acknowledgement

Assignment DHM-MASA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all I would like to thank those who helped in completing this project successfully.

Housekeeping Management-Trends in Housekeeping Management in Hospitality Industry in Malaysia

Assignment DHM-MASA

INTRODUCTION

The Housekeeping department must be the most important. It has the greatest proportion of staffing hours to cover, the most staff, the most hours to cover and it is a cost center. Unlike the restaurant and bar, which are revenue centers, and as long as they are not overstaffed, the more staff you have the more revenue is generated. The housekeeping department is also the one the customers notice most if anything is wrong. You have to have the right number of staff on duty, or it shows.The housekeeping department can have the following staff depending on the size of hotel. Housekeeper and assistant housekeepers, room maids, cleaners, staffmaids, cloakroom attendants, houseporters, valets, laundry and linen keeper. The staff hours of cover depend on the hotel and type of customer, business people require different time schedules to people on holiday with children. The staff need to be scheduled accordingly and in a ratio to the number of guests staying in the hotel. Fortunately, most people book ahead and the workload is known well in advance, especially during peak periods.

For example, cleaning an occupied room takes 30mins/day, en-suite bathroom 6mins/day, therefore a maid for every 13 occupied rooms. A hotel with 100 rooms(all occupied) needs 8 maids. Then we can sum this up for a year of 365 days, which comes to 2900 maid days per year. We can then divide this by the number of days a maid works per year, say 240, and arrive at a figure of 12 full time maids. Hence we can recruit the 12 maids and start using them on the rooms. I haven't allowed for average occupancy, sickness rates, and a lot of other things which readily come to mind, because at this point, the difficult thing is to find a way of sharing the yearly workload on a day by day basis. This is the difficult part, just how do you allocate the maids so that you have just the right number on every day.


Assignment DHM-MASA

OBJECTIVES

A clean workstation free of debris and clutter is critical to maintaining a safe workenvironment. Housekeeping is a continual effort, but one where the rewards are fargreater than the effort. The proper management of routine tasks should be maintainedat all times. Poor housekeeping affects all aspects of safety and can result in bothminor and major incidents. The hotel industry is fraught with competition and two-thirds of the jobs available are service jobs with the largest departments being in housekeeping. All of the services offered by the hotel industry can be duplicated from one location to another from one country to another. Housekeeping can be a way to set a hotel apart from its competitors. In addition housekeeping establishes a hotel's reputation for cleanliness and quality. It is vital to have a strong housekeeping department in the hotel industry for the guests' health, safety and comfort.

Housekeepers in the hotel industry are responsible for keeping the facility clean, safe and comfortable for guests. Their jobs include cleaning rooms, changing bedding, cleaning all bathrooms, replacing toiletries, cleaning common areas, doing laundry and ensuring a clean overall appearance. These individuals may also be required to assist in other areas of the hotel. They include all levels of housekeeping, from assistants to supervisors and executive housekeepers. It is important to have housekeeping available 24 hours per day seven days per week for guests in the hotel industry.Housekeepers are specially trained individuals. They can be provided with performance-development programs to improve their work and assist them in moving up in the hospitality industry. Housekeeping in the hotel industry can be a stepping stone for future positions and promotions for housekeepers. These individuals learn key communication and teamwork skills that can be used throughout the hotel industry, not just in housekeeping. Proper selection and training are the key to maintaining a superior housekeeping department within the hotel industry.

Although housekeeping is vital to the hotel industry, there are several challenges. Ensuring the efficiency of the staff and cleaning chemicals is important. In addition, reducing waste and reducing the environmental impact of the hotel industry can be done through housekeeping. Training housekeeping staff to become more energy aware will aid with energy conservation and also reduce the environmental impact of the hotel industry. Housekeeping staff will also be required to anticipate guest needs. Finally offering educational opportunities to staff members on all these areas will reduce the challenges the hotel industry faces in the housekeeping department.


Assignment DHM-MASA

HOUSEKEEPING TRENDS IN MALAYSIA

Today, the biggest challenge appears to be high-end hotels' desire to add products and services in the room without impacting housekeeping productivity. More amenities and multilayered bedding requires a higher level of service from the housekeeping staff. The best hotels are responding by investing in more efficient equipment and better training.

Among the solutions: staggered shifts to keep up with evolving check-in and check-out cycles; wireless technology to improve staff communication; and efficient equipment that saves on labor and product. In addition, some hotels are allowing housekeepers to "buy rooms" to clean for a specific price after having completed their daily assignment. And, with occupancies fluctuating during this turbulent economic time, hotels are cutting their core housekeeping staffs and using temporary agencies to cover when occupancies increase.

While sponges, cleaning rags and chemicals are still the heart and soul of a housekeeping department, of hotels in Malaysia, has created a seamless, time- and money-saving ProHost System that centralizes the linen and supplies handling and distribution process. The integrated equipment is an ensemble of power assisted and non-powered Mobiles and Totes, which carry program-loaded quantities from a centralized inventory location that is matched to each floor and section. Each system is customized to fit the physical layout of the hotel, and the process is designed to complement the operational goals and objectives of management.

MISSION

VISION

GOALS


Assignment DHM-MASA

PROBLEM STATEMENT

1. What are the trends in Housekeeping Management in Hospitality Industry?2. How does the trends in Housekeeping increases the Revenue of a Hotel?3. Why does the Housekeeping Department is important in Hotels?4. What are the latest and upcoming trends in Housekeeping Management?5. To what extent has technology redefined the workings of a hotel’s housekeeping

department?6. What according to you would be the latest trend in a career in housekeeping?7. What is role of housekeeping department?8. What are the responsibilities of housekeeping staff?9. What are the challenges in Housekeeping department?10. What reporting system is followed in housekeeping department?


Assignment DHM-MASA

TRENDS IN ROOMS

Showering systems

Showering is a high point of the hotel guestroom experience. There are systems available with chromatherapy (light/colour) combinations that integrate light with a steam selection of colours ranging from blue to red. Complete with electronic chromalogic for single or rotating color selection, they feature multiple vapour-sealed, low-voltages, high-performance LED light modules.

Something else we’re seeing in the shower stalls are linear shower drains. They are clean and unobtrusive and eliminate the need for a centre shower drain. You can put the drain at the back and in the sides. Studies show that women hotel guests do not like to stand over the drain.

Surfaces

New materials in the bath give designers lots of options, including new and vibrant color glass tiles, glass mosaics, braided glass mosaics, stained glass and much more. For shower walls, custom designs are not as pricey as they sound. There are surfaces available made of 75 percent recycled content composed of post-industrial or post-consumer materials and bound by an environmentally friendly resin, which comes in part from corn oil.What new electronics will be a part of future bathrooms? I strongly believe we’ll see electric floor warming and, yes, a “body dryer,” which I’ve talked about over the last two years, is being launch


Assignment DHM-MASA

Tips to keep the rooms clean:

• Don't put bedding you're going to reuse on the floor. Guests find it unseemly.

• Leave the pillows a guest put on the floor where they are. The guest put them there for a reason. Loved this philosophy. More hotels should adopt it..

• The duvets are the least-popular feature to most housekeepers. During training, beds alone occupy three days of practice. Just beds. Very important and arduous task.

• Hold the top corners of the pillow together and push the folded corners to the end of the inside of the pillow case. Grab said corners from the outside with your other hand and then let the fold go. Pull the rest of the case up in two pulls. These are tight, so pull hard. Lastly, fold a side of the open end of the case in over the pillow and tuck the other side in after it and press down.


Assignment DHM-MASA

TRENDS IN LAUNDRY

Laundry

The big news in the laundry room is that operators are realizing that while floating suspension or soft mount washing machines are more expensive they are more cost efficient to Jim Gross a laundry consultant with Technologies. In the long run Gross says these machines create significant energy cost savings a big issue in the market today considering the escalating cost of energy. In addition floating suspension machines do not have to be bolted into the concrete which isolates the vibration of the spin cycles and avoids transmission of the vibration to other parts of the hotel. Floating suspension washing machines run at higher rams. The faster the machine spins, the less moisture retention in the items being washed. As a result, less electricity is needed to dry and iron the linens, sheets and towels. The new machines also have computerized drives versus drives with contacts and wiring and use less electricity. This can be especially useful to upscale hotels because more of them are competing with 100% cotton 300 thread count bed sheets. These nicer sheets add weight to the laundry typically 8 pounds (4 kg) per occupied room according to Gross.

In the dryer category burners are becoming more efficient and there are new methods to remove lint. The most important thing for hotel laundry operators to understand Gross says is the BTU needed to remove moisture from washed items and how that impacts energy costs. In fact Gross says controversially hotels are lacking in qualified personnel to run their laundry facilities and too often make equipment decisions based on short-term dollars rather than potential long-term savings. Other ways for washer extractors to save on labour costs. Larger hotels may choose high-capacity equipment such as continuous batch washing systems which process thousands of pounds an hour and require minimal labour oversight. These systems use modular tunnel washers extraction systems high-capacity dryers and conveyor shuttle systems to move goods throughout the laundry room.

However, not every property has the luxury of a big laundry room and the need to service 500 hotel rooms. hotels in Malaysia, produces a 60-pound (27-kg) unit that can fit through standard door openings (36 inches/91 cm). In fact the IPSO IPH product line includes numerous features designed with the owner’s customer’s chemical company’s engineers and service people in mind. The IPH-60 includes a patent-pending "Smart Spin," which allows the machine to reach 300 G-Forces and save time energy and money. The IPH will self-diagnose the balance of the load and provide the correct G-Force to extract the load. The IPH line will take a 40% out-of-balance load up to 95 Sits Flatwork Ironers offer several features and benefits such as labour savings with one-person operation to feed, smooth, iron, fold, stack and count a space-saving small footprint that requires less than 6 feet (1.8 m) from the front of the machine to the wall and energy savings with ironers that use heated steel cylinders with a contact surface of 300 [degrees] .In addition a maintenance-free ceramic burner increases gas savings.


Assignment DHM-MASA

TRENDS IN PUBLIC AREA


Assignment DHM-MASA

TRENDS IN HORTICULTURE


Assignment DHM-MASA

HOUSEKEEPING METHODOLOGY

Methology is a self-directed correspondence program which consists of 12 modules that provide generic, universal information on thetechnical skills of Housekeeping services. The program was designed from a health care perspective and is of value to housekeeping workers, supervisors and managers.


Assignment DHM-MASA

ADVANTAGES OF HOUSEKEEPING TRENDS

Advantages:

Greater control on quality. Reduced safety concerns in terms of loss or damage to hotel property as the agencies are

usually bound by the agreement which would cover such costs. Choice of more contractors who have expertise in their field and who can work

simultaneously. Replacement of contractor is easier as compared to complete outsourcing. Core areas like the guestroom is under the control of hotel housekeeping.

DISADVANTAGES OF HOUSEKEEPING TRENDS

Disadvantages: However, a lot of disadvantages also creep in which need to be weighed carefully by every housekeeper before selecting this option. The major difficulties which arise due to selective outsourcing can be noted as:

Confusion amongst staff In case of more contractual agencies, security risk Skilled manpower Inconsistent performance Different or same uniforms as that of hotel staff Honesty and loyalty of staff is debatable


Assignment DHM-MASA

CONCLUSION


Assignment DHM-MASA

REFERENCES


Assignment DHM-MASA

APPENDICES


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