12- Concluding Notes
As the owner of the Nancy College, with 20 years of experience in hospitality industry, I can tell you that housekeeping is not rocket science, these tasks are performed on daily basis in your households. All you have to learn from this training is to be able to follow the brand standards.
All the rooms in the hotels may have the same look, for example, all regular single rooms will have the same appearance. And all of the equipment in the room will be located in their designated places. You will adapt to the standards. All the hotel brands will provide training to their new staff so that they are well versed in their standards.
Important points to remember
There are different types of rooms when it comes to the room status. It will assist you when you manage your day and where to start first and which room to clean last. The hotel bookings and guest check in’s depend on how you manage your tasks.
Fresh rooms
They are the rooms that are stayover. Guests are in the room, and their stay will be longer. The period that guest stays in the room is called stayover. When you stay 4 days in a room, that room is announced as stay over room or fresh room (where you provide fresh towels and supplies but don’t change the linen every day, you do it after 2 or 3 days).
You don’t open any drawers, fridge, or anything while you are cleaning this room based on the guest request. You don’t touch anything that belongs to the guest. There are hotel cards that guests put on the bed that says, “don’t change the sheets” or “change the sheets”. Or they will ask the front desk. If you see the sheets are dirty or have stains, then you can change it. You restock the toiletries like soap and shampoo for the guest, but you don’t throw away the half-used soap and shampoo.
The names or types of the rooms are different, but the cleaning concepts are the same.
Checkout room
These are the rooms that guest decided to leave, (remember it is decide not checked out). For example, when we decide to go and stay somewhere for work, we estimate that we will stay here 3 days and book the room in a hotel for 3 days, but we find out later in the 3rd day that we have to stay one more day to finish our job, so in those cases, the guest extends one more day. When the guest is not leaving after 11:30 am or 12:00 pm and the guest luggage is in the room, you ask the guest very politely if they are leaving today or not? (we are very happy to have you, but my paper says you are leaving today, do you wish to leave today or are you staying with us longer?) If the guest says they are leaving, you say we are looking forward to seeing you again. Sometimes they want to extend the checkout time, they want to go at 3:00 pm or 5:00 pm or they say they want to stay the night, in these cases you inform your supervisor right away and note this room in your list from checkout to stayover.
Vacant dirty
Vacant dirty means this room is empty, but you will knock three times, as there may be human error and the guest is still in the room.
Tips and tricks
Another important topic is your sixth sense, which is very important. There are times when you see a room you don’t sense good or you don’t feel good to go inside the room, don’t go to the room, ask your co-worker to stay with you while you enter the room.
Personally, when I enter the room, I assess the size of the room. I open the room, turn on the lights, all rooms should be well illuminated, freshen the air, open the curtains, take out the garbage. Strip the room, and then I prefer to clean the washroom first, I change the towels first then clean the washroom, because after you clean if you go to put the towels you may bring some hair or any dirt with your shoes to the washroom and you may not notice, and guest will complain that this room Is not cleaned. Check the shower and everything in the washroom, see that everything is working, shake the shower curtain and clean it if necessary, look at the ceiling to see if there is any hair stuck due to blow drying the hair.
Always look at the garbage bin first in the washroom, it may need washing and cleaning. You can have your own style of cleaning the washroom, but it should be same pattern every time, because while you are cleaning if any issue comes up and you get distracted or go out of the room, when you come back you will know where you have started and where you left off, your pattern will assist you in saving time.
Leave the lid of the toilet open to know you have not cleaned it. Also make sure you clean under the mirror as well. Mirror is very important, as the mirror will tell the guest if you have cleaned the room or not, guest have not seen you clean, so it should look spotless clean. As human brain always looks to protect the person and they look for each and tiny detail to prevent the person from disease. People brain are in alert always. The guest will check so that they themselves or their kid doesn’t get sick.
Near the door area is important and when the guest enters the room they bring their luggage, and their head will be looking down so they will see the door area first and if there is any garbage, they will be alert. If a guest feels uncomfortable, they will make complain. Beds should also be tidy. You should build the trust factor for all guests.
Furthermore, if the front desk does not give a good welcome to the guest due to any reason, they will be upset and they will look for problems. When guests are offered cold water, tea, or anything at the check in time, their psychology will be good towards the hotel otherwise they will be alert and check every detail and will get upset in small issues. Front desk behavior is very important in housekeeping, they have to feel welcome in the hotel. If they feel welcome, then if there is anything less or bad in the hotel they take it easy.
One thing that makes you successful is to put yourself in another person’s shoes, imagine how much the guests have paid and that why they have high expectations, so they have to get best service.
Another important topic is that You are working in one floor, there are two dirty rooms. One of them is blocked queen room, the other is also queen room but its vacant dirty, if you clean the vacant dirty first the supervisor will get upset as blocked rooms are specifically chosen by guest and they want only that room. So, when they come those rooms should be clean and ready.
Some other tips are as follows
- Before leaving the room and closing the door look at the floor.
- In stay over rooms, never touch the bag next to garbage bag, if it’s not on top of the garbage bin. Sometimes guests put used stuff on the floor in a bag and that is not garbage.
- In stay over room, there may be an empty box of pizza, empty bottle, empty glass, you can pick up the bottle and glass, but for the pizza box please check if there is hand written notes or number because guest may use it to record information for themselves.
- If there is money or tip next to the bed, don’t touch it, if it’s on the pillow you can take it. If it’s next to bed with a note that this is a tip, you can take it but take a picture of it with the note.
- If you see a room is very dirty, before cleaning it inform your supervisor so that they increase the credit for you, or help you clean it.
- If the room furniture layout is changed, do not touch it, inform your supervisor, so that maintenance could fix it. It is for your own safety.
- If in a nonsmoking room, someone has smoked, and there is evidence of it, take a picture of it and inform your supervisor.
- In the Rooms with a balcony, make sure you clean the balcony as well.
- If the microwave is very dirty, put some water in a glass or bowl. Put it in the microwave at boiling point for some time, and continue with cleaning other parts of the room, it will moist the microwave and it will make it easy and faster to clean.
- Always check the glasses in the room to see if they are clean.
- If you have short notice and you want to clean the bathtub, but you don’t have sufficient cleaning chemicals you can use dishwashing cakes or liquid to clean the bathtubs.
Safety checks
- When you are in hallway, and a fire incident happens, don’t use the elevators, and put your cart in front of the vacant dirty or vacant clean doors of the rooms so that people with wheelchair can move.
- When you are doing stayover rooms, and the door of the room is open and someone wants to enter the room and says I am the guest, you do not allow the person to come in the rooms or touch anything in the room. If persists, inform your supervisor. Tell them “I am sorry, please be outside and come back and open the room with your own key”. If they get angry inform the front desk or supervisor immediately. If you have opened the room with your key, you will be the last person who has opened the room and you will be responsible for any damage. Tell them nicely to not enter the room. Some people may get aggressive, if they say this is my purse and my driving license is inside, do not let them touch anything and you also don’t touch anything yourself. If they have lost their key, they have to go to the front desk to get another key and come back.
- Some people may know that an important person lives in a particular room, they will come to you and ask you to open the room for them, they could be a child, an older person or anyone, do not open any room for anyone. If they are old and they cannot go down to get their keys, inform your supervisor about it.
- When you enter the room and there is a guest in the room, never close the door. If there is no one in stayover room, then you can close the door while cleaning coz if the door Is open and you are cleaning washroom, someone may get some stuff or steal things from the room. If in the stayover there is man or woman in the rooms, you never close the door.
- Never eat anything you find in the room even if it’s in a closed box.
Getting hired in a hotel
To get hired in a hotel, you visit the hotel and give your resume to HR or apply online. And present your qualification and your certificate and give it to the HR manager or attach it when you apply online.
When you are hired, you are sent to the housekeeping manager, first you get orientation of the hotel where each section of the hotel is. Where is your locker, where to put your stuff. They will give you a name tag. Most hotels get a deposit for your name tag, they will give the money back when you leave the hotel.
They will provide you with a schedule for the day depending on the hotels 4, hour 6 or 8 hours of job, when you are given the rooms, you have to ask how many hours job this is. So that you can manage your time and the rooms are cleaned and checked by your supervisor and then you can leave.
The hotel will give you a list which shows which rooms are checkout rooms, which are occupied, which are vacant. Cleaning the rooms is the same everywhere, but each hotel has their own spice to add so they will show you how to clean their rooms and what is their standards and guidelines.