Housekeeping department goal is to clean and maintain all areas of the hotel thoroughly, with the key aim of enhancing the customer experience by having excellent standards of cleanliness (The Rathbone Hotel, 2014).
I have worked with housekeeping team from Early November to middle December 2014 with the supervision of the Executive Housekeeper Anabela Rodrigues. Working hours were from 7:30am to 4:00pm as housekeeping porter and 8:00am to 4:30pm as Room Attendant and Floor Supervisor. The next sections presents the mains tasks developed in each position, see appendix 24.
3.1.1. Housekeeping porter
The main tasks performed as housekeeping porter were: (Appendix 13) Deliver and store clean linen and laundry;
Collect any dirty linen;
Clean pavement at the hotel entrance;
Deliver iron & iron board, dental kit, or others upon guest requests; Clean staff toilet.
Support room attendants work needs.
3.1.2. Room Attendant
The main tasks performed as room attendant were:
Maintain high standards of cleanliness throughout the hotel;
Service all bedrooms and common areas, in line with company policy; Fulfil special requests to ensure guest comfort and satisfaction.
3.1.3. Housekeeping Supervisor
The main tasks performed as housekeeping supervisor were:
Check standards of cleanliness in the rooms in order to deliver excellent customer service at all times;
Create reports and daily job lists including room status, linen and laundry control, health and safety assessments and COSHH;
Ensure I was aware of all hotel facilities should I need to answer customer enquiries and up sell any service when possible;
Maintain stock levels for all toiletries and chemicals; Report maintenance issues;
Complete on request in-house training.
All guest room are fully equipped and it is the floor supervisor job to ensure that the room is cleaned, inspected and ready to occupy according to the hotel standards.
Listed below are the room’s facilities and equipment (The Rathbone Hotel, 2014): a) Guest facilities and amenities
All guestrooms are equipped with complimentary tea and coffee, mineral water, toiletries.
The following items are available to guests upon request: Iron and ironing board;
Extra bed linen / towels;
Adaptors eg. phone, European convertors (£10 deposit taken and refunded on returning the item);
Umbrella (£20 deposit taken and refunded on returning the item); Shoe shining service;
b) Guest laundry and dry cleaning;
Guests may leave their laundry at reception or in the bedroom floor (a laundry bag and list are provided in guest bedrooms) prior to 09:00hrs which will be returned on the same day by 19:00. Laundry left after 09:00 will be returned the following day.
c) Light savers
All guest bedrooms are equipped with an energy saver where lights, air conditioning and electricity will not operate without the use of the key card in the light saver unit. It is necessary to insert a room key in a light saver unit to obtain electricity in the room. As a result, lights left on by guests will automatically switch off approximately 20 seconds after the key is removed, hence saving electricity.
d) Air-conditioning
At the Rathbone we strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible. All guest bedrooms are equipped with air-cooling units, all of which are connected to the light savers and again operate only when the rooms are occupied. Moreover, they are connected to the windows and switch off automatically when the windows are open to prevent wasting energy.
e) Lost property handling
All lost property found must be handed in to the Housekeeper on duty who will record the details in Opera PMS. The lost items will be locked away for the maximum of three months or until reclaimed. If you find any items in the lobby
or public area in the hotel, make sure it is logged in the system and pass it to Housekeeping as soon as possible. Valuable items should be kept in the safe until returned by recorded delivery.
Housekeeping department has SOPs for each and every task/ duty which made my life easy. I have read all of them to ensure I was able to work in accordance with the hotel standards, please see Appendix 14 to 20.
Working in this department was enjoyable. They are a great team and were always willing to support me. As room attendant I felt the workload was a bit heavy, I was impressed with the cleaners that who work incredibly hard every day with a smile on their face. I came across no major faults in this department, so I have only listed below some ideas to ensure the cleaning standards are at the highest level and add value to customer experience:
Implement a late housekeeping shift to ensure cleanliness of customer areas at all times and last minute cleaning requests (by the end of my internship the late shift was already being done);
Turn down service, which refers to the practice of staff entering a guest’s room and ‘turning down’ the bed linen of the bed in the room, leaving the bed comfortable and ready for use. The slippers and the bath robe should be placed on the bottom of the bed, ready for shower before bed time. Bath towels should be tidied up and the bath mat placed on the floor. A little treat such as a chocolate, sweet, cookie or fruit should be left on the top of the folded sheet; Optional: close curtains, switch on ambiance music and reduce the bedroom
lights;
This service can be done as trial on Executive, Club and Suite Rooms and for
VIP customers and if it works extended to all rooms.