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Housekeeping

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................2
Successful housekeeping operations with the participation of front office................................2
Housekeeping quality and opportunities for the customers to evaluate the housekeeping
management................................................................................................................................4
Housekeeping with solutions to best room quality and laundry/ linen standards in hotels........5
Housekeeping in terms of cleaning guest rooms and making beds............................................6
Housekeeping with the importance of hygiene, sanitation and cleanliness standards................8
Housekeeping with the need of safety and security....................................................................8
Reference....................................................................................................................................9
Appendix...................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Housekeeping is an integral and indispensable part of hotel
operations, which is included in tourism and hospitality industry. Managing
the housekeeping activities in hotels is considered the most complex and
necessarily dedicated task. The challenge of housekeeping is to keep
cleanliness to a boundlessly high quality in a bounded budget, which is
one of the first and most essential factors to review a hotel with standard
service. According to Rumekso, S. E. (2001), housekeeping can be clearly
defined as the practice of maintaining a house on daily or long run basis or
taking care of its cleanliness, clutter control, storage issues and refilling
such as toothpaste, soap, towel, etc. In other words, housekeeping refers
to a systematized process of cleaning of a room in service and everything
necessary to make it pleasant for the guests, or the customers to live or
work. It is not an easy task to manage the housekeeping process in an
economical way, especially in high standard hotels with strict principles of
cleanliness whilst things get dirty at any time and the process of cleaning,
checking of refilling needs or stuff fixing requires at a daily or shift basis.
On the limited length of this essay, the author will give a general
description of housekeeping process issues with critical explanation and
discussion of necessary concerns of housekeeping operations in the
context of modern tourism and hospitality industry with increasingly
competition and challenges from both internal and external environment.
Successful housekeeping operations with the participation of front
office
Housekeeping is an integral part of hotel operations, also one of the
distinguishing characteristics that make the reputation of a hotel to attract
its customers. To perform high quality service, which is equivalent to the
hotels standard, housekeeping department obviously has to co-ordinate
with other departments, including the front office. Co-ordinating with the
front office is one of the crucial factors of housekeeping operations for the
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front office is regarded the main respondent to customers when they enter
the hotel and give them the strongest impression of the hotels service
quality.
In a hotel, especially at luxurious 5-star one, front office is the
department which deals with almost every problems occurring such as
medical emergencies, lost and found, fire, accidents, deaths, vandalism or
crime etc. Front office has to handle such critical problems on a daily basis
with

caution,

dedication

and

well-cooperated

manner

with

other

departments, including housekeeping.

In a systematic protocol of the hotel, when the customers depart and
check in at the reception desk, the front office will give directions to
housekeeping department in terms of customer number, rooms needed to
prepare. When get rung by the front office, housekeeping department will
immediately implement their tasks to prepare vacated rooms and clean
them as well as fully checking to ensure that the rooms are qualified for
sale. When the rooms is clean and checked of essential service (can be
followed as the customers specific requirements), the housekeeping
supervisor will give signal to the front office and hand the well-prepared
rooms for the front office for service. As Jasso-Aguilar, R. (1999) uses the
terms departure rooms for the rooms received by housekeeping
department for cleaning and clear rooms for the rooms after being
cleaned and handed over to the front office. The process must be strictly
followed to guarantee that customers will get the clean rooms as soon
as possible after checking in. Particularly when the hotel is in high
occupancies, the housekeeping will focus on their jobs with high profession
to prepare a room with standard quality to hand over the front office then
they can have the room ready for a customer in need.
It

requires

high

competencies

from

housekeeping

employees

especially in rush hour, for instance a room needs to be cleaned for sale
right after another customer checks out and the cleaners have only haft of
the time to do necessary services (cleaning, making beds, changing
wraps, towels, toilet and mirror washing, checking of refilling, etc.) but still
remain standard of a clean room. Plus, in the time customer stays, he or
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she can call for service from housekeeping department (refilling, washing,
cleaning, etc.) through the front office.
As seen from the process, front office plays an important role in
supporting housekeeping department to finish their task at the fullest
quality. They give initial directions of rooms in need of service and inform
the housekeeping department customers requirement all the performance
long.

If

the

co-operation

misunderstanding

between

does
these

not

happen

two

well,

departments,

such
the

as

the

possible

consequence is the dissatisfaction of the customers or worse damages to

the service quality of the hotel.
Housekeeping quality and opportunities for the customers to
evaluate the housekeeping management
Housekeeping is the department which takes responsibility for the
mission of making customer stay comfortable and pleasant from checking
in to checking out of the hotel with well preparation to salute them and
responsive service at any time when the customers need though front
office. The quality to decide if the housekeeping practice is undertaken
well or not is based on several critical factors, including comfort,
cleanliness and hygiene, privacy, safety and security and decorations of
the rooms for sale (Devi Juwaheer, T., 2004). To elaborate on the issue, all
of the criteria above are decided by the manager who is responsible for
the housekeeping practice; however, to have a general perspective and
achieve objectivity in service evaluation of the hotel, it needs customers
who experience the service on their own. Their feedback of service quality
is the most accurate and trustworthy resource for the hotel manager to
evaluate of housekeeping quality. Therefore, to increasing improving the
hotel service, including housekeeping practice, there is requirement of a
smooth channel for the customers to give comment or reviews of hotels
service, particularly of housekeeping quality.
As mentioned above, there are five criteria that customers can give
feedback of housekeeping quality to the hotel. About comfort, they can
give reviews of to what extent the housekeeping service has made them
satisfied in terms of the quality of the rooms ( have good view, well made
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beds, mattresses, TV, air conditioner, attached bar, clean toilet, etc.) or of
the specific service ( foods and drinks). The customers can comment on
the courteous, reliable and professional services that housekeeping
department brings to ensure the comfort and a dedicated attitude which
expresses in the sophisticated and caring service to them. About
cleanliness and hygiene, the customers can comment on the well
maintained of equipment and furniture in the rooms, which give
comfortable impression on them, especially in space in need of hygiene
such as toilet, bathroom, pool, sauna and spa rooms.
About privacy, the customers can evaluate based on the experience
of them enjoying the service without noticing any possibility of being
followed such as windows provide with curtains and avoiding prying eyes
from others people including cleaners. Any people, even common or wellknown, poor or wealthy needs the right of privacy in their personal space.
If there is any housekeeping employees do anything exceeding of their
right such as touching private stuff, secretly seeing content from
customers phone, laptop, or against the laws such as stealing things,
taking pictures without permission, the customers can immediately call
the front office to be taken into consideration. Along with privacy, the
customers also need to be secure while they stay in the hotel, namely
being safe from fire accidents, crime or simply being peaceful and noise
free atmosphere in their space. Additionally, the customers can also give
comments on the environment of the hotel, which can make them feel
comfortable with ambient decoration, beautiful flowers or gifts from the
hotel. The customers can choose to stay in hotel just because of pleasant
feeling that housekeeping employees have created with dedication and
great aesthetically tastes.
Additionally, to make a better communication between customers
and hotel to improve the hotels service, including housekeeping
department, the hotel can create various channel in which customers can
comfortably leave honest evaluations on the service. First, the hotel can
give them forms of evaluation in the rooms for them to fill in and to
encourage them to do so, there should be a gift for the customer with the
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most useful tips on how to improve the service. Second, when any hotel
has an online place to share or promote the brand, the hotel manager can
create a forum or an online channel for the customers to give reviews and
response to their comment for better communication of both sides. On
tourism and travel website such as TripAdvisor, the customers can freely
leave reviews of their experience in the hotel they stayed and there is
always the hotels people will response to any question or explanation
requirements from the customers. Moreover, ton particularly improve the
service of housekeeping practice, apart from direct feedback through
phone to front office, the hotel can create a poll form in which clearly give
criteria that customers can give feedback and the form will be handed to
the responsible supervisor right after they check out.
Housekeeping with solutions to best room quality and laundry/ linen
standards in hotels
One of the most important tasks of housekeeping department is
clothes

and

linen management, which deals with all functions from

buying of linen to laundering, storage to supplies. In a hotel, there are

plenty of different types of clothes and linen are used such as bed sheets,
body towels and hand towels, table covers and pillow covers, curtains,
cushion covers, etc. All of these require standard and strictly followed
maintenance (Mendelson, C., 2009).
It one of the main tasks of housekeeping department to provide
clean and hygienic washing of all the linen items, and then allotting
them to different departments of the hotel. The
relationship between the housekeeping department and laundry
is substantial for the purpose of smooth functioning of housekeeping
services. For example, the significant task of laundry is to provide valet
services to hotel customers.
To be clear, the goals of housekeeping is to maintain the rooms in
the best conditions it couls have with the profession of the department. To
achieve the best quality of the room, the protocol of cleaning has to be
clear to follow. Every step of cleaning a guest room, as well as floor,
terraces, elevators, lobbies, corridors, and other functional rooms has to
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be clearly written in form of printed material or soft copies as long as they

are brought to all staff. The material give detailed directions of what
activity is undertaken first, step-by-step instructions to follow at every
rooms and standardized as official protocol in the hotel. The staff has to
learn the protocol to follow to make the housekeeping practice measurable
to evaluate its quality.
Particularly in laundry, the quality has to be achieved at highly strict
standard for the constantly in touch of customers with its service. The
responsibility of laundry to housekeeping can involves in washing and
drying clean linen as well as staff uniform at a high quality of cleanliness;
then distribute them to housekeeping department timely to be ready to
serve. To achieve high quality of laundry, housekeeping should give correct
directions to laundry to have clean linen for functional rooms such as
guest rooms, spa and sauna, restaurants, etc. The quality of linen will
reflect the quality of laundry and the effectiveness of cooperation between
housekeeping and laundry, especially to high occupancy hotels with
massive volume of linen and uniform to take care of.
Housekeeping in terms of cleaning guest rooms and making beds
As mentioned in previous parts, a protocol in which describe step-bystep procedures of housekeeping practice is extremely needed to develop
a professional department that can handle great amount of work in the
hotel in the long run.
There are fixed steps to clean a guest rooms including making bed:
1.

Switch off the air conditioner or heater, draw all curtains and

open the window to let the air enter the room

2.

Remove dirty linen from beds and bathroom. Shake out the

linen to guarantee that nothing belongs to customers are lost in the folds
of the linen. Put the dirty linen in the trolley.
3.

Check for maintenance requirements and report by filling in

the checklist
4.

Turn the mattress side-to-side. Smooth out the mattress and

air it
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Brush the carpet to settle the dust then do the vacuum

cleaning.
6.

Empty all ashtrays and wastes in the dustbin.

7.

Pick up customers clothes and hang them in the wardrobe or

in the closet.
8.

Carefully clean the bathroom and refill soap, shower gel,

toothpaste from the trolley if required

9.

Collect all papers or magazines or any papers and put them

neatly in the writing table

10.

Clean all surfaces circularly with dry cloth and hold a dustpan

below to collect any matters falling down from the surface without stirring
dust to the room. Pay attention to corners which are not visible to eyes
11.

Use a vacuum cleaner on upholstered furniture body in any

corner
12.

Refill stationery by the standard

13.

Remove the dust and substitute each item on the dresser,

bureaus and desks

14.

Use a clean dry duster to clean lampshades. Clean the base

and change the new one if it damages.

15.

Clean the telephone with cleaning water thoroughly. Check

the phone connection.

16.

Clean the mirror with cleaning water and a clean cloth to make

it sparkling
17.

Clean the closet, shelves, and hangers. Brush the closet floor.

Replace with new bags and clothes hangers if required

18.

Clean the dust from both side of the doors, headboard,

windowsills, and air-conditioners.

19.
20.

Close the windows.

Use the vacuum cleaners again to make sure all dust is

collected.
21.

Rearrange the furniture if necessary.

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Switch on the air-conditioner or heater in the lowest to a

departure room or at the same temperature the customer has left to an

occupied room.
23.

Take the last look at the room and fill in the checklist before

exiting the room closing the door.

Housekeeping with the importance of hygiene, sanitation and
cleanliness standards
The importance of hygiene, sanitation and cleanliness standards in
housekeeping is undebatable. According to Hutton, G., and Water, S.
(2000), hygiene refers to the set of practices associated with the
preservation of health in the living environment, while sanitation is dealing
with promoting health through the practice if preventing people from
possible harmful matter, such as wastes, chemical, matters of diseases.
The importance of hygiene and sanitation depend greatly on the
effectiveness of housekeeping cleaning practice. When the cleanliness is
guaranteed, the possible risks of any incidents relating to hygiene
insanitation such as dust poisoning, disease infection, food contamination,
etc. will be reduced.
Understanding of the importance of hygienic and sanitation
practices is necessary within every aspect in the hotel management. If
all staff checks their procedures and ensure it is safe for serving, the
possibility of occurring problems will be minimized at the lowest risk.
Personal hygiene is the initiative in stopping hygiene risks. Personal
hygiene refers to clean as a person, paying additional attention to
personal cleanliness to insure that no harmful matters (bacteria to visible
matters such as hair, skin) can be transferred to the customers. The
awareness of keeping hygiene is also the key to prevent unwanted
damages to the health of both employees and customers.
Environmental hygiene risks fall out by poor and unstandardized
service, such as inappropriate dealing and storage of foods, as well as
unequal and/or careless cleaning practices. Insecure and environmentally
unstable garbage storage and improper handling of contaminated kitchen
linen can also bring about hygiene risks.
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Housekeeping with the need of safety and security

The customers who want to stay in a hotel never expect unsafe or
insecure incidents happening to them. Security has always been a
concern for the hotel. The tasks of housekeeping involving in keeping
their customers safe and secure can be describes in the help of security
services. The housekeeping department employees should also make a
point that firefighting equipment and all kinds of emergency alarms are
functional and on duty at all times. The need of safety and security is
obvious for the unpredictable incidents can happen at any time. The
threats can come from within or from the outside. For example, from
outside threats includes natural disasters which can damages the hotel
such as earthquake, floods or fire; additionally from humans such as
thefts, terrorists, robbery (crime) which can threat the safety of both staff
and customers. Plus, from internal threat such as incidents of fire,
electricity, gas, heating system that can occur unpredictably and require
periodic checking to minimize the risk to the lowest extent. Besides, the
threats of safety and security can also come from customers if they are
doing things against the laws such as terrorism, fraud, etc. or even from
the staff. There are cases of cleaners stealing stuffs from the occupied
rooms which stained the reputation of the hotel.
The

housekeeping

department

takes

main

responsible

for

maintaining a peaceable ambiance in the hotel. If the customers and staff

are constantly afraid of their safety as well as their belongings, the
atmosphere will be extremely uncomfortable and hence, the service
would never receive great evaluation. For that reason, the housekeeping
department employees ought to be cognizant of solutions to the
customers with their stuffs as well as the property of the hotel from bad
fortuities such as fire, flood, earthquakes or thieves. It is crucial for all
housekeeping staff to be dedicated in maintaining the safety and security
for the customers and the hotel.

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Reference
1.

Rumekso, S. E. (2001). Housekeeping Hotel. Andi,

Yogyakarta.
2.
Jasso-Aguilar,

R.

(1999).

Sources,

methods

and

triangulation in needs analysis: A critical perspective in a case study

of Waikiki hotel maids. English for Specific Purposes, 18(1), 27-46.
3.
Devi Juwaheer, T. (2004). Exploring international tourists'
perceptions of hotel operations by using a modified SERVQUAL
approach-a case study of Mauritius. Managing Service Quality: An
International Journal, 14(5), 350-364
4.
Mendelson, C. (2009). Laundry: The Home Comforts
Book of Caring for Clothes and Linens. Simon and Schuster.
5.
Hutton, G., & Water, S. (2000). Considerations in
evaluating

the

cost-effectiveness

of

environmental

health

interventions.
Appendix
Chart 1: The chart of housekeeping in relationship with other
departments
e
Chart 2: The chart of housekeeping functions

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Front
office
Food and
Beverage

Safety &
Security

Engineerin
g

Housekeepi
ng

Storages

Laundry

Purchase

Personnel

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Cleaning
room and
public
areas
Room
maintenan
ce

Bed
making

Linen
manageme
nt

Decor

Housekeepi
ng

Safety &
Security

Laundry
services

Keys
control

Pest
control

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