HOUSEKEEPING 101

Immaculate housekeeping is a huge contributing factor towards the overall guest experience. A clean and tidy hotel is the guest’s first impression and a spotless room will ensure a comfortable stay. To make sure all your rooms are cleaned to a high standard on time, even during peak times, organisation is key. At The Churchill, Executive Housekeeper, Desislava Petkova, explained how ensuring high housekeeping standards is all about consistency: “Whether it is a quiet period or peak time, the same procedures and standard operations apply. Our departmental daily schedule is the basis of our success. Everything starts with planning from the week before and ensuring that we will have the right manpower to complete all tasks and guest demands.” Their housekeeping team are all provided with a handheld device showing their daily tasks in order of priority, including specific room requests.

The Zetter Hotel and Zetter Townhouse praise their housekeeping app which enables them to elevate their teamwork and believe it is the key to a spotless clean.

Tatjana Jasinska, Head Housekeeper, said: “We use an app called Flexkeeping which acts as an effective communication tool between our housekeeping, front of house team and maintenance team. This allows staff to submit updates on their room status on-the-go. We follow teamwork with the mantra, ‘work smarter, not harder.’ For example, the linen porters on the app count the linen as they strip the beds.”

At London’s Pan Pacific, their 52 luxuriant one and twobedroom suites are cleaned via a housekeeping schedule based on their occupancy levels. Countryside venue, Farlam Hall Hotel, follows a similar structure. Their Finance Director, Karen Baybutt, said: “Arrival times of guests are established to plan a definitive daily schedule to ensure each room is perfect for our guests’ arrival. Each day, during our operations meeting, any guest preferences are noted, and the housekeeping team make sure these special requests are met.”

Organisation goes further than scheduling room cleans. Other factors include making sure laundry is prepared on time; a pressure which is heightened during peak times. Peter Rankin, Managing Director at Girbau

UK, recommends their Sapphire cloud-based laundry management system to ease the pressure: “The system helps you to manage your laundry, analysing data, compiling production reports on any device and helping you to minimise running costs. You can analyse how your laundry is working using pre-configured reports and take action to optimise workflow.”

Perfecting your housekeeping schedules promises a spotless room and hotel whilst also saving on costs by delivering your team’s highest level of productivity. Once your cleaning is planned, maintaining these high standards is crucial. Many hotels adopt ‘spot checks’ which are small and easy checks to make sure that rooms exceed guest expectations.

At The Churchill, ‘spot checks’ are a part of their daily routine, and, for their VIP rooms to elevate their cleaning further, these rooms are also checked by management. Furthermore, to maintain their standards, they rely on staff development and training. Desislava elaborated on this: “We carry out a yearly, monthly and daily training program. We always look for opportunities to improve or simplify the operation, and find innovative methods or simply think outside of the box to improve the service provided to our guests.” She also emphasised the importance of feedback,

“We are deeply analysing every guest comment and, even when a mistake happens and things didn’t go as planned, will take that to improve and deliver the best service in the future.”

Over at Pan Pacific, throughout the hotel, spot checks are carried out too. Each floor has a supervisor to check the cleaning and VIP clients have their rooms double-checked by management. Commenting on the maintenance of a prestige clean, Director of Housekeeping, Shahnawaz Khan, said: “We train our team according to Forbes standards, by showing pictures, practicing how to fold guests’ clothing as well as how to arrange toiletries in a bathroom, which ensures consistency.”

Tatjana spoke about the importance of regular training to ensure high standards. Her venues also run an ‘opendoor policy’, where team members can give feedback about obstacles they face and ask for any tools they require to complete housekeeping efficiently and to the highest standard.

Within hotel operations, housekeeping has probably faced the most change in the past few years as COVID has shaken up the hospitality’s cleaning requirements from one extreme to another, undoubtedly emphasising the importance of consistent training.

For many venues, a lot of the protocols from the pandemic have remained, simply elevating their housekeeping. Desislava explained that their cleaning schedule is still strong after COVID: “We are still focusing on cleaning critical touch points and we are using the same strict cleaning protocol. During the pandemic, we adopted the routine of cleaning the public areas and bathrooms very frequently, which we continue to this day.”

Now that the pandemic has settled, it can be hard to navigate the extent of cleaning required to meet your guests’ expectations. The key is to maintain an impeccable housekeeping standard whilst offering a more clinical clean to go that extra mile for COVID-conscious guests.

We asked The Montenotte Hotel’s Accommodation Manager, Nadia Dos Santos, if they offer a different service for guests with hygiene concerns surrounding COVID.

Nadia commented: “If a guest has hygiene concerns regarding COVID-19, the team will always accommodate such requests with additional sanitation, and we will fog the room if necessary, something that did happen daily during the pandemic which is still available on request.”

The Zetter Hotel and The Zetter Townhouse share this initiative. Tatjiana added: “Whilst the unease surrounding COVID has dramatically relieved, of course we are still visited by anxious guests. Our room attendants will use extra PPE if requested and pay extra attention to the disinfection of high touch points while cleaning. The most important thing is that both staff and guests feel comfortable.”

Whilst a tidy and spotless room is a top priority, the housekeeping team are still a part of the hotel staff and therefore they have to make sure to greet guests and be polite with any interaction. At the Montenotte Hotel, Nadia noticed their guests’ feedback always praises the cleanliness of their rooms, receiving their ranking as the #1 Hotel on Tripadvisor in Cork. Guests also commend the housekeeping staff’s warmth. She said: “The Montenotte’s housekeeping staff have a great reputation for being friendly and our team are very respectful, always ensuring that the guests are happy for their rooms to be cleaned, that they have everything they need for their stay and greeting them in the corridors.”

We asked Nadia what elements of their housekeeping service helps them stand out, to which she replied: “We like to personalise the bedroom based on our guests’ preferences and go that extra mile if they are joining us for a celebratory stay. Straight lines are important, we want to wow our guests when they walk into our rooms! Remember small touches are always appreciated - it’s nice to surprise visitors too. A few obvious elements include no broken sealed toiletries, nothing visible from a previous guest and the room must smell fresh and look inviting.”

Guests want to enter a room that feels, and looks, like it has never been slept in before to ensure comfort and a great night’s sleep and, to master this, Pan Pacific heavily focuses on the bed itself. Shahnawaz commented: “The team always ensure that everything has been ironed, pressed and tightly folded. When this is complete, you can tell if the bed has been sat on, or touched, by anyone else. So the team ensure the bed is left untouched, which assures the guest that no one else has slept in the room. Lining up amenities and accessories in a straight line is also a lovely touch within the bathrooms, giving the guest the feeling of being the very first person to use the bathroom.”

Taking note of guest feedback is vital to elevate the experience you offer and understand what your audience are looking for. Karen at Farlem Hall commented: “We are grateful to have received some amazing reviews regarding housekeeping standards. One recently published by Luxe Bible said ‘Their rooms, suites and cottages are absolutely immaculate – so much so that you’ll think you’re the only one who’s ever stayed in them, despite the cosy feel they all exude.’”

Tatjiana agrees that the bed is the ‘bread and butter of a room’ and notes that mastering this is all about focusing on attention to detail. Tatjiana said: “The ingredients of a perfectly made hotel bed are quality linen, neat corners, straight lines, and fresh air. Again, the joy of getting into a hotel bed is that it is more appealing than your bed at home and to achieve this it must look brand new.”

Small touches that housekeeping staff deliver can often secure your venue written feedback which, in turn, will help to entice new guests through your doors. This can be anything from enhancing the room’s scent, adding fresh flowers or plumping each cushion for that extra few seconds. To help push this you can incentivise your staff to motivate their efforts, maybe offering half a day’s holiday if their housekeeping is mentioned in guest feedback.

Tatjiana spoke about her housekeeping team’s special touches: “Our team are always thinking of ways to go above and beyond what is expected by providing handwritten cards, flowers and champagne when guests are celebrating a special occasion, or even ensuring we provide city attraction information with a note welcoming them to the area if we know the guest is visiting London for the first time. It is always gratifying for the team to hear that the additional attention they paid resulted in a stay being more memorable.”

Housekeeping is a vital part of your hotel operations; the cleanliness of your venue instantly enhances the guest experience and ensures a comfortable stay. There are a lot of factors that contribute towards perfecting your housekeeping; the organisation is crucial and the small touches will elevate your service to help guests remember their stay.