she is cleared by
  a hotel official.
• DNCO (did not check out) The guest made
  arrangements to settle his/her account (and thus
  is not a skipper), but has left without informing
  the front office.
• Due out The room is expected to become vacant
  after the following days check-out time.
• Check-out The guest has settled his/her
  account, returned the room keys, and left the
  hotel.
• Late check-out The guest has requested and is
  being allowed to check out later than the hotels
  standard check-out time.

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Housekeeping and Engineering/Maintenance

• Routine maintenance
• Preventive maintenance
• Scheduled maintenance
• maintenance work order Ex. 7, pg. 19

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• Routine Maintenance activities are those which
  occur on a regular (daily or weekly) basis for
  the general upkeep of the property. E.g.
  Sweeping carpets, washing floors, cleaning
  windows, replacing burned-out light bulbs,
  cleaning guest rooms. Many of them are handled
  by housekeeping.
• Preventive Maintenance consists of three parts
  inspection, minor correction and work order
  initiation. Every day, the rooms are routinely
  inspected for any leaks, cracks etc. If there
  are some minor problems, engineering is informed
  through the telephone and they are corrected
  while the room attendant is cleaning the
  guestroom.

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• However, preventive maintenance sometimes
  identifies major problems for which work orders
  are initiated. Then, this type of work is
  referred to as scheduled maintenance.
• Scheduled Maintenance activities are initiated
  at the property based on a formal work order.
  Work orders are the key in the communication
  between housekeeping and engineering. When a
  work order is filled by the housekeeping, one
  copy is kept in the department and two copies are
  sent to the engineering to inform them. One of
  those copies is kept by the chief engineer and
  the other is given to the enginnering and staff
  who will fix the problem.