Respect staff and hotel guests when creating a cleaning mandate
Fluffing pillows, changing sheets, wiping down windows and mopping / vacuuming floors - these might seem like fairly simple tasks, but factor in multiple rooms, collection and disposal of linens from laundry operations whilst balancing one’s bodily functions: and it all point towards making the challenges of housekeeping one of the most physically taxing jobs in hotel operations.
“How can we do more with less?” is a cliché phrase, a ‘buzz’ word that emerged from companies - especially large ones as a means to squeeze pennies, seconds, or even people out of their existing business processes. The flaw in this thinking was that nearly all of these companies worked with an “extraction” mindset rather than one of “creation.” Driven by the "do more with less" mantra, rather than a seeking a “do better” approach, many knowledgeable housekeeping staffs prefer to exit such workplaces, leaving guests to experience below-par service standards.
A few years ago, the human resources manager of a star class hotel came to us for help. He was struggling to figure out the escalating turnover numbers among the hotel’s housekeeping staff. Despite carrying out a due diligence review of wages, staff benefits and holding discussions with key members of the housekeeping staff, where it showed that that they were well above the industry norm, he couldn’t make sense of (and reduce) the alarming high churn rate of staff from that department. Even exit interviews didn’t help him figure it out!
Taking a step by step look at the problem, it became clear that the real issue wasn’t the wages, benefits, indifferent attitude, “lazy” hires, or lack of proper training—it was simply a bad capacity calculation – and the reason for excessive turnover was all there in the housekeeping job description. Each housekeeping employee was expected to clean 16 rooms during an eight-hour shift. A look at the number of employees who absented themselves from reporting to work due to illness in the past six months revealed an upwardly high trajectory pointed towards a ‘workload’ problem.
When going too far by doing more with less
A room cleaning employee assumes 8,000 different body postures every shift, and the most common injuries include repetitive motion injuries. Unfortunately, most hotel managers including controllers push housekeeping staff well into the ‘danger zone.’ Studies undertaken by hotel operators provide strict rules on the number of rooms to be completed per day.
According to the experts, the max any housekeeper can do without incurring risk to themselves is 14. And that too, only if the hotel has invested heavily in appliances that are easy to handle and require the least amount of bending and lifting as well as in providing sufficient training for their housekeeping staff.
Once the rooms-per-day quotient goes beyond the max number of rooms a room cleaner can handle, the rate of injuries increases significantly. What happens then is a domino effect, because injuries lead to time away and possible compensation, which then leads to rotating and overworking staff to eventually many quitting their jobs, losing in the process knowledgeable housekeeping staff.
Occupational risk managers reveal that housekeeping injuries can be dramatically reduced if hotel managers provide strict rules on the number of rooms to be completed per day. And that requires knowing exactly how much more can one’s hotel team handle? And more importantly, are key executives taking a hard look at how much their employees should be expected to handle?
Housekeepers can sometimes be looked down upon in some hotels and that is such a mistake, cautions their jobs are so important to the overall guest experience. If you grant them the respect and recognition they deserve, housekeepers will do a better job.
Ilzaf Keefahs is a freelance writer who enjoys focusing on hospitality related matters that he is passionate about, and likes to share his views with hoteliers and customers alike. He delves into the heart of hospitality to figure out both customer service and consumer trends that impact the industry
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