Hotel Operation: Housekeeping Department Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of hotel operations, specifically focusing on the housekeeping department. It explores the role of room attendants, their responsibilities, and the challenges they face, including issues of dignity and working conditions. The report examines the organizational structure of housekeeping departments in both large and small resorts, outlining the lines of authority and communication channels. It delves into key aspects such as service levels, guest expectations, staffing levels, interdepartmental communications, the range of tasks performed, and the outsourcing of services. The analysis draws on various research studies and articles to support its findings, offering insights into best practices and potential areas for improvement within hotel housekeeping operations. The report also highlights the importance of maintaining cleanliness and providing a comfortable environment for guests to ensure satisfaction.

Running head: HOTEL OPERATION
Hotel operation
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note

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Part 1
Answer 1
The authors have described the occupation of the room attendant as the key part in the
development of guest rooms and the maximum profit is dependent on it. The three main factors
in the occupation of room attendant are lack of dignity, potential degradation of the workers and
servile relationship to others. The room attendants are considered involved in dirty work, which
makes them lose their social standard. Their works include set of cleaning, tidying and re-
stocking the tasks. It is regarded as social stigma because the room attendants put maximum
effort in pleasing the guests; however, there services remain unrecognized and unseen. They play
a major role in providing comfort, safety and hygiene but those are hardly identified. The authors
have countered the claim of eh attendants’ work as dirty and remarked that they are superior to
others as they perform the most vital tasks. There are certain hotels where the room attendants
are also required to respond to the customers’ queries, maintain audit records and meet the safety
standards of the hotel. The recognition is very less in this occupation and leads to high turnover
with few opportunities in career (Powell & Watson, 2006).
Answer 2
Room attendants in a hotel, resorts or lodges are responsible for providing comfort,
hygiene and special service to the guests. They look for the cleanliness and availability of the
basic amenities in the rooms so that the guests can feel at home.
As per this article, the authors have mentioned about four typical characteristics
possessed by the room attendants. In most of the hotels, resorts and motels, the typical room
attendant is female. Moreover, the females are mostly mother, who came to this occupation to
contribute to their domestic expenses. The attendants who were mothers needed convenience in
terms of time and distance because they had to fulfill their responsibility towards the children.
Additionally, the women are also bound to their husbands and in- laws and needed to manage
feasible time for work (Goldstein, Cialdini & Griskevicius, 2008).

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Another typical characteristic found among the room attendants was related to the age
range between 17- 30 years. In this age group, the older females had not completed school
education and we involved in vocational training.
There was a usual feature found among the respondents regarding their educational
qualification and work criteria. Due to the limitation of their education, they could not go any
better work than serving as a room attendant.
Most of the respondents who took part in the research were born in UK and the census
data has highlighted that most a major population came from a minority section of UK.
Therefore, the dominance of the minority groups in the hotels as room attendants were found to
be common feature in most of the accommodations (Kensbock et al., 2016).
Answer 3
According to Knox et al., (2015) the responsibility of a front office employee needs to
fulfill the basic requirement of greeting and accommodating guests, carry out the formal
transactions, answering telephone calls, operating the required front- office requirement and
assure a premium quality of guest satisfaction.
If a comparison is drawn between the front office employee and a room attendant, four
major features can be highlighted. Primarily, front office employees need to have standard
educational qualification for maintaining guest records and do calculations. In addition to that,
they should know how basic operations of computer and internet. However, a room attendant
need not be highly qualified but should know how to communicate with the guests.
On the other hand, front office employees need to possess outstanding communication
skills and customer service strategies. Moreover, they should have a perfect appearance and a
professional approach in dealing with the guests. In the case of room attendants, they need not be
efficient communicators but should have a polite and welcoming nature within them. They
should know about the details of their work area so that they can reply to the customers;
questions (O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl, 2016).

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The distinction lies in the salary structure too. The front office employees are assigned to
do a more sophisticated kind of works such as guiding the guests towards their room, receiving
calls and messages, welcoming and interacting with the guests, but still their salary is more than
that of the room attendants. Whereas, the room attendants are responsible for a more struggling
work related to cleaning, tidying and work as servile to others, but their struggle remains
unrecognized.
Another instance of difference is felt in terms of career growth. The front office
employees have a better scope of switching to other jobs in the hospitality sector whereas the
room attendants are not provisioned to do so. This is because their lack in basic qualification will
not allow them to rise in their career and they have to continue as a room attendant in the same of
different hotel (Kensbock, Patiar & Jennings, 2017).
Answer 4
Room attendants are frequently exposed to a number of risks and hazards while working
alone and this has led to pressure among them. According to this article, it was found out that the
workers were facing chest problems due to the usage of a specific air conditioner and every one
of them were coughing with bad throats. It can be recommended to the workers that they can use
some other air freshener for cleaning which will not affect their chest. However, there might be
negative impact of the other air freshener, which can affect the eyes of the workers (Hsieh et al.,
2017).
Another worker had responded to the research by complaining about the risks they had
faced from wiping and cleaning the glasses. It was found out from their replies that the
management had taken necessary action by immediately changing the glasses. However, it is not
a permanent solution as some other employee might get cut from the new glasses (Sanon, 2014).
Part 2
The organizational structure for the housekeeping department must provide a crystal clear
picture of the authority lines and communication channels within the department. For a large size
resort, the housekeeping department’s organizational structure is as following;

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Executive Housekeeper
Houseman and
Mini bar
Attendant
Uniform
Supervisor
Laundry
Supervisor
Linen Room
Attendant
Laundry/Valet
Attendant
Assistant Housekeeper
Floor
Supervisor
Public Area
Supervisor
Control Desk
Supervisor
Public Area
Attendant
Room
Attendant
Tailor/Upholster
Source: Created by Author
For a small size resort, the housekeeping department’s organizational structure is as
following;

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Housekeeper
Housekeeping
Supervisor
Head Room Attendant
Room AttendantHelpers
House-Person
Head House-person
Public Area
Linen Room
Attendant
House-person
Source: Created by Author

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Answer 5
Divisions of responsibilities
The responsibilities of the housekeeping department are more or less similar. The
executive housekeeper is required to organize, coordinate and supervise the work of the
housekeeping staffs on a daily basis. He/she reports to the Resident Manager or General
Manager. On the other hand, the deputy housekeeper reports his/her daily activities to the
executive housekeeper. However, his/her job responsibilities are more or less similar, which
involves checking or ensuring that all the rooms, public areas and other areas are well maintained
and clean. The assistant housekeeper also reports to executive housekeeper and in large hotels,
the assistant housekeeper generally reports to the deputy housekeeper (Brody, 2016). The floor
and public area supervisors report to the assistant housekeeper, whose main duty is to ensure that
the functional areas are maintained and clean.
Lines of Authority
For the department of housekeeping, the organizational chart mainly provide its
employees with crystal clear guidance on various factors, those are the authority lines,
communication channels, official relationships of reporting and other factors. The organizational
hierarchy provides a systematic direction for the orders, where each and every employee is
required to take orders from their supervisors. It also protects the employees from getting over
directed (Fouad, Hussein & Attia, 2016).

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Service levels and Guest Expectations
Hotel cleanliness is one of the leading factors which highly influence the satisfaction of
the guests and reputation of the property. Maintaining an efficient and effective department of
housekeeping can prove to be a major challenge. However, the resorts and hotels need to rely on
the strategy of paper-based management in order to increase the effectiveness of the
housekeeping services. Guests like everything at place and therefore, it is immensely important
for the housekeepers to maintain the rooms and keep everything at place, in order to provide the
guests with satisfactory services (Anuradha, 2016).
Staffing levels
There are several activities that are involved while staffing the operations of the
housekeeping department. The executive housekeepers need to select and interview the newly
hired employees, conduct orientation programs and train them in order to develop their skills for
the future growth. Right selection of the employees is the first and foremost step and this should
be based upon their skills and experiences (Hekman & Lashley, 2017). Moreover, after the first
staffing level is over, it is important for the executive housekeepers to train the newly hired
employees in order to make them understand the organizational goals and objectives, mission
and vision.
Inter departmental communications
The interdepartmental communications is one of the major factors of any department as
no individual department can perform their activities in isolation. The department of
housekeeping needs to keep their communication channels open and coordinated with the front
office, food and beverage department, purchase department, stores, sales and marketing

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department, personnel department, maintenance department and lastly, the security department.
It is immensely important for the staff members to ensure that the guests get efficient services
and there should be sound coordination between the front office departments. Communication
channels must be open in between the departments of housekeeping as ineffective services can
lead to disappointments among the guests (Robinson et al., 2016).
Range of tasks
The housekeeping department of the hospitality industry takes pride in maintaining the
hotels, keeping it clean as well as comfortable for its customers. There are huge responsibilities
and duties, which the housekeepers need to perform well, in order to provide the guests with a
clean, safe and comfortable environment. The job responsibilities of the housekeeping
department start from selling or allocating the rooms and ends with doing the laundry for their
guests. Moreover, the maintenance department should ensure that the guests are getting adequate
hot or cold water services, sanitation facilities, heating, ventilation, lighting or other services
(Hsieh, Apostolopoulos & Sönmez, 2016).
Outsourcing of services
Outsourcing of services in the hospitality industry helps in reducing the overhead costs or
expenses. Moreover, it helps in providing the guests with better quality services or specialized
products. In addition to this, at times of designing the advertising campaigns, the organizational
management can hire professionals for providing the best of advertisement services. However,
there are certain disadvantages as well, which include loosing of control, lack of alignment,
skepticism regarding the security and others (Hekman & Lashley, 2017).

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References
Anuradha, K. P. (2016). Skill development and management a study of hospitality professionals.
Brody, D. (2016). Housekeeping by Design: Hotels and Labor. University of Chicago Press.
Fouad, M. A., Hussein, S., & Attia, A. Y. (2016). Housekeeping Performance and Guest
Satisfaction in Resort Hotels. International Journal of Heritage, Tourism, and
Hospitality, 7(2).
Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using
social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. Journal of consumer
Research, 35(3), 472-482.
Hekman, A., & Lashley, C. (2017). Workers in the luxury hospitality industry and motivation–
the influence of gender, age and departments. Research in Hospitality Management, 7(2),
115-120.
Hsieh, Y. C. J., Sönmez, S., Apostolopoulos, Y., & Lemke, M. K. (2017). Perceived workplace
mistreatment: Case of Latina hotel housekeepers. Work, 56(1), 55-65.
Hsieh, Y. C., Apostolopoulos, Y., & Sönmez, S. (2016). Work conditions and health and well-
being of Latina hotel housekeepers. Journal of immigrant and minority health, 18(3),
568-581.
Kensbock, S. L., Patiar, A., & Jennings, G. (2017). Hotel room attendants’ delivery of quality
service. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 1467358417751023.
Kensbock, S., Jennings, G., Bailey, J., & Patiar, A. (2016). Performing: Hotel room attendants’
employment experiences. Annals of Tourism Research, 56, 112-127.

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Knox, A., Warhurst, C., Nickson, D., & Dutton, E. (2015). More than a feeling: using hotel room
attendants to improve understanding of job quality. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 26(12), 1547-1567.
O'Neill, J. W., Beauvais, L. L., & Scholl, R. W. (2016). The use of organizational culture and
structure to guide strategic behavior: An information processing perspective. Journal of
Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2).
Powell, P. H., & Watson, D. (2006). Service unseen: The hotel room attendant at
work. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2), 297-312.
Robinson, R. N., Kralj, A., Solnet, D. J., Goh, E., & Callan, V. J. (2016). Attitudinal similarities
and differences of hotel frontline occupations. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 28(5), 1051-1072.
Sanon, M. A. V. (2014). Agency-hired hotel housekeepers: an at-risk group for adverse health
outcomes. Workplace health & safety, 62(2), 81-85.