Viewpoint

Planning the right way

Housekeeping, being a constant processs, needs meticulous planning. But there are situations when it is vital to change the normal plan in order to avoid getting caught on the wrong foot. By Aabha Dogra

Photo location courtesy: Hotel Marine Plaza, Mumbai

One never-ending process in hotel operation is that of housekeeping. No matter how things go business-wise, housekeeping is one aspect that goes on and on. Considering that a hotel is a day-in and day-out environment, the maintenance aspect has to be carried on with minute inspection. Hence, major housekeeping tasks like renovation, refurbishment and makeovers are left for the lull period in hotels.

This offers an opportunity to actually work out better plans with the right kind of focus ensuring that guests are not inconvenienced due to the ongoing work. The focus of big housekeeping tasks usually remains focused on common public areas. Although housekeeping is a continuous process and cannot be neglected at any point of time, the lull period i.e. when the season is not hectic and occupancy subsides, the rooms are done up (cleaned) in a more elaborate manner as far as maintenance or housekeeping is concerned.

Concern areas

The housekeeping department goes about dividing its various areas into private and public areas. Further, to ease out the whole housekeeping scheduling, different areas are marked in order of immediate importance. Floor-wise cleaning schedules as well as maintenance schedules are made and followed for all the areas.

During low occupancy, rooms can be blocked by the front office depending on the overall availability of rooms, thereby allowing housekeeping staff to pack the rooms in such a manner that only the furniture and the carpets are left in the rooms for the engineering staff to take over. As the engineering team takes charge, they go about overhauling AC filters as well as motors wherever needed. Along with that, the plumbing team ensures cleaning of the drainage system or just reviewing its condition.

On a general front, all window gaps are checked as any leakage leads to more consumption of energy for cooling an enclosed area. The painting of rooms and floor polishing are other areas where rectification is carried out to ensure proper maintenance.

Changing action plan

The basic maintenance followed during this period combines various tasks like cleaning of AC filter as well as the AC motor, thorough plumbing to check drainage, painting, polishing, marble floor grinding, etc. Continuous monitoring goes on between the front office manager, the chief engineer and the housekeeper to decide on various issues related to each department and sort out the best time for maintenance or blocking the area. The rooms are cleaned depending on the availability and prior blocking by the front office and housekeeping department. The housekeeping also undertakes cleaning of furnishings and carpets on regular intervals in the rooms which are either dry-cleaned or shampooed.

There are numerous situations when it becomes vital to change the usual plan. In order to not get caught on the wrong foot, a separate action plan should be ready. For example, let us take a case with occupancy. Usually a thorough cleaning is left for lull periods but as Indian hospitality is growing by leaps and bounds, the occupancy factor, of late, has shown a resistance of its own.

The occupancy percentage reduction during a lull period do not show yesteryear's downfall. Thus, the rise in occupancy even during the so-called "lull part of the year" for hotels, has caught the attention of the housekeeping department as a predictable challenge. Here, there is a need to align the work in a way that distribution of maintenance load takes place evenly throughout the calendar year.

Rooms still need to be taken care of in case the lull period does not come. In such a scenario it needs to be done in a slightly different manner; only the departures that take place during the course of day on different floors can be taken care of and all the other activities (which are done by blocking rooms) cannot be done in the same day, thereby slowing down the entire process. A schedule for daily as well as weekly cleaning is made and is followed in all rooms according to the need.

Rising emphasis on outsourcing

Nowadays, outsourcing manpower has proved to be a great boon for the housekeepers in managing manpower, cost and planning various tasks according to the need. For the maintenance, outsourcing is a better option as it is economical and the same number of working people (head counts) can offer the requisite output at a lesser cost.

We account a separate budget for the outsourced manpower, as the outer area of the hotel has been given on contract cleaning to an outside agency. This proves economical and also enables us to keep our trained workforce for cleaning and maintenance inside the hotel premise.

The writer is executive housekeeper of The Metropolitan Hotel, New Delhi