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Working in housekeeping management can provide
a unique view into a side of the hotel business
that you might never have considered unless
you actually worked there. It is a more human,
more critical look at the people and processes
involved in preparing and maintaining the
cleanliness and amenities within the rooms
and public spaces of a hotel. While it is
impossible to provide every detail, duty,
and responsibility required of housekeeping
managers, this article is intended to provide
a basic overview of the most critical aspects
of a housekeeping manager’s overall
job description.
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Working with Room Attendants
As a housekeeping manager, room attendants can be
your biggest asset or greatest liability depending
on their dependability, attitude, experience, and
work ethic. You’ll likely find that your interaction
with room attendant will include hiring, providing
training, supervising, inspecting, and in some cases,
terminating. These are all part of the housekeeping
manager’s responsibilities when it comes to
the human aspect of the job. It probably won’t
take you long to realize that the room attendants
will largely make or break not only your success
as a manager, but often the success of the department,
and the overall success of the hotel as well. Much
of your typical day will be spent working and interacting
with the room attendants.
Supplies/Inventory
You would be surprised by the number of objects
and amenities found in the average hotel room. As
a housekeeping manager, part of your job will be
to ensure that your employees have the proper inventory
levels of supplies needed to main proper cleanliness
levels and have room amenities available. From towels,
sheets, vacuum cleaners, cleaning supplies, robes,
toilet paper, soap, and shampoo, you’ll find
there is a huge variety of housekeeping supplies,
which in many hotel chains is constantly being changed
by the powers that be at the corporate office. You’ll
likely find yourself making orders with a list of
various suppliers, investigating new or different
product options and pricing, as well as monitoring
inventory levels.
Working with Other Departments
To some, the housekeeping department might seem
very independent of other departments, and in many
cases, it is. However, the two departments that
often interact most with housekeeping are the front
desk and maintenance. The front desk will rely on
your department to ‘flip’ dirty rooms
to clean for arriving guests in a timely manner
and meet special requests for particular room types
often on a tight timeframe. Meanwhile, housekeeping
will likely have a similar reliance upon the maintenance
department to make needed repairs to rooms quickly
in order to be able to sell them to incoming guests.
The housekeeping and sales will also be in communication,
as the sales department will need to have ‘show
rooms’ for client meetings, to illustrate
the various room types the hotel has to offer. Sales
will also depend on housekeeping to help clean blocks
of rooms or particular room types for certain guests
or incoming groups that might have early arrivals,
late checkouts, and similar needs.
Miscellaneous
But there is more to running a housekeeping department
than just keeping track of your room attendants
and taking inventory. You will likely have floor
supervisors or managers, possibly public space managers,
and if you are in a larger hotel, probably a variety
of housepersons, public space and laundry attendants,
carpet cleaners, valet laundry employees, and second
and third shift staff under your supervision.
Additionally, you’ll probably spend time
ensuring special guest or group requests are met
regarding cleaning times or methods, looking for
lost and found items, budgeting, scheduling, inspecting,
and a laundry list of other odds and ends when it
comes to meeting guest expectations and running
the department.
The work can be difficult, and at times goes unappreciated,
but at the end of the day, the pride and accomplishment
that comes with knowing you’ve turned hundreds
of rooms around for guests to spend their night
or occasion in, is something special.
To find out more about an education in housekeeping
management, visit the Hospitality
Management schools directory.
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