Hotel Management and Housekeeping

Executive Summary

Hoteliers and hospitality managers can have a clear edge over the competition once they gain a better understanding of these management issues. This paper seeks to explore ways Hotel International can reorganize its housekeeping department in a bid to maintain quality accommodation and excellent customer service for its guests. Hiring employees from different nationalities has been seen to make good business sense as it gave hotels a truly international feel to it and since it cut operational cost. However, the challenge with this has been hiring inexperienced and incompetent student workers who lacked professional training in the hospitality industry. As such, the outcome was a poor performance and poor ratings from the unsatisfied customers. Job hiring based on clearly outlined roles and responsibilities and an appraisal scheme for performing workers have been shown to improve efficiency and performance in the housekeeping department and result in higher customer satisfaction. Besides, continuous or random inspections have also been identified to help to ensure quality performance (Park et al.,2019). The idea behind this inspection is that even though a room attendant has cleaned the same space for quite some time, he or she cannot be trusted, and therefore, constant supervision is a must.

Introduction

Businesses in the modern world operate in an ever-changing and dynamic environment. As such, the executive managers have to formulate strategic orientations that will guide how the company adjusts and adapts to the changing market environment. The hospitality industry has seen tremendous growth over the past few years owing to continued technological advancements to enhance organization, efficiency, service delivery, and customer experience. However, the industry has also had its fair share of problems that have affected operations and created bottlenecks, thereby impeding growth projections. One of the major management issues that the hoteliers and hospitality managers of Hotel International face is labor productivity, cutting down operational costs, and knowledge of the latest in hotel technologies in a bid to outdo the competition. The purpose of this study is to find out whether an emphasis on redefining job hiring process to tap into the right talent coupled with strategies like the setting of performance indicators, an appraisal scheme, and use of innovative methods will translate to improved efficiency and performance in the housekeeping department and enhance the guest experience.

Background

A hotel’s cleanliness standards can give it a competitive edge over its competition as it assures clients’ loyalty who also help to spread positive reviews through social media or word of mouth. The contrast between a stressful and quiet stay can be the reservation of a clean room at a decent hotel. Checking a hotel’s cleanliness standards before you book a room can ease your fear regarding pathogens (Sturman 2006). Guests look for the tell-tell signs of cleanliness and consistency of hygienic facilities before making room reservations. The significance of housekeeping is unquestionable to hoteliers. Guests deserve a clean room in all kinds of things. Repetitively, a lack of cleanliness affects guest satisfaction, and it’s often appropriate to complain while guests are raising the issue of cleanliness. As such, it is crucial for hotel managers to come up with cleaning strategies that will support their cleaning operations.

High standards of housekeeping are a key business-level strategy that hoteliers and hotel managers employ to gain a competitive advantage over competitors in a business environment. In relation to human resource management, the focus should be on managing employees differently on the basis of the value they bring to the company. Besides, hotel management is primarily influenced by both the perspective and opinions of both internal and external stakeholders. Employees are considered primary internal stakeholders who directly contribute both financial and time investments to the company (Beringer, Jonas, and Kock, 2013). The employees play an integral part in operations, strategy, and tactics to the company operation. As such, it is important to hire staff who are able to deliver according to the job specification and tasks assigned. In that case, job analysis systems are used to collect data on the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) areas and develop evidence-based employment procedures. This fundamental aspect helps HR managers make sound decisions on talent acquisition, compensation, and retention.

One strategic approach crucial for hoteliers and hotel management to develop is problem-solving skills, especially since problems can be viewed as opportunities in disguise. According to Cook and Jenkins, “Organizations cannot improve unless they consistently seek out and solve their problems. For most, that means undertaking a profound cultural change which must begin from the top” (Cook and Jenkins 2020). The ultimate goal is for everyone in the organization to be actively involved in problem-solving based on the relevance to their work, and this will involve training analytical problem-solving culture to all employees to ensure the skill is adopted at every level of the company. As such, there is a need for hoteliers to place importance on coaching their employees and encouraging them to adopt problem-solving skills as part of the corporate culture. Using the right tools and techniques for analysis, management practices can test the data and make sense of it in order to come up with the right solution for the problem.

Sources and Methods

Data collection will begin with interviewing the housekeeping staff at Hotel International to find out their level of understanding of the hotel policies and standards. The interviews will also be conducted to find out whether they understand what is expected of them in terms of roles and responsibilities. We will also collect data from the housekeeping management team on the level of team management skills and acceptable workplace behaviors. Besides, data collection will focus on research on the effective hiring processes and performance indicators that work in other hotels of the same caliber. In particular, Fleishman Job Analysis System, or F-JAS in short, will be used to evaluate the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to perform housekeeping duties effectively. However, a limitation with F-JAS technique is that it assumes that job KSAs are capable of differentiating the tasks and that supervisors and job incumbents can make valid and reliable assessments of the KSAs required to perform the job effectively. As such, O*NET OnLine will be used to supplement the F-JAS instrument.

Body of Research

1. Human Resource Differentiation and Hiring

It is important to have the right systems in place when hiring employees. Such systems help propose employment tests that are appropriate for selecting the right candidate for the specified job, in this case, housekeeping. Using job analysis tools like F-JAS and O*NET OnLine helps eliminate ambiguity in the hiring process related to job elements crucial to the organization by demonstrating the job-relatedness of employment tests. If there is any ambiguity in the hiring process, the company may be liable to legal action for not having content-valid employment procedures.

Besides, it has been found out that employee referral programs are a very productive way of hiring staff and filling open job positions (Zojceska, 2018). As such, Hotel International looked at formulating and implementing employee referral programs through sites like LinkedIn and other such forums.

Fig 1. Retrieved from: https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/87/15-new-recruiting-trends-you-should-implement-in-2020

Hoteliers and hotel management also focused on fostering an environment of diversity by hiring housekeeping staff from different countries. These new hires would be paid according to the US labor regulations and given training after successful recruitment. As such, Hotel International embraced an international feel to it because of the hiring employees from different nationalities, a strategy that related hiring needs to industry trends. The strategy worked at enhancing the customer experience at the hotel.

Fig 2. Retrieved from: https://smejoinup.com/2018-recruitment-trends/

2. Housekeeping Quality Control

The primary strategy in making a hotel guest happy is enhancing the cleanliness of the hotel. That is why housekeeping staff are crucial as their work directly translates to either positive or negative reviews from guests.

Fig 3. Retrieved from: https://www.janiking.com/2015/05/how-a-clean-hotel-builds-customer-loyalty/

Preventing reoccurrence of low levels of cleanliness in the hotel can be achieved through inspection to verify that the room attendants have cleaned up to the expected standards. Brody (2016), enlightens that it is important, in a day for the hotel management to ensure that supervisors have checked every room cleaned and evaluate the performance of every worker using quality check scores. This approach generally requires a quantifiable gage, such as the quantity of raw material used as an indication of satisfactory performance. This strategy is cost-effective than intrusive or comprehensive behavior. The data on how the cleaning chemical has been used is also indicative of the adherence of the housekeeper to the cleaning standards.

In the cleaning process, housekeepers use various chemicals, for instance, surface, and glass cleaner. The interesting point is that a certain housekeeper doesn’t necessarily have to use an absolute amount of the cleaning chemicals to post high-performance. Rather such a measure would be reflective of the consistent use of the chemical (Sturman 2006). Based on data from the cleaning and chemical usage, a great deal of attention is paid to quality, particularly when comparable areas demand the same quantity of cleaning time and chemicals. Besides, housekeeping training is designed to provide the necessary means for the cleaning of a room. Therefore, an equal quantity of cleaning chemicals is also applied in the guest rooms of the same kind if housekeepers are constantly performing their tasks per hotel standards.

3. Training on Guest Experience and Customer Relations

The first strategy to ensure clean guest rooms is to train the staff. Jones (2007), expounds that Staff training is significant to ensure outstanding performance as far as housekeeping is concerned. The housekeeping workers can be trained on standard methods of cleaning, which they should adhere to. Hotel International seeks to implement technology as a way of attracting and enhancing guests’ stay at the hotel. As such, the housekeeping department employees can also be trained on emerging technology trends in the industry as awareness of the latest technology trends in hospitality can help the housekeepers in building customer relations.

Fig 4. Retrieved from: https://www.hotelmanagement.net/tech/report-guests-wants-experience-recommendations

4. Reputation Management and Branding

At Hotel International, management is integral to guarantee the progress of the company. In particular, managers play a significant role in the development of company strategies, and they have a considerable role in the operational management decisions (Welch and Jackson, 2007). Consequently, managers are held accountable for the decisions that are made given they function as a middle point between the board of directors, shareholders, and the business. Using the right tools and techniques for analysis, management practices can test the data and make sense of it in order to come up with the right solution for the problem. Moreover, there is also the need to integrate coaching problem-solving skills to employees as a way to encourage employee engagement in intentionally identifying and solving problems relevant to them as part of the corporate culture. Besides, adopting and maintaining a reputable corporate culture can help retain employees as they feel engaged in the mission and vision of the company.

Figure 5. Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/What-is-employer-branding

Conclusions

Housekeeping employees are also critical to the success of the hospitality businesses. It is important that each housekeeping staff in Hotel International comprehends the role they play in boosting the profitability of the hotel. Hotels with proper management of the housekeeping employees ensure their concerns and opinions are considered in shaping the company vision, mission, and strategy. Streamlining the hiring process using proper job analysis tools and systems can be beneficial in acquiring the right talent in the housekeeping department. Besides, it is also critical for the department employees to acquire the necessary problem-solving skills that will enable them to collaborate in offering a clean and conducive environment for the hotel’s valued guests. A systematic approach to problems and solutions increases the odds of coming up with strategies that work. Hotel International can promote problem-solving culture among its employees through proper training according to the needs identified during employee performance and skill assessment. Competency and professionalism at work will translate to the client’s loyalty and more profit for the hotel. Besides, employee appraisals can be used to motivate workers to put effort towards a specific objective depending on the job demands. In the case of the housekeeping department of Hotel International, motivating employees will not only prompt them to work towards maintaining high cleanliness standards of the guest rooms but also work competently and professionally.

Recommendations

The management and housekeeping staff should undergo proper training on acceptable workplace behaviors and ways of correcting disruptive behavior that might compromise the cleaning standards of the hotel. During the training of the interns, they should be informed of the method, time, and staff assigned to conduct the evaluation (Jones 2007). They should also be directed on how they think concerning possible challenges that they may face during the course of duty (Jones 2007). Problem-solving skills can be developed and honed both at an individual and at a professional level to come up with profound and thought-provoking ideas and solutions to our problems and, at the same time, convert the challenges into opportunities for business growth and development. In this case, hotel international could outsource training agencies with a specialization in commercial cleaning. These agencies could instruct the hotel’s housekeeping workers on the various procedures to clean and sanitize the guestrooms. For example, they could be trained on protocols such as dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, stripping, among others. Housekeeping workers could also be trained on how to offer personalized hygienic services to guests to ensure they are satisfied and happy by ensuring rooms are at required cleanliness standards as an extended service to the guests. Moreover, it is necessary to establish and implement an appraisal scheme for the performance of the workers. This should be implemented during the progression of work and be made part of not only staffing but also organization (Jones 2007). The first appraisal for the housekeepers should be conducted during the staffing stage. The method used should, therefore, be applied throughout the internship period. Further, it is necessary to occasionally communicate hotel policies to the student workers about an acceptable code of conduct as far as rooms cleaning and performance measurements are concerned. The same procedures should be enforced when a worker breaches the set regulation.

References

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DeNisi, Angelo and Griffin, Ricky. “HR⁴: Human Resources”. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning 2018. Chapter 4

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Park, H., Kline, S. F., Kim, J., Almanza, B., & Ma, J. (2019). Does hotel cleanliness correlate        with surfaces guests contact?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality             Management.

Zojceska, Anja. (2018). Recruiting Trends You Should Implement. HR Trends. https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/87/15-new-recruiting-trends-you-should-implement-in-2020

Jones, T. J. (2007). Professional management of housekeeping operations. John Wiley & Sons.

Ling, M. L., Apisarnthanarak, A., Villanueva, V., Pandjaitan, C., & Yusof, M. Y. (2015). APSIC Guidelines for environmental cleaning and decontamination. Antimicrobial resistance and infection control, 4(1), 58.

Sturman, M. C. (2006). A new method for measuring housekeeping performance consistency. Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration, The Center for Hospitality Research.