Name: Samantha Melissa Esparza Urgiles

Student ID: ESSA251193

Code: 122_RD201
Module: Housekeeping Management
Assessment task: Group research project &
formal report
Lecturers name: Khalida Alazawi
Date: Friday, October 19, 2012
 1. Contents page
1. CONTENTS PAGE..................................................................................................................... 2

2. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 3

2.1. LOCATION............................................................................................................................. 3
2.2. NUMBER OF GUESTROOMS.................................................................................................... 3

3. OBJECTIVES............................................................................................................................. 3

3.1. GENERAL............................................................................................................................. 3
3.2. SPECIFICS............................................................................................................................ 4

4. THE ROLE OF THE HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT............................................................4

4.1. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE EXECUTIVE OR HEAD HOUSEKEEPER.............................................4

4.2. EMPLOYEES IN HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT.........................................................................5

5. RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING..............................................................................................6

5.1. HOW THE EXECUTIVE HOUSEKEEPER RECRUITS STAFF...........................................................7

5.2. ROOM ATTENDANT JOB DESCRIPTION.....................................................................................7
5.3. TRAINING SCHEDULE............................................................................................................. 8

6. PRODUCTIVITY STANDARD.................................................................................................... 8

7. STAFFING GUIDE..................................................................................................................... 8

7.1. PURPOSE............................................................................................................................. 8
7.2. SAMPLE STAFFING GUIDE...................................................................................................... 9

8. MOTIVATIONAL TECHNIQUES.............................................................................................. 10

8.1. TRAINING........................................................................................................................... 10
8.2. CROSS TRAINING................................................................................................................ 11
8.3. RECOGNITION..................................................................................................................... 11
8.4. COMMUNICATION................................................................................................................. 11

9. CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................................................... 12

10. RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................ 12

11. REFERENCING IN THE TEXT................................................................................................. 13

12. REFERENCING SECTION...................................................................................................... 13

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13. ANNEXES................................................................................................................................ 14

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 2. Introduction

(HR Counsulants, 2006) The Mont-Blanc Palace Hotel was one of the largest and
most impressive hotels in Leysin and the Belvdre Hotel, built just a few years
later and only a short distance away to the same high specification. Both hotels
later became part of the famous Club Med, until they were purchased and
completely renovated by SHMS in 2004. Now days Mont-Blanc Palace is the
house of international students that come to SHMS to complete their bachelor
degree or to take other programs that the university offer.

The Mont-Blanc Palace offers a lot of facilities as: reception, guestrooms,

classrooms, French Restaurant, Market Place Restaurant, Maxx Club and
Administration offices. All of these facilities are available for the students, lecturers
and visitors.

2.1. Location
Mont-Blanc Palace Hotel is located in Leysin Oxigene des Alpes between the
majestic mountains of The Alpes Leysin is beautiful place to find leisure and sports
activities. It is in the French speaking part of Switzerland, and is a really popular
destination in winter, because there are some exclusive activities especially in
winter time as skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing, and ice-skate; Leysin is known
because of all those facilities during winter season, generating a lot of tourism in
Vaud, Geneva.

2.2. Number of guestrooms

Mont-Blanc Palace Hotel: 152
Belvedere Hotel: 189

3. Objectives
3.1. General
Identify how the housekeeping department works and operate in Mont-Blanc
Palace and why is this role important.

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 3.2. Specifics
Determine the productivity standard and based on it elaborate the staffing
guide and determine the labor cost following the occupancy levels provided
in the guidelines.
Specify the responsibilities of the head housekeeper and explain the
motivational techniques used in housekeeping department in Mont-Blanc
Palace Hotel.

4. The Role of the Housekeeping Department

4.1. Responsibilities of the Executive or Head Housekeeper
(Dumazot, 2012) Supervise and coordinate cleaning and maintenance tasks within
the building. Check how well the people are working, if they follow the procedure,
the productivity standard and proper use of the equipment.

Manage the building housekeeping staff and ensure cleaning tasks are performed
in accordance with management standards provided by the organization.

Executive housekeepers work in environments ranging from schools to hotels. She

may perform a variety of duties, depending on the job description.
(Casado, 2000) The head housekeeper has some tasks and has to be concern for
production and people. Concern for production is concentrate in profit making
operations and has to apply classical specific management; and concern for
people is concentrate in techniques to increase productivity in the workplace and
has to apply human relations management. The head housekeeper has more
responsibilities as we can see in the figure 1

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 on
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Aut hip n
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Lea Dele
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Figure 1 Executive Housekeeper responsibilities
Techi

4.2. Employees in housekeeping department

Supervisors: - 1
Room attendant - 8
Laundry attendant: - 1
House Person: - 1
Lobby attendant: - 2

Head
Housekeeper

Laundry 2 Lobby
Supervisor House Person
attendant attendant

4 Room 4 Room
attendants MB attendants Bel

Figure 2 Organizational chart for the department.

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 5. Recruitment and Training
This is the way to requite people and how it works. There are two ways to requite
people: internal and external
Internal: when the people come from another department of the same
organization, the have a lot of advantages as we can see in the figure 3

Knowledge about the job Assuming all the

AdvantageExperience
Teamwork
Disadvant knowledge

s
Knowledge about the
standars
Quality and quantity
ages Difficult to deal

Not motivation
Short training
Knowledge about the
builiding Already tired
Segurity procedures

Figure 3 Advantages and disadvantages: Requite Internal personal

External: when the people is new in the organization they do not have many ideas
about hospitality but also they bring us new ideas as we can see in the figure 4

Advantage
Motivation to work
Disadvanta
Not experience

s
Bring new ideas
ges
Need more training

Respect the trainment Need new supplies

Do not catch the

Pay less salary
Figure 4 Advantages and disadvantages: Requite External personal standards fast

5.1. How the Executive Housekeeper recruits staff

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There are a lot of ways to requite staff but in special the migration reform is the one
that bring more people and actually the staff is hardworking and their performance
met all the standards that the organization is looking for.

Newspaper and Internet: is a good way to requite people that are looking for
a job because the organization can make some job offers; or the future
employee can search for an offer.
Connections: it could be possible that people from the organization have a
contact that want to work and as a recommendation for the jobs
Family: people that are already working in the organization could get a
position for a family member giving the opportunity to employ people from
the same family.
Migration reform: this makes the people from other countries come to work,
a good example is Portugal, there are a lot of people that come to
Switzerland to work in housekeeping and the majority of staff in SHMS
Leysin in this department is Portuguese
Young mother: is good opportunity because they have experience and they
could know how the things work

5.2. Room attendant job description

Make the beds and change bed linen

Vacuum carpets and floor
Clean bathroom and supply with fresh towels
Make sure that TV, radio, phone and lights are working
Report to the supervisor, if there is damage in the rooms
Clean the public toilets

5.3. Training schedule

Week Date Time Place
1 Monday 1 9h00 MTB 408

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 Thursday 4 15h00 BEL 205
Tuesday 9 BEL 410
2 11h00
Friday 12 MTB 205
Wednesday
9h00
3 24 Laundry
Thursday 25 11h00
Monday 29 15h00
4 Grand Hall
Tuesday 30 9h00
Figure 5 Training schedule

6. Productivity Standard
The productivity standard for a double standard room in Mont-Blanc Palace or
Belvedere Place is 30 minutes; every room attendant work 8 hours per day or 40
hours per week.

7. Staffing Guide
The staffing guide is an essential tool use in housekeeping that let us set up the
timetable and schedule for the staff, it permit us control the production, quality and
quantity of the service given from the staff.

7.1. Purpose
(Alawazi, 2012) It enables the head housekeeper to determine the total labor
hours, the number of employees, and the estimated expense required to operate
the housekeeping department.

Labor is the biggest expense in the housekeeping department, in order to control

the costs and revenue form the rooms division department, and show if the
organization is earning or losing money.

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 7.2. Sample Staffing Guide

Determine the total labor hours for the positions below that must be scheduled
when the hotel is at the following occupancy levels

Estimate the labor expense required for the above specific occupancy levels.

Positions

Room attendants (am and pm) SFr 10.40 average hourly rate
Supervisors (am and pm) SFr 15.20 average hourly rate
Lobby attendants SFr 9.60 average hourly rate
House-persons (am and pm) SFr 11.60 average hourly rate.

Occupancy 60% 85% 100% 67% 50% 58% 95% 77%

Productivity
0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h 0.5 h
Standard
Rooms to
91 129 152 102 76 88 144 117
clean
Labor hour 45.5 h 64.5 h 76 h 51 h 38 h 44 h 72 h 58.5 h
Number of
6 8 10 6 5 6 9 7
employees
CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF
Expense
473.20 670.80 790.40 530.40 395.20 457.60 748.80 608.40
Figure 6 Staffing Guide

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 What will the costs be if you increase the productivity standard by 5
minutes?

Occupancy 60% 85% 100% 67% 50% 58% 95% 77%

Productivity
0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h 0.42 h
Standard
Rooms to
91 129 152 102 76 88 144 117
clean
Labor hour 38.22 h 54.18 h 63.84 h 42.84 h 31.92 h 36.96 h 60.48 h 49.14 h
Number of
5 7 8 5 4 5 8 6
employees
CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF CHF
Expense
397.49 563.47 663.94 445.54 331.97 384.38 628.99 511.07
Figure 7 Staffing Guide increasing 5 minutes the productivity standard

Your manager wants you to cut salaries, which solutions do you suggest?

There are a lot of solutions if need to cut the expenses as: ask to the room
attendants to use less chemical when they are going to clean the rooms, ask them
to increase the productivity standard, and cut the salary to the employees but
giving something for them as been flexible with the schedules, give them
motivation also make them be happy with their jobs, given gratifications or
certificates; applying motivational techniques and engaging people to work

8. Motivational techniques
The organization promotes motivational techniques in order to get a better
performance from the staff. The head housekeeper is responsible to motivate his or
her team, and there are some good choices that made the people get more
engaged with their jobs.

8.1. Training
Is a really important way to motivate the staff because they get more knowledge;
new information, updating the personal and giving more ideas to work, know about
the new technology, equipment and the changings that they have to do; in addition

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all of these make the people feel important, safe and more motivated that is the
main purpose of this.

8.2. Cross Training

In all the hotels always we are going to find better workers than others. In order to
motivate them, they are sent to do cross training in another department, because
they could have the ability, like or skills required in another area or perform a better
job there. Also the people that do a really good job could do cross training; it
motivate them a lot, because sometime the could get bored about the same job,
and get in another environment gives them motivation to work

8.3. Recognition
Depending on the performance and how well the people work, specially to the
people who is more dedicated and show that they love their job; they could get a
promotion as assistant or supervisor, or a better salary. Recognizing that they are
doing a good job and get them engaged with the organization and their job.

8.4. Communication
In communication we can find a lot of ways to motivate the people to work better,
make them be efficient and effective. There some examples:

Is possible to increase the salary or give some bonus to the people who has
a better performance, and their work is better than the other employees.
With some employees is possible to be flexible in time of the duties,
especially with young mothers or students because they need time for other
activities.
A lot of people take in consideration to give to the employees a small gift or
a detail for their birthdays, this is a really nice way to motivate the staff and
avoid the turnover.
In some organizations the employees have different activities of leisure or
travel; it is good to share between them and with all the staff from the
organization.

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 Once or twice a year the company provides a party for the staff, is another
way to share between them, the supervisor and managers with the
employees and trainees.
It could be a good idea announce the employee of the month or the year,
also the staff can take this as a competition doing better their jobs.
Holydays and vacation is the best idea to award a hardworking employee,
because everybody must have a rest and event more if the work really hard
every day.
Certificates and bonus is helpful for the staff, any money or recorded
experience in their CVs, is going to be thank by them
There are more ways to motivate the staff but just with a nice manner to
behave with the employees as a smile or greet in the morning is going to be
also nice to motivate them.

9. Conclusions
This study shows us the importance of the housekeeping department, and how it
operates in Mont-Blanc Palace. The executive housekeeper has a good
organization, manage her team in best way possible and fulfill all of her
responsibilities as supervise every task from her staff and performing a wonderful
work I general, as well as her team following the standards and offering quality and
quantity to the guests; and how are all these people being motivated to work and
ready for this every day.

10. Recommendations
There is just one supervisor in all the organization chart, in order to improve this
it could be a good idea to get another supervisor because one can work in each
building, and just one supervisor could have some issues regarding the time to
supervise everything in both buildings.
They could hire disable people because is a good opportunity to them, maintain
them occupied in some activities, this make them feel useful and less
dependent from their family and they can socialize with people at work.

11. Referencing in the text

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FIGURE 1 EXECUTIVE HOUSEKEEPER RESPONSIBILITIES...............................................5
FIGURE 2 ORGANIZATIONAL CHART FOR THE DEPARTMENT...........................................5
FIGURE 3 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: REQUITE INTERNAL PERSONAL...............6
FIGURE 4 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: REQUITE EXTERNAL PERSONAL..............6
FIGURE 5 TRAINING SCHEDULE...................................................................................8
FIGURE 6 STAFFING GUIDE.........................................................................................9
FIGURE 7 STAFFING GUIDE INCREASING 5 MINUTES THE PRODUCTIVITY STANDARD......10
FIGURE 8 ANSWERS FORM HEAD HOUSEKEEPER (ONLINE SURVEY)...........................14

12. Referencing section

Alawazi, K. (2012). Lectures. Caux.

Alazawi, K. (2012, October 9). Interview about Housekeeping Depatment in Mont-

Blanc Palace. (S. M. Esparza Urgiles, Interviewer) Caux.

Casado, M. A. (2000). Houekeeping Management. New York.

Dumazot, J. (2012, October 8). Online Survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKNDVB6. (S. M. Esparza Urgiles, Interviewer)
Switzerland.

HR Counsulants, L. (2006). SHMS: HR Counsulants. Retrieved October 9, 2012,

from HR Counsulants: http://www.hrpakistan.com/universitydetail.php?uid=66

Jones, T. (2008). Professional Management of Housekeeping Operations. New

Jersey.

Nitschke, A. A., & Frye, W. D. (2008). Managing Housekeeping Operations.

Michigan.

13. Annexes
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1. Number of rooms in Mont-Blanc Palace

152
2. Number of rooms in Belvedere
189
3. What duties and responsibilities do you have as Executive Housekeeper?
I supervise and coordinate cleaning and maintenance tasks within a building. I manage the building
housekeeping staff and ensure cleaning tasks are performed in accordance with management standard
Executive housekeepers work in environments ranging from schools to hotels. She may perform a variety o
duties, depending on the job description.
4. 4. How many people work in House Keeping department?
Supervisors: - 1
Room attendant - 8
Laundry attendant: - 1
House Person: - 0
Lobby attendant: - 2
Others: - 0

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5. How is the productivity standard in double standard rooms?
- located in "Mont- Blanc", "Belvdre" or an annexe building within walking distance of the school. - Some
rooms may have shared bathroom facilities. - Wireless internet access.
6. Average Wage per position (in oder to calculate the labor cost); indicate if is hourly, daily,.. (if you can
provide this info)
No Response
7. How do you recruit staff?
- enjoy practical work - neat personal appearance - good personal hygine - honest and reliable - physically fit
- able to stay calm in difficult situations
8. What are the duties for a room attendant?
- make the beds and change bed linen. - vacum carpets and floor. - clean bathroom and supply with fresh
towels. - make sure that TV, Radio and Lights are working - report to the supervisor, if there is damage to the
rooms. - clean the public toilets.
9. How do you motivate your team to work? (Optional)
No Response
Figure 8 Answers form Head Housekeeper (online survey)