At the heart of hotels
Forget the restaurant and reception, housekeeping is the heart of every hotel, Edge Hotel School students were advised at a special workship offering ‘Insights into Housekeeping Management’.
Organised by Christoph Hoffmann, Director of Quality Assurance, Health & Safety and Systems Development at Omni Facilities Management, this event brought together a selection of expert from hotels in London, including alumni Sasha Glucksmann-Smith who is now floor housekeeper at Apex London Wall.
During a panel question and answer session, Dipesh Jana, Cluster Executive Head Housekeeper for Hilton London Paddington and Hilton London Euston, said: “A hotel will not be able to survive without housekeeping. It can survive without a restaurant and even without reception, with the growth of e-check-in. When you manage the housekeeping in a hotel, you are handling the largest manpower. There is a lot of learning and challenges; housekeepingcannot be ignored.”
Anne Modin, Executive Head of Housekeeping and Security of Double Tree Tower of London agreed: “Housekeeper is the heart of every hotel. In any questionnaire or survey you find the customer is always looking for a clean room. But housekeeping is not just about cleaning, you have to be good at organising, finances and training.”
Everyone on the panel agreed there was a dire shortage of good housekeeping staff at the moment, both at entry and managerial level. Asked to look 10 years ahead everyone felt that technology would help ease the administrative workload but the tme released needed to be spent with staff to maintain the quality.
Krystian Kalkowski, Quality and Systems Training Manager at Omni Facilities Management, summed up the envery and commitment needed to run a housekeeping section: “Sometimes the heart is beating a little to quickly, close to a heart attack, but at the end of the day there is a lof of job satisfaction.”